Some of you may have seen a bit of discussion on ground effect in this (stickied) thread: Patch 4.10 - Development Updates by Daidalos Team. Runyan99 posted this question:
After a bit of discussion about how significant it was, Viikate_ posted this:Quote:
Is it possible to add Ground Effect? It's a big flaw in the flight model.
This aroused my curiosity, so I did a little testing with my prototype autopilot setup (see http://forums.ubi.com/eve/foru...121016097#4121016097). Interestingly, this showed that on a given throttle setting (75% in this case), the Ju-88 was about 9 km/h TAS faster in level flight at 10m than it was at 100m - contrary to what one might expect from IL-2 Compare etc, which suggests TAS should increase with height:Quote:
Actually the ground effect IS already in the sim. Try taking Ju-88 for example, trim it perfectly for level flight at 100m, then bring it as low as you can over flat surface (water or runway for example). Plane needs some down elevator to maintain level flight, because GE is increasing the lift.
I removed the GE from code and tested some planes that I'm most familiar with. Totally different world! I wrecked big bombers like Ju-88 ALWAYS in landings Veryhappy. So that extra little lift that current GE gives is very important. When I put the GE back, I could do nice landings with Ju-88 again.
However the current GE implementation could be improved. It's too weak for bigger planes and starts to kick in too low.
http://i958.photobucket.com/albums/a...-88-GE-10m.jpg
http://i958.photobucket.com/albums/a...88-GE-100m.jpg
This is the Crimea map, with about 85% fuel load. I allowed the speed to stabilise before taking the screenshots, though there is a little fluctuation due to limitations in the autopilot.
I can probably run some more tests, but before I do, has anyone got any comments?

