Aircraft creator?

Question

ok, so i was wondering if theres a free download that can let me design my own airplane/aircraft, like car builder. thnx

Answer 1

The Experimental Aircraft Association may be able to help you.

http://www.eaa.org

There may not be an on-line tool, and if there is it may not be trustworthy.  Designing an airplane is a very sophisticated process, usually done by teams of experts with advanced degrees.  But you may find some books and chat lists that will get you started.

Good luck.

Answer 2

I believe you can find some helpful tools at aircraft design.com    Hope this helps you in your endeavor.

Answer 3

Consider the flight simulator X-Plane. I own an experimental Kitfox aircraft and I have modelled it in X-Plane quite accurately. Microsoft Flight simulator has the most amazing scenery but X-Plane is the best design tool. Here is why: MS FS is based on look-up tables. If say you set the stall speed (Vso) to be 50 knots, the plane will stall at that speed. With X-Plane, everything is an airfoil and it used to so-called blade theory to integrate them all. When designing an aircraft, you decide the NACA airfoil (or you make your own) the AoA, dihedral, wash-out, etc and then you go and fly and if the plane stalls at the correct speed according to the POH, ... you're incredibly lucky! Because this is actually a digital wind tunnel.

You can model anything; planes, helicopters, gyrocopters and ... even a sailboat will perform accurately!

One thing though: all airfoils are computed to be at angles to about +/- 20 degrees. In a spin, you are no longer flying, you are falling and the air meets the control surfaces at angles that they are not meant to do. Furthermore, shading of surfaces, etc. could only be simulated by Computerized Fluid Dynamics (CFD) but that's still not possible for any simulator at a rea-time frame rate.

All simulators reproduce poorly spins.