I was flying a Goliath-class M.U.M.A.P near sea level trying to see how fast it can go (because despite appearances, that thing has a lot of power). I was using the autopilot with trim (unfortunately not visible) to keep it level.
I noticed, however, that near the ocean surface the plane would lose a lot of speed - without touching the water!
Is this drag from something, or is there a design flaw causing it to glitch?
As far as I know, ground effect only exists for helicopter rotors, which the Goliath has none of.
@StockPlanesRemastered Then we've observed the same thing.
@Graingy based on my own observances
@StockPlanesRemastered that is very strange. Do you know this for certain?
@Graingy it's over exaggerating ground effect but the ground effect only effect drag, not wing lift.
@StockPlanesRemastered And the reason?
SP, as you said, is very unrealistic. This is the first I've ever seen mention of this issue - me stumbling upon it.
SP doesn't have ground effect, to my knowledge, excluding the much newer rotors. Why would closeness to the ground matter?
@Graingy because it does in real life?
@Boeing727200F Peculiar. I was encountering massive slowing, like hitting air brakes.
Probably should have tried with other aircraft, not just the somewhat physically strange Goliath.
i have done some testing with this plane. it flies at around 400 mph.
i flew near the ground on both my phone and PC, turns out, it flies around 10 mph slower when i fly lower then 50 ft. that is odd.
@StockPlanesRemastered Yeah, but I see no reason why it should produce drag when near, but not at, sea level.
The atmospheric drag model in Simpleplanes is broken. This is why with replicas I just tune the plane to achieve the correct speed at cruising altitude
negative ground effect
I experienced it by testing the GC-45 i am making. It surprised me.
As it slowed me down a lot, it made me touch water. And once it touched water, it was slowing down even more. So imo, it might be an accentuated drag at very low sea lvl flight. But well, i won't say it is true.
Side note, 1130kph TAS at 60m with 76% fuel.