Plane-Maker Menus
Here We go...
OK, with the airplane of your choice opened, we will go through each window in Plane-Maker... you will fill data into each of these windows to design your own plane, if you want to. Just leave the mouse still for a second over any number to get a description of that number in plain english... with the on-line help explaining each number individually, this manual will speak in general terms only, not duplicating your reading by covering each individual number unless it warrants special attention.
Now, go through each item in each menu, looking at the values there and reading the description here, entering values for your dream plane if desired.
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Viewpoint
This window is for entering general pilot's viewpoint info.
The left-most box contains the airspeed-indicator markings. These speeds are not
used to determine airplane performance in any way, but are ONLY for airspeed indicator
markings! Make test flights to determine specific speeds for your design if needed.
Be sure to set Vne high enough, because X-Plane will break the airplane up if you
exceed Vne!
Here is a quick review of the V-speeds in case you need them:
Vso stall speed flaps down ("dirty" approach configuration)
Vs stall speed flaps up ("clean" configuration)
Vfe maximum flap extension speed (don't get them torn off)
Vno maximum rough-air speed or "normal operation"
Vne maximum allowable speed or "never exceed"
Mmo maximum allowable mach number (if required)
The pilot's eye viewpoint is also entered here. This is simply the location of the
pilot's viewpoint while flying.
Also enter the location of the various landing lights, nav lights, etc.
Use the long arm / lat arm / vert arm convention explained on the previous page.
Panel
Enter the instruments you want and the locations of those instruments on the panel by simply pointing and clicking. The interface is self-explanatory.. simply choose instruments from the list and drag them into place... very easy! DRAG INSTRUMENTS ALL THE WAY OFF THE SCREEN TO DELETE THEM.
Force-Feedback
Force-feedback joysticks are joysticks with motors in them that actually move the stick in your hands. X-Plane does not support force-feedback joysticks now, but this may be added later. Parameters that are relevant to force-feedback are entered here.
Engines Specs 1 & 2
One tricky area is the number of engines. (!) For prop airplanes,
enter the number of propellers here. If you have multiple engines going to one propeller,
just enter the number of engines as ONE (per propeller), and enter the power of all
the engines added together as their (total) engine power (directed to that propeller).
Another tricky area is the "Design Point" (RPM, advance, and associated
speed). The design point is the speed and RPM that prop is designed for. It is probably
close to the climb or cruise speed and their associated RPM's, but this up to you!
Prop Pitch Limits: When you fill data in the design-point boxes, Plane-Maker will guess at the pitch-limits automatically. You may override Plane-Maker's guesses, though, by entering data here. As soon as you change the design point, however, Plane-Maker will put in it's own best guess again! Be sure to enter zero if you have a fixed-pitch prop.
Wings, Horizontal Stabilizer, Vertical Stabilizers, and Pylons
These are all the wings that contribute lift, drag, and pitch-moment in X-Plane. (Yes, even engine pylons can produce lift! They are therefore treated as airfoils in X-Plane, just like the wings and stabilizers are!)
Note: For any surface (like wing numbers 2 and 3, vertical
stabilizer number 2, or whatever) that your design does not have, enter zero for
the wing semi-length. This will tell X-Plane that your aircraft is not equipped with
that particular part.
Semi-Length, Root Chord, and Tip Chord:
The "semi-length" is the length of the wing from the root to the tip, measured
along the so-called 25% chord. This is the length of the wing from its root to its
tip, as measured along an imaginary line that is 25% of the way back from the leading
edge of the wing to the trailing edge. Note that this is NOT really the span, since
the span is shortened on SWEPT wings!
Also note that the wing root is usually thought of as being inside the fuselage,
at the aircraft's centerline. There are exceptions to this rule, but we usually put
the wing root here, since air pressure from the wings carries over the fuselage to
a large extent. As far as the air is concerned, the wings really do go all the way
to the centerline of the fuselage!
Enter the root chord ("width" of the root) and tip chord ("width"
of tip). Remember that the chord is the distance from the leading edge to the trailing
edge of the wing.
The sweep is the sweep of the 25% chord. Aft (backward) sweep is positive. Forward
sweep is fine, just enter it as negative. The Mooney wing has a slight forward wing
sweep. Enter the dihedral (angle of each wing above the horizontal plane). Positive
(wingtip-up) dihedral is entered as positive. Negative dihedral, or "anhedral"
is fine as well. Just enter it negative. For variable sweep wings this value is the
MINIMUM sweep value!
Wing sweep makes sense above about 70% of the speed of sound or so, where there is
a large drag penalty associated with trying to meet the air head-on. Dihedral helps
with stability in roll... if the wings have some healthy dihedral then the plane
will tend to roll wings-level (eventually) if you take your hands off the stick...
the drawback is that if you ever get into a SIDESLIP situation due to losing an engine
on one side or something like that, the plane will try hard to roll into the sideslip
because of the dihedral effect. (Sweeping the wings actually causes the plane to
act somewhat like it has dihedral, even if it really doesn't!)
