General Aviation

Customizable general aviation aircraft

Since R2021b

Description

General Aviation is one of the aircraft that you can use within the 3D simulation environment. This environment is rendered using the Unreal Engine^® from Epic Games^®. This aircraft is designed to be customized with a user-supplied skeletal mesh; a sample skeletal mesh is provided in Views.

Simulating models in the 3D visualization environment requires Simulink^® 3D Animation™.

To add this type of vehicle to the 3D simulation environment:

1. Add a Simulation 3D Aircraft block to your Simulink model.

2. In the Block Parameters dialog box, on the Aircraft Parameters tab, set the Type parameter to General aviation.

3. On the Aircraft Parameters tab, set the Path to general aviation mesh parameter to either the sample mesh path or to your own general aviation skeletal mesh path. The sample skeletal mesh path is /MathWorksAerospaceContent/Vehicles/Aircraft/GeneralAviation/Mesh/SK_GeneralAviation.SK_GeneralAviation”.

4. Set the Initial translation (in meters) and Initial rotation (in radians) parameters to an array size that matches the general aviation aircraft, for example, zeros(15,3).

Data for Aircraft Placement

The General Aviation sample mesh origin is near its center of mass, 1.646 meters above the bottoms of the tires. To correctly place the aircraft, consider using these values.

Airport Scene Placement

To place the General Aviation mesh in the Airport scene resting on the pavement or other hard surface, which is at a Z of 1 centimeter, use the following body translation and rotation values.

Body Motion Ports and Parameters	Value
Translation port and Initial translation parameter	[0, 0, -1.646] + [0, 0, -0.01]
Rotation port and Initial rotation parameter	[0, 0, 0]

Altitude Sensor

For the altitude sensor in the Simulation 3D Aircraft block, use these values.

Parameter	Value
Body Z offset (m)	1.6459
Front tire radius (m)	0.215
Left tire radius (m)	0.215
Right tire radius (m)	0.215

Size

These are the unscaled sizes of the general aviation mesh.

Parameter	Value
Length (m)	8.88
Width (wingspan) (m)	12.62
Height (m)	3.22

Views

Top-down view — General Aviation top-down view

diagram

Side view — General Aviation side view

diagram

Front view — General Aviation front view

diagram

Back view — General Aviation back view

diagram

Lights and Skeleton

Lights

Light	Bone	Location in SK_GeneralAviation Mesh
Left landing	LandingLight_L	Nose cowling
Right landing	LandingLight_R	Nose cowling
Taxi	NoseGear_Light	N/A
Red navigation	RedNavLight	Left wingtip
Green navigation	GreenNavLight	Right wingtip
Left wingtip strobe	StrobeLight_L	Left wingtip
Right wingtip strobe	StrobeLight_R	Right wingtip
Tail strobe	StrobeLight	Top of vertical stabilizer, pointing aft
Position	PositionLight1	N/A
Beacon	BeaconLight1	Top of vertical stabilizer

Skeleton

• GA

  • Engine1

  • Aileron_L

  • Aileron_R

  • Flap_L

  • Flap_R

  • Spoiler_L

  • Spoiler_R

  • Elevator_L

  • Elevator_R

  • Rudder

  • NoseGear

    • NoseGear_Wheel

    • NoseGear_Light

  • MainGear_L

    • MainGear_L_Wheel

  • MainGear_R

    • MainGear_R_Wheel

  • RedNavLight

  • GreenNavLight

  • StrobeLight_L

  • StrobeLight_R

  • LandingLight_L

  • LandingLight_R

  • BeaconLight1

  • StrobeLight

  • PositionLight1

Version History

Introduced in R2021b