I can't talk about the details much as it's proprietary code. Helicopters have been (inaccurately) described as thousands of moving parts flying in lose formation. Mathematically a helicopter is thousands of interactions flying in loose formation. For Combat-Helo and future simulations we're assembling a modular version of what we call FFD (FreeFlight Dynamics), a library based on definitive engineering texts on how helicopters fly through air. Texts such as Bramwell's Helicopter Dynamics and Wayne's Helicopter Theory are the staple of many an engineer.

FFD is the physics part of HTR, a freely available module for Flight Simulator X. HTR stands for Helicopter Total Realism, conceived and developed over a period of two years by Fred Naar and fine tuned by input from real helicopter pilots.

At the core of FFD library is an ingenious and elegant approach that is easy to expand and simplify. Potentially capable of handling different types of power-plant, flight control systems and rotor configurations without straying from the principles of rotor-dynamics. It has a big future as middle-ware, not being tied to any particular 3D engine and totally independent makes it portable, I can compile this on the Mac. Future versions will handle fixed wing dynamics and possibly other vehicle types.

I'm still on the conversion stage but progress on FFD for Combat-Helo is going smoothly.

In other news, just ordered another 1TB of NAS. every backup is close to 0.3Gb. And a Corsair CPU Watercooler is on it's way to protect my CPU from heat-exhaustion.

Did another job search today, bit pathetic that nobody seems interested in hiring, even for fairly trivial IT support work I don't seem able to get a bite. Can't complain though, the weather is good.

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