I am making a spacesim set in a dome type arena where air is present. The close quarters requires the players to make sharp turns arounds obstacales and to have a good degree of control of the craft. I was after the same technique used in ordinary flight sims when the plane turns 180 degress. It seems to be able to slice through the air making the turning circle smaller. The shape of my ships will be generally planar so i wanted the same effect. I was wondering was all that was going on just the lift of the craft being perpendicular to its velocity vector or was the planar shape of the aircraft a contributing factor to the slicing of the air. Is it perhaps the extra resistance when turning when the flat side is facing toward the velocity vector or is it something different. Any Ideas? All help appreciated

Are you asking how the real physics work, or how to simulate those type of physics?

Sorry for the lack of clarity - i''m looking for a way to simulate them.

The smaller turning radius for a knife-edge turn is due to the fact that gravity is not acting against the lift of the aircraft during the turn and the full effect of the lift vector is put into turning the aircraft. The short duration of the turn combined with adequate rudder ensures that minimal loss of height occurs.

Timkin

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Original post by Cuchulainn
I am making a spacesim set in a dome type arena where air is present. ...

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Isn''t "spacesim ... where air is present" an oxymoron?

Just to go off of what Jambolo was saying, you are talking about how the lift of the spaceship will effect it in a fast turn. Well, on regular aircrafy, the lift is generated by air running over the curved wing, producing a Bernoulli Force. The catch is that most spacecraft that I''ve seen in games and moovie was either flat wings of no wings at all, so the would be no lift at all. Of course, this is probably the sort of thing you just ignore while you''re playing the game, but, if you wanted to get technical, you might want to include it only for certain ship designs.

Take a look at my web site ( www.web-discovery.net ) , in the aerodynamics section. There i explained how to code a linear flight model.