know the direction oI all axes because they

can turn out to be deIined slightly diIIerent.

Success

AIter Iinally managing to get all the
tables in the Iorm required by JSBSim, the
result was an F-16 as it would have been
without the help oI a Ilight computer. It was
very sensitive on the elevators (as would be
expected Ior a neutrally stable aircraIt de-
sign like the F-16) that could easily make
20g turns and was a little tricky to keep air-
borne. But, the aircraIt responded quite
nicely to non-pitch related input and was
still nice to operate.

Flight Computer

To get the model to operate properly it
was necessary to add Flight Control compo-
nents to the conIiguration Iile. The Falcon
isn't controlled by a direct coupling between
user input and surIace deIlections. Instead,
the Ilight computer decides the surIace de-
Ilections based on current aircraIt state
(monitored using sensor input) and pilot in-
(Continued on page 4)
Constructing a detailed Flight Model
Ior an advanced aircraIt such as the F-16 is
not a simple or quick task. One has to Iind
the correct data, know the correct dimen-
sions and body locations, and Ior most
modern aircraIt one will also need to
know how the Ilight computer operates.
Constructing the Ilight model Ior the F-16
Fighting Falcon (called the Jiper by its pi-
lots) is tedious, especially Ior those who
don't have a degree in aeronautics and just
want to practice a hobby.

PitIalls

My Iirst attempt at building a Ilight
model Ior my Iavorite high speed aircraIt
was based on the FORTRAN code written
by David Murray. Even without any knowl-
edge oI FORTRAN it was easy to extract
the data Irom the source. But now I was
Iaced with another challenge: converting
this data to the proper Iormat. JSBSim uses
the LiIt and Drag coeIIicients while
Murray's data uses the body axis Iorces and
moments which required all moments and
Iorces to be recalculated. As it turned out
later on, it is also extremely important to
There are several ways to get data out oI
JSBSim (running either in standalone mode
or while integrated with another simulator
such as FlightGear).
Data can be output to a Iile, to the con-
sole (where it can be redirected), or through
a socket. Data output is set up through the
OUTPUT section oI the aircraIt conIigura-
tion Iile, at present. This is perhaps not an
ideal place to speciIy output Iormatting, and
the speciIication may change in the Iuture.
The Iormat Ior OUTPUT speciIication is as
Iollows:

<OUTPUT NAME="{n}"TYPE="{t}">
RATE_IN_HZ rate
SIMULATION ON|OFF
(Continued on page 2)
t|taila lll|i natls
1) Gather Data
TCDS
Textbooks
Tech Reports
Etc.
2) Use Aeromatic Ior Iirst
cut.
www.jsbsim.org
3) Adjust data Iile based
on Iound data.
laslt i|ls lssat.
A User Perspective:
Building an F-16 Flight
1
JSBSim Data Output and 1
News Items 2
In Depth: Creating a
Flight Model Ior
3
Highlighted ReIerences 4


!\l\ln laia aijai aa laal,sls
l st| rt|sjttilrt. lallla aa l-!t lll|i natl
! !al, tt1
I|t aa|it|l, atvsltiit| la|
!\l\ln, aa ajta saa|tt lll|i
,aanlts natl la t--
\alant !, lssat
ac. o tae .ae.o,e
JSBSim Profect Coordinator Jon Berndt has
written a paper for the 2004 AIAA Modeling
and Simulation Technologv Conference held in
August in Providence, Rhode Island. The pa-
per will be hosted at a later time on the
JSBSim web site.
New config version (1.65)
Thrusters now part of engine definition
Aerial onload of fuel now possible
Fuel temperature now changes with at-
mospheric qualities
Bill Galbraith has altered the source code to
the well-known USAF application called Digi-
tal DATCOM. It will now output aerodvnamic
characteristics for a specified aircraft configu-
ration directlv in JSBSim configuration file
format. Digital DATCOM is a program that
calculates the aerodvnamic characteristics for
an aircraft based on the description of the air-
craft stored in an input file. This tool is in beta
release at this time. It is available at Bills web
site.

http://www.holycows.net/datcom

(Continued from page 1)
ATMOSPHERE ON|OFF
MASSPROPS ON|OFF
AEROSURFACES ON|OFF
RATES ON|OFF
VELOCITIES ON|OFF
FORCES ON|OFF
MOMENTS ON|OFF
POSITION ON|OFF
COEFFICIENTS ON|OFF
GROUND_REACTIONS ON|OFF
FCS ON|OFF
PROPULSION ON|OFF
</OUTPUT>

SpeciIic properties can also be logged iI
desired by including a PROPERTY deIini-
tion in the OUTPUT section. For example:

PROPERTY fcs/elevator-pos-deg

There is a Iacility in both JSBSim and
FlightGear Ior piping data through a socket.
For JSBSim, you can speciIy a PORT and
an IP address. Here is an example:

<OUTPUT NAME="192.168.0.2"
TYPE="SOCKET" PORT="5156">

You can use an application such as the
netcat tools (nc) to see data coming across
the socket. For instance, iI you send data
over the socket via the IP address and port
as speciIied in the previous example, you
would use this command line argument on
the receiving computer:

nc -l -p 5156

The above command sets up a listening
process on port 5156.
Currently, the set oI data sent over a
socket is predetermined.

