Hi Ron, and welcome.  

Of course you are correct.  Unfortunately, every area of constructing a full package aircraft is a specialty area.  These are the exterior/interior models, sounds, panel and gauges, textures, and the flight model.  Some also specialize in documentation.

As tough and specialized as each of these areas are, flight modeling is typically the most difficult for virtual pilots and designers to undertake and therefore must fudge it.  There are very few really good flight modelers around and they are usually busy with the payware aircraft designers.

Fortunately there are tools available to help us novices with building an "acceptable" flight model that will perform to the numbers.  As a RW pilot, you might be interested in jumping into this arena and serving in the community to improve quality of flight dynamics in virtual aircraft.  It is rare to have RW pilots doing this and it would be welcomed insight.

There are a few tools that can help with the flight model development and with editing the result.  See these links for more information:

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/hsors/index.html  for AirEd editors and a test gauge AFSD

http://www.mudpond.org/  for development tools and test gauges - Try the Workbook and AirWrench, and Air Update

The problems start when an aircraft.cfg and .air file are "adopted" from a similar model... and then forced to fit..  and the plane is made stable, barely flyable, by adjusting individual cfg values, not keeping the big picture in mind. That's where you get problems at the loading screen (CG out in front of the plane). You can't model a C310 and then force-fit a Baron's  cfg/air  files.


What I do with an add-on aircraft (real pilot myself), is start from scratch, and use the same method as when I'm designing my own model. Use  REAL numbers... the actual dimensions and control surface apex locations from the REAL aircraft. And then consider the big picture when you start fine tuning. Moving a wing_apex might get the CG to look better at the loading screen, but it will change the flight dynamics considerably.


If the model was set up correctly, its center will be about 1/4-chord behind the leading edge at the wing's vertical position (theoretical center of lift). I like to reference everything from there. In some models, especially default planes, an early cgf entry will change the reference point to somewhere near the physical front of the model. I've heard that that's because that's how it's done for real... and that's fine, so long as you remember the difference twixt model center and that reference point when adding/editing EVERY SINGLE apex, engine location and control surface position.

If you sit down and go through the entire cfg file using real numbers; the CG screen will be fine... and it doesn't take all that much tweaking to get the model to behave realistically. It is tedious, but no more tedious than moving a wing apex and then trying to get everything else stable via trial and error.