A couple of new videos from Laminar Research feature X-Plane creator Austin Meyer explaining a bit about flying and flight physics. Let’s have a look.

Answering questions

It looks like Laminar Research are doing a cluster of informative videos, so far all featuring Austin, to describe some how and why with the way that both real airplanes and airplanes in X-Plane fly.

The first video answers a specific question about why flying the Cirrus SR22 pulls left on a takeoff. Most of us know engine torque is a big factor but the video goes into a little more detail and shows off how X-Plane visualizes this.

The second video does much the same but is longer and has a more generalized approach to understanding the how and why your airplane is flying the way it is. There’s talk about control surfaces, control configurations with your joystick and more.

It does make a pretty good case for how X-Plane can be used as a learning tool to see what’s going on with your airplane using data and using visualizations. It’s interesting to see.

More of these videos seem to be coming up soon including a detailed discussion on why an airplane nose should rise when the flaps come down. Sounds interesting.