Once data has been saved as a .csv Iile it
can be plotted by any program that can read
that Iormat, such as Excel. There is a special
purpose plotting program called SimPlot
(available at the JSBSim web site in source
code Iormat or as a Windows binary). Sim-
Plot is useIul Ior rapid plotting oI parame-
ters. It can be used in batch runs to auto-
matically create plots and a companion web
page that reIerences the plots, including a
thumbnail image oI the plot.
The XML Iormat Iile that tells the plot-
ting program what to plot is simple and in-
tuitive. Here is an excerpt:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<plotset>
<plot>
<title>Ground Track</title>
<label axis="x">Long</label>
<label axis="y">Lat</label>
<scale>
<min axis="x">121.5</min>
<min axis="y">46.5</min>
<max axis="x">122.5</max>
<max axis="y">47.5</max>
</scale>
<parameter axis="x">Long</parameter>
<parameter axis="y">Lat</parameter>
</plot>

SimPlot can be used in
batch runs to automatically
create plots and a
companion web page that
reIerences the plots,
including a thumbnail
image oI the plot.
tvs litns
\alant !, lssat rat
ltttai !\l\ln ll|t|ali natls.

latla III
latla ItI
rllaias rt-I

\tt lart's laaa| la| i|tst.

|iij.//|ant.tantasi.ati/
~arltalj/|aaa|/|aaa|.
|inl
JSBSim models the aerodynamics por-
tion oI Ilight dynamics Ior a vehicle based
on the coefficient buildup method. That is,
the total contributions to liIt, drag, side
Iorce, and the pitching, rolling, and yawing
moments are
ca l cul at ed
by adding up
all the con-
stituent parts
that come
Irom the
wing, the
stabil izer s,
Ilaps, ailer-
ons, etc.
Take liIt, Ior
example: Ior
an aircraIt,
liIt mostly
comes Irom
the wing.
Ho we v e r ,
when the
yoke i s
pushed Ior-
ward to a point, a nose-down pitching mo-
ment occurs, which happens because the
horizontal tail surIace is providing a liIting
Iorce Iar aIt oI the CG and this also
contributes to the total liIt oI the aircraIt.
When the Ilaps are extended, that also pro-
vides an extra increment oI liIt. The liIt on
the wing is oIten given as a Iunction oI al-
pha (angle oI attack) - and oI course that
adds in to the total liIt. In the Iorm oI an
equation, this is how the liIt calculation
would look:

L = qS[cC
Lc
+ 5eC
L5e
+ 5fC
L5f
]

where,

L = total lift
q = dynamic pressure
S = wing area
c = angle of attack
5e = elevator deflection
5f = flap deflection
C
Lc
= C
L
due to alpha
C
L5e
= C
L
due to elevator
C
L5f
= C
L
due to flaps
The last three parameters in the list
above denote the individual contributions
due to liIt in the Iorm oI coeIIicients. These
items are oIten deIined in the Iorm oI tables.
The lookup table Ior liIt due to elevator de-
Ilection, Ior instance, might be a Iunction oI
mach. The table is part oI the coeIIicient
deIinition in the JSBSim aircraIt speciIica-
tion Iile. In this example, mach is also speci-
Iied in the deIinition as the lookup index.
The table and lookup index part oI the coeI-
Iicient deIinition describe a coeIIicient, it-
selI. However, the coeIIicient is also turned
into a speciIic Iorce quantity. Observe the
product qS in the equation Ior liIt shown
previously. When the coeIIicient Iound by
the table lookup is multiplied by the q and S
values, the result is a contribution oI liIt. See
Fig. 1 Ior an example oI a complete coeIIi-
cient deIinition.
Let`s look at the coeIIicient deIinition in
Fig. 1 line-by-line. The Iirst line simply de-
Iines the conIiguration Iile entry as being a
coeIIicient deIinition, names the coeIIicient,
and deIines the type oI the coeIIicient. Sev-
eral types oI coeIIicient are available, a sim-
ple value, or a one, two, or three dimen-
sional table. A description Ior the coeIIicient
is given in line two. Line three (in this ex-
ample) reIers to the number oI rows oI data
(Continued on page 4)
JSBSim models the
aerodvnamics portion of
flight dvnamics for a
vehicle based on the
coefficient buildup
method.
la ltji|. t|taila a lll|i natl la| !\l\ln, lt|a,aanlts
\alant !, lssat rat 1
<COEFFICIENT NAME="CLDe" TYPE="VECTOR">
Lift_due_to_Elevator_Deflection
11
velocities/mach-norm
aero/qbar-psf|metrics/Sw-sqft|fcs/elevator-pos-rad
0.0 1.00
0.6 1.05
1.0 1.15
1.2 1.00
1.6 0.66
2.0 0.50
2.4 0.40
3.0 0.31
5.6 0.21
6.0 0.20
9.0 0.20
</COEFFICIENT>
Figure 1. 1SBSim Coefficient Definition
(Continued from page 1)
put. This means that a pilot doesn't com-
mand elevator deIlections, but a g-load. Nei-
ther does the pilot command aileron or rud-
der deIlections, but rather a roll-rate or yaw-
rate. The advantage oI this is that the Ilight
computer keeps the aircraIt in its current
state iI there is no pilot input, basically
meaning that the aircraIt will Ily a straight
line, no matter what, it will automatically
compensate Ior unwanted pitch, roll and
yaw eIIects (at least within it's capabilities).

