Sepecat Jaguar for X-Plane: June 2010

The Jaguar project for X-Plane has been a long time in the making. The overall aim is to realistically simulate the Sepecat Jaguar aircraft in many of its guises and to a high visual quality.

I began developing this model back in 2007, and since then I have spent many hours, and a fair amount of money researching and gathering data to ensure the flight model is accurate as possible within the limitations of X-Plane.

Assistance has been sought from ex Jaguar pilots, and from current Jaguar technicians and museum restoration teams. Some very kind and skilled people have provided me with dimensions, access to a real Jaguar, and documentation to aid systems and flight modelling.

The entire flight model has been rebuilt multiple times, and the 3D model had a few iterations before good progress was made.

This blog will document the build process, and updates will be posted when decent steps are made.

This is a long term project, and it will be available to buy upon its completion.

22/06/2010

Testing continues with the Jaguar, and yet again i am experimenting with aerofoils for the tail. The current section is suitably powerful, but the AoA of this surface hits ~ 30 degrees when the flaps are fully deployed in the sim, causing a loss of tailplane authority and sometimes a tail stall on approach. I need to alter the lift curve somehow to try and tune out this characteristic, but X-Planes aerofoil design software is somewhat limiting.
Other testing and refinement of the model has seen me altering the fuel tank locations and moments to meet specified values. Its getting closer!

15/06/2010

After some more testing i have decided upon a wing layout on which to go with now. However, after some more testing with drop tanks, i found that the cg being further forward was a problem for the stab aerofoil sections i had tuned, so i am re-working stab foils at the moment to try and re-gain some authority. It shouldn't be too difficult to re-tune the model to work with the new tail sections. I need to get this nailed, its taken waay too long so far!