Has drag-rudders trailing that wing element:
The Northrop B-2, among other flying wings, has things that look just like ailerons
on the wing tips. The difference is, they split open rather that going up and down.
This produces drag, which acts like a rudder for the flying wing. You can try that
with your flying wing designs here. (Just remember to enter a horizontal stabilizer
area of zero for your flying wing designs!)
Note to flying-wing designers: You can have the "ailerons" on the trailing
edge of the outboard part of the wing deflect in unison to act as elevators. You
will use the "deflect ailerons with elevators" option in the "Special
Controls" menu coming up soon. Just select the part of the wing that has elevons
as having ailerons on this screen.
Horizontal stabilizers type:
(a) Select "stabilizer" if you want the stabilizer fixed, with an elevator
on the back (like on most Cessnas), or
(b) a "stabilator", if you want the whole surface to move with joystick
deflection (like on most airliners).
If you want to fly a canard airplane, no problem! Just enter a long arm for the horizontal
stab that is in front of the wing. X-Plane will see that you have put the stabilizer
in front of the wing and automatically deduce that you are flying a canard. It will
then reverse the elevator or stabilator deflections from a conventional plane to
give the correct response.
X-Plane will automatically cast downwash from the canard onto the part of the aft
wing that is behind the canard. If you are flying a conventional design, ?X-Plane?
will cast downwash from the wing onto the stabilizer or stabilator. See the file
"X-Plane.out" after flying your design to see what X-Plane is doing with
downwash on your design, if you want. Do this by opening "X-Plane.out"
with your favorite word processor.
Fuselage, Nacelles, Fuel Tanks, and Wheel Fairings
These are the bodies that create mostly just DRAG in X-Plane (they the fuselage can create some small amount of lift).
Most of the contents in these windows is self-explanatory,
but the fuselage coefficient of drag may require some explanation:
The fuselage drag coefficient must include the drag due to fuselage/wing interference,
fuselage/stabilizer interference, and any other drag that is not accounted
for by the wings, stabilizers, and landing gear. If you do not have firm data on
what the coefficient of drag is, you can make a guess along the following guidelines:
=>Use 0.05 for a super-sleek machine (like the Lancair 360).
=>Use 0.10 is a decent guess for a reasonably "clean" airplane.
=>Try 0.15 for a somewhat "dirty" design.
Remember, this is the coefficient of drag of the fuselage and miscellaneous appendages,
including interference drag, based on the frontal area of the fuselage.
If you want to get this data more scientifically, and you already have a coefficient
of drag for your entire aircraft which is based on the wing area, just subtract out
the drag associated with the wing, horizontal stabilizer, and vertical stabilizer
to get the drag of the fuselage.
This requires an example:
Assume the coefficient of drag (at zero-lift) of your airplane is 0.015, based on
a wing area of 150 square feet, with a fuselage frontal area of 10 square feet. Let
us further assume that your wings, horizontal stabilizer, and vertical stabilizer
have a coefficient of drag of 0.005 at zero lift. (In "Part-Maker" you
may verify these numbers).
Follow this process to find the coefficient of drag of the
fuselage, including interference drag, based on fuselage frontal area:
Find wing area = 150
Find horizontal stabilizer area = 30
Find vertical stabilizer area = 30
Add those to get total airfoil area (150+30+30) = 210
Divide total airfoil area by wing area (210/150) = 1.4
Multiply this
by the airfoil coefficient of drag (1.4 x 0.005) = 0.007
Subtract this
from the total coefficient of drag (0.015­0.007) = 0.008
Find the ratio of wing area to fuselage area (150/10) = 15.0
Multiply this
by the coefficient of drag (15 x 0.008) = 0.12
The final number is the fuselage coefficient of drag (including interference drag)
based on fuselage frontal area. Now enter this into "Plane-Maker". Fun,
quick, and easy!
Section Cuts:
Drag the little squares around with the mouse to define the fuselage geometry. Close
the window and look at the airplane on the main screen to see the results of your
handiwork. X-Plane will determine aerodynamic and mass properties of your airplane
based on the fuselage geometry, so enter this data accurately!
The frontal area will be used for drag, and the side and top area will be used for
lift and sideforce. The weight of the airplane will be distributed across the airplane
as well to determine it's angular moments of inertia.
Control Geometry
Set control surface sizes and deflections here. For the controls that you don't use
(for example roll spoiler in a plane without roll spoilers) just enter zero.