Control Laws

The Ilight computer compares the re-
quested (pilot) input and the current state
and computes the error (the diIIerence be-
tween the two) and calculates the actions
needed to minimize this error and com-
mands the surIaces to take that action. This
(in rare circumstance) may even result in an
opposite surIace deIlection than commanded
by the pilot. By letting the computers com-
mand the aero surIaces there is a risk oI get-
ting in an unwanted (stall) situation too eas-
ily because there is no Ieedback to the pilot
(like stick input that is too easy Ior normal
conditions, which could mean a stalled sur-
Iace). To solve that problem the designers oI
the F-16 decided to let the Ilight computer
prevent stall conditions in every situation. II
(Ior instance) the angle oI attack exceeds 25
degrees, Iull pitch down is commanded to
alleviate that; wind tunnel data shows that
the aircraIt gets unstable beyond that.

Current State

The current conIiguration Iile oI the F-
16 has almost everything implemented but
stall prevention. Some quick attempts to get
that Ieature implemented shows that it may
be the hardest task oI all. When comparing
the current model to the experience I have
with military F-16 simulators shows that it
Ieels like it behaves almost identically. Roll
rate, g-load, turn radius, (ground) accelera-
tion and deceleration (in-air) don't seem to
be too Iar oII compared to the simulators.
Also, maximum speed (Mach 2.2 at 40,000
It) looks to be on par with the accepted
speciIications. But there is still a lot to
do. EH

Online
www.f16viper.org
www.f-16.net
'ac. o tae .ae.o,e is a new communi-
cation tool written Ior a wider audience than
core JSBSim developers, including instructors,
students, and other users. The articles Ieatured
will likely tend to address questions and com-
ments raised in the mailing lists and via email.
II you would like to suggest (or even author)
an article Ior a Iuture issue, please email the
editor at: jsbhal-pc.org.
Some possible topics Ior Iuture issues
includes:
The Property System
JSBSim ConIiguration Files in XML
Integrating the Equations oI Motion in
JSBSim
Scripting JSBSim runs
.\|.\'-!
-,-----.
cI.. cI.. cI.. cI..
|iij.//vvv.aat.ri.ta/~a||an/ll!1/
(A Ilight dynamics and control
textbook online)

/uLI.I.J /uLI.I.J /uLI.I.J /uLI.I.J /JJI /JJI /JJI /JJI
ll|t|ali taai|al aa \lnalailaa,
\itrtas aa ltvls
|iij.//vvv.ana:aa.tan/tztt/a|las/
l\l/t1I!t!1I/!t1-ttt1tt-
ttttt

I|t aa|it|l, atvsltiit| la|
!\l\ln, aa ajta saa|tt lll|i
,aanlts natl la t--
l8ll 08 0 l00 N00 8l.
NNN.(808lM.0f
(Continued from page 3)
in the table. Line 4 is the property that is
used as a lookup index into the table. Line
5 is a list oI items (separated by a vertical
bar) that, when multiplied all together with
the coeIIicient value determined by lookup
into the accompanying table, produces (in
this example) the liIt Iorce due to elevator
deIlection. Lines beginning at 6 deIine the
lookup table. The leIt column is a list oI
mach numbers, the right column deIines
coeIIicient values associated with each
mach.

How do we know what these coeIIi-
cients are? How do we know the values in
the table? There are many places to look
Ior good inIormation about the aerody-
namic qualities Ior a speciIic aircraIt. They
include textbooks, technical report servers,
aircraIt manuIacturer web sites, etc. There
is another tool that is helpIul in determin-
ing aerodynamic coeIIicients. It is called
DATCOM. This tool started out as a series
oI books that one could use in determining
aerodynamic characteristics Ior a hypo-
thetical aircraIt, but McDonnell Douglas
turned those books into a program that be-
came known as Digital DATCOM. More
recently, Bill Galbraith has modiIied the
source code Ior Digital DATCOM to make
it put out aerodynamic coeIIicients in a
Iormat that is directly usable in the AERO-
DYNAMICS section oI the JSBSim air-
craIt conIiguration Iile. -JB
tzi lssat.