1. Does anyone know of any program/software that will simulate an aircraft flying with 3 degrees of freedom (pitch, U velocity, V velocity) given information about the aircraft (either geometry or coefficients plus velocities and altitudes)

2. Does anyone know of a program/software, or even equations to estimate/calculate aircraft coefficients given aircraft geometry? (such as CL_o, CL_a, CL_delta_e, CL_alpha_dot, CL_q, CD_o, CD_a, CD_delta_e, CM_o, CM_a, CM_delta_e, CM_alpha_dot, CM_q, and Iyy)

Thanks for everything in advance.

Mike

Mike,

You are asking some difficult questions. Certainly, you can calculate all of the coefficients, given the aircraft geometry and flight conditions, but it is very expensive to do so accurately. As tempting as it is to look for a 'perfect' simulation, it is usually best to ask a design question first. What is the question you want to answer? Start there, and there might be some affordable simulation-related tools available to help you.

banktoturn

I hope to understand all that stuff when I grow up! Here's a website with some SERIOUS professional design tools for you. There are great apps available there for decent prices.
http://www.hanleyinnovations.com/

I really just need equations for those listed coefficients.
I am making my own simulation using MatLab/Simulink.
I was just wondering if there is anything out there already made.

My simulation inputs the coefficients, and other conditions and produces flight information vs time as well as the flight path.

I want to be able to input different coefficients for different aircraft to be able to use this simulation for more than one aircraft.
So if there was a website with information on these equations it would help me a ton.
I have looked through some of my Aero books from college, and so far I have only found a few of the coefficients but for only a simple wing.
Is there anything that takes into account the wing, tail, and fuselage?

Mike

My stab and control text book was really good... It was published by the AIAA, I don't remember the exact title because I loaned it to a friend that never gave it back. But it definately had everything you are looking for.

Ty

Thanks.
My stability and control books have sort of what i need too! ( I was hoping for some easy program out there that I didn't know about)
Im gonna have to make an excel spread sheet to make this easy to switch to any other aircraft.
It should make the caculations easier too.
Thanks.

Check out Robert C. Nelson's _Flight Stability and Automatic Control_. It's my favorite of the S+C texts out there for the very reason that is has a couple of tables that list equations for *estimating* all of the S+C derivatives. Be sure to use Nelson's conventions throughout, though, S+C gurus still haven't settled on a consistent universal set of nondimensionalizations and angle conventions.

MATLAB and Simulink are your friends. If you have MATLAB, PM me with your email address and I'll email you a MATLAB script that takes the geometric and flight condition inputs, calculates the derivatives, and constructs all the matrices for use with state-space simulation, as well as a simulink model with the state-space built and working...

Thanks! I've PM'd you. let me know if you don't get it...here.

Hi-amp,
my email address is [email protected]
Mike

Hey Mike...

Have a look at the AeroSim blockset for simulink. We used it to do some stability analysis on our 4th year airplane design project. You can download it here:

http://www.u-dynamics.com/aerosim/

You might be able to reverse engeineer some of the blocks to get a better understanding of what's going on...

Cheers,

Tom

You might also look at Lin Air / Lin Air Pro at desktopaero.com