Quoting hvengel:
At the very least it generates a good, but basic, template that gives a starting place for a new FDM. But at best this will require lots of modification and added data to produce a decent FDM.
I think the wiki is also somewhat crucial here. Maybe that should be made clearer there. Under aeromatic it says for example: "Be careful when tweaking the resulting configuration file, because it's easy to make changes that will result in an unflyable FDM. Common errors are: ..."
While true, it doesn't say something like: "Be aware that you only generated a template. You should dive into it and replace the coefficient tables. See there and there.. and use XFOIL!"
This alone would go a long way toward reducing the number of very poorly done JSBSim FDMs and it would give novice FDM developers a better idea what data is required for a good FDM.
I'm not sure. As a "novice FDM developer" I can say that I was really glad that the aeromatic config file wasn't spammed with huge tables cause it might would have confused me. Or made me insecure, should I replace them or not?
Maybe I wouldn't have taken the effort to learn about polars and XFOIL and just have let them as is.
You might end up on a higher level but even more generic... A lot of people are quickly satisfied. They're already satisfied w/ an aeromatic config file as it is now... and that's why they stop developing it further.
The responsibility to create a good FDM lies in the hand of the developer, you can't take it away by whatsoever tool. Provide great tools? Sure. But don't make it too easy. (A bit of
The Arch Way: Make it harder.
)
[...] The issue here is that getting good coefficient data is difficult and likely requires wind tunnel data, flight test data and some fluid dynamics modeling for the specific aircraft. [...]
Not easy, sure. But saying that you're basically saying it's impossible ?
I'm not convinced, what about DATCOM and XFOIL ? And commonsense! Don't underestimate it. One can evtl. make fairly good estimations, using textbook/references etc., don't you think?