First Flight in the Simulator
Friday, December 12th, 2008The Perlan has flown for the first time in the X-Plane simulator. It is possible to calculate stability derivatives and control power but you get a much more immediate impression of the plane by flying it, even in a simulation. It is immediately obvious that the Perlan requires a lot of rudder to keep it straight.
The X-Plane simulator runs on PC or Macintosh and it allows you to design your own aircraft and fly it very quickly. There is a large community of people developing airplanes and even scenery. The detailed model of El Calafate has been created for X-Plane and it is available as a free download.
Circling over the El Calafate terminal
The Perlan model needs a bit more work but it will be available soon so that you can download it and fly on your computer at home. Eventually we expect to be able to include the Naval Research Laboratory model of the atmosphere on the day of the previous record flight so you can see how high you can fly.
