Talking torque
Target Korea programmer obsesses about flight models
Korean war (or should that be "police action"?) flight sims are few and far between, the excellent "Mig Alley" being the only recent example that we can think of, and Sickware's "Target Korea" is certainly the first online-only Korean flight sim that we have heard of. With a wide range of aircraft, historically accurate terrain to fly them over, and a mod toolkit that will allow players to "make anything from a Sopwith Camel to a flying saucer", it's certainly ambitious. But for CEO and lead programmer Sylvan Clebsch, the most important thing is authenticity.
"Wells Sullivan and I are a little obsessive when it comes to physics, so everything is modeled in as much detail as possible. The center of lift on an airfoil actually changes with changing flight conditions (a contributing factor to both airframe buffeting and mach tuck). Center of gravity and inertia are recalculated 100 times per second, so that every round fired, pound of fuel burnt, or even lowering your gear effects these things. Reciprocating engines can have constant manifold pressure throttles, or simple gate throttles that require the pilot to throttle back manually when below critical altitude, or as speed increases (which increases air density due to ram effect). Propellers don't just generate thrust, but also precessional torque, gyroscopic torque, wash, helical airflow, and more."
"A jet doesn't have a simple thrust number, instead it has a compressor ratio, a fan pressure ratio, a bypass ratio and more. The actual temperature of the airflow through the jet is modeled at every stage. Fuel flow numbers are exact, glide path ratios are exact (and in every condition, such as flaps down, gear down, airbrakes extended, etc). Nitrous injection is modeled down to the chemical reactions in the cylinder, anti-detonant injection is modeled and afterburners are modeled. Every round fired from a gun is modeled and every element of dispersion is modeled, from harmonic oscillations to airframe buffeting. You can even decide what ammunition belting you want in each gun separately and can set convergence for each gun separately to get a whole variety of point or pattern harmonization schemes."
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