The "chord ratio" is the fraction of the distance from the leading edge
to the trailing edge that the surface takes up. It is the part of the total wing
chord taken up by the control surface. Almost all controls will be in the 15% to
25% range, depending on the control response required. If you have no blueprint or
picture on hand it requires some testing to find the optimum values.
Weight & Balance
Center of gravity location
Enter the longitudinal and vertical centers of gravity. The longitudinal center of
gravity may be close to or just behind the longitudinal location of the wing that
you entered in the "Wing" section. The vertical center you can more-or-less
guess... it's in the fuselage of the airplane somewhere. Scoot it up a bit if you
are flying a plane like the Lake Amphibian which has the engine way up over the fuselage.
Scoot it down a bit for airliners which have large engines hanging below the plane.
Enter the weights of the airplane as well. Empty weight is the weight with no fuel,
water, or other payload aboard. Maximum weight is the maximum weight you are allowed
to fly at. The fuel load is simply the maximum fuel you can put in the machine, the
water load (used for forest-fire bombers) is the jettisonable load that you carry.
There will be a water-dump button next to the anti-ice button in the cockpit if your
aircraft carries water. Dumping the water over a forest fire puts the fire out.
Landing Gear
Use this to set the landing gear tire contact point (with the ground) locations.
Remember this data is WITH THE GEAR DEFLECTED UNDER THE GROSS WEIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT
Nosewheel steering
This is how many degrees the nose wheel turns with full joystick or rudder-pedal
deflection at various speeds. 2.0 degrees might work well for you at high speeds,
and much more for lower speeds. (Remember that in a real airplane, the nose wheel
may end up being turned more than this by differential braking... a pilot would only
do this at lwo speed, though! Remember also that while the nosewheel steering on
an airliner may only be a few degrees from rudder-pedal travel, he has a little "steering
wheel" off to the side that can steer the nosewheel through almost 90 degrees!
Bottom line: Enter a large number for low-speed use to simulate the steering tiller
in airliners or differential braking in a light plane, and enter a smaller number
at higher speeds to simulate nosewheel steering to being only hooked up to the rudder
pedals).
The Expert Design Menu
Airfoils
This is where you select the airfoils for the airplane that you made in Part-Maker. (Though X-Plane comes with a handful of airfoils so you never really have to make any new ones). FIND THE AIRFOILS IN THE "RESOURCES:AIRFOILS" FOLDER.
Variable-Sweep Wings
Enter whether or not the wing has variable sweep (like the F-14 and B-1). In this
case the wing sweep will vary from the degrees of sweep already assigned to the wing
in the regular "Wing" window to the amount you enter here in the wing sweep
box. Control the sweep during flight by moving the wing-sweep control in the cockpit.
Aerodynamic effects of both wing sweep and moving of the center of lift fore or aft
are simulated by X-Plane.
Special Controls
There is a ton of cool stuff in here... let's go through the tricky stuff:
JATO
Jet Assisted Take Off is a takeoff where a solid-rocket fuel booster is strapped
onto a C-130 or the like to boost the airplane into the air in hurry, making extremely
short-field takeoff possible. Just enter the location, thrust direction (0 is straight
back, 90 straight down), thrust force, and duration. A properly-mounted JATO will
have it's thrust line go through a point close behind the airplane's center of gravity.
Stabilator/Elevator Differential Roll Deflection
F-22's deflect their stabilators in opposite directions to help roll. Question: How
will a Piper Arrow roll if you do the same thing?
Answer: The stabilators are so short you won?t get much response. They can complement
the ailerons, but not replace them. This feature also works on elevator deflection
if you are flying an airplane with stabilizer rather than a stabilator.
Aileron With Elevator
The "aileron with elevator" coupling may seem strange, but flying wings
might use the same control surface for both pitch and roll. If the "aileron
with elevator" coupling is set to 0.5 x the control geometry value of the aileron
(ie. 20°), then pulling full back on the stick will deflect the ailerons up halfway,
causing the flying wing to pitch up. (Remember the flying wing has a swept wing,
so raising the ailerons is like raising the elevator on a conventional plane: it
pushes the back of the plane down, raising the nose). This poses an interesting idea
for conventional airplanes: What if pulling back on the stick pushed the tail down
(regular elevator) and the main wings up (with aileron-droop)? This would increase
pitch response and help lift the airplane! This is something you might try on the
Cessna 172. Note that a positive numbers pull the aileron upward when the elevator
goes up, and negative numbers will push the aileron down. Test this phenomenon while
viewing the airplane from the outside with the "|" key to see the controls
move.
Arresting-Gear Equipped
Arresting gear is used for carrier landings. If you shoot a carrier approach remember
to lower your arresting gear! Use the little button in the glareshield?s auxiliary
instrument bar.
Aural Warning Equipped
Aural warning system equipment warns you of being too low, coming down to fast, not
lowering your landing gear, etc.
Automatic Deployment
Automatic deployment of slats, brakes, and speed brakes (like airliners have) can
be had. You can also select automatic wing sweep with flap retraction. This is used
by the Beech Starship. As the flaps retract, the canard sweeps aft to keep the plane
in balance. This option only works with airplanes that have variable-sweep wings
or variable-sweep horizontal stabilizers.
Speedbrake Frontal Area
Enter the frontal area of the speedbrakes when fully deployed here. This doesn't
include speedbrakes, or spoilers, that are mounted on the wing. This option only
applies to speedbrakes that are mounted on the fuselage (or maybe other places) that
do not affect the lift of the airplane, but only the drag.
VTOL Controls
Designing a VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft is fun but challenging.
Enter "yes" or "no" in the selection box to indicate whether
you want your aircraft to vector thrust for hovering or not.
The tilt-rotor VTOL (Vertical Take-Off & Landing) aircraft can obtain its flight
control in the same way a helicopter does: by adjusting what is known as the "cyclic
pitch" of the rotor blades. This is a process whereby the pitch of the blades
varies depending on where the blade is on its trip around the hub. This creates a
lift asymmetry that will pitch or roll the aircraft. In this window you enter the
degrees of pitch that a blade is increased or decreased with full joystick pitch
and roll deflections.
Another way to obtain control of a VTOL aircraft is to do it the same way the AV-8B
Harrier does: "puffers". The British like to talk about how they invented
the idea, and can't figure out why we Yankees didn't?t come up with it sooner. The
concept is simple. Bleed air is taken from the compressor and then sent out through
little jets on the tail and wing tips to steer the airplane around when in hover.
"X-Plane" takes the simplest possible approach to simulating this: you
just enter the pitch, roll, and yaw moments associated with full joystick deflections.
(Remember if you don't know what the maximum moment is, just multiply the force exerted
by the puffer times the distance from the puffer to the center of gravity of the
airplane to get the moment).
If you don't know how much force you need, try some values to see if they give you
comfortable authority. That is what the simulator is for!
Note on propeller-equipped VTOL aircraft: The control that you are used to seeing
as a throttle acts instead as a collective pitch, with the computer controlling the
throttle to maintain some rpm. This is how a helicopter is typically managed. The
collective pitch travel and redline rpm are set in the usual places for prop pitch
and rpm in Plane-Maker.
Artificial Stability
Unstable airplanes don't want to point in the same direction
they are going. Once they start to point away from the direction they are traveling,
they continue to move away from the flight path!
No human is able to fly such an aircraft for long, so a computer is implemented in
these aircraft to keep the airplane from ever diverging from the desired heading
and attitude. This computer system is called an artificial stability system, sometimes
referred to as "fly-by-wire" because there are no direct control linkages
between the pilot and control surfaces.
The F-16 and airplanes that are basically just neutrally stable in hover (like the
V-22 Osprey), have this control system. This system looks at the control input from
the pilot, then determines what the pilot wants the airplane to do and based on this,
looks where the airplane is actually going, moving the control surface to obtain
the desired result.
You will probably need an artificial stability system in your plane if it is unstable
or is a VTOL design. If it is a VTOL design, you may wish to have the system turn
off at conventional flight speeds, and only ?phase in? as you slow down to hover.
This is because there is little or no inherent stability in hover. (As first-time
helicopter pilots learning to hover can attest!) You enter the speed below which
the artificial stability system is completely engaged (say 60 knots) and the speed
above which the artificial stability system is completely out of the loop (say 180
knots). The system will automatically phase gradually from one extreme to the other
at intermediate speeds. If you are flying an unstable aircraft and always want the
system to remain on, just enter a phase-in and phase-out speed of 999 knots. The
system will always be on below 999 knots INDICATED airspeed. Remember that your TRUE
airspeed may be much higher than this at high altitudes, while your INDICATED airspeed
is still under 99 knots, thanks to the thin air that causes the pressure on the airplane
to be lower, and thus the indicated airspeed to be lower as well.
The fly-by-wire, or artificial stability system, used by "X-Plane" is simple
yet effective: You enter what pitch and roll rates you want the artificial stability
system to shoot for with full joystick deflections. Look at some examples in the
your airplane files. Output the control deflections to the graphical output display
in X-Plane (Settings:Set Data Output) to see how your controls are responding to
flight inputs.
Background Menu and Special Menus
The items in these menus are mostly self-explanatory One tricky area is the "Output Texture Map Starting Points", though... Once you have done your airplane, choose this item to have Plane-Maker create a "template" bitmap image for you to make your own "paint" or "skin" for the airplane. This will be explained by Plane-Maker when you select that menu item.