Rigging an Aircraft in Blender 

As a real jet pilot and Blender Noob/Intermediate I've been trying to model the aircraft I fly. After following along and getting to the end at about 14:50 on I must say that yes, indeed you did in fact nail the whole issue down with the constraint of the Empty Rig so that the Rig Controller was no longer visible and that the whole aircraft was deflecting control surfaces just by manipulating the Empty…well, that's the Golden Enchilada! I was following along the whole time adjusting my model and then, BAM! I've got the whole thing rigged and all I have to do is animate one object… That is exactly the way to do it. Thank you! PS--> It's Aileron not Airleon PSS--> While not shown or expected, in real aircraft the deflection is differential. The initial movement is small and ramps up to a large movement on a non-linear curve. The elevators and ailerons move small amounts initially, then deflect more as they go further up or down. Not quite sure how to constrain that! Additionally, the elevators move separately than the flaps or ailerons during a maneuver. So, to pitch up would only be elevator, not opposite flaps and ailerons. However, to roll and pitch would be both elevator and ailerons! I hope the subtlety is not lost on your excellent rig. Outstanding tutorial!!!

Nice tutorials man!! *2020* and this still save me!!

Just a note here for realism, the horisontal stabilisers does move for rolling the aircraft (one in the opposite side of the other), and the ailerons don't move when pitching the aircraft. But this is a great tutorial here, I now understand the basics of rigging an aircraft.

Dude awesome tut thanks ! The blender conference you attended and went into depth with this was amazing .!!

i like people who like to help others with some very difficult work such this. thank you.

ive been looking foreveerrrrrrr on how to rig flaps like this. thank you sir

Certainly more helpful than using bones and Armature, thanks.

Great tutorial, Chris! I used to (in the 90's) work in Flight Simulation and used a Unix program called Multigen for modeling and Rigging. We would use another program to run a simulation to drive the model. I have been interested in doing something similar in Blender and thanks to you i know how to do the rigging. Thanks for sharing.

Nice ! Specially like the way you can move the plane around and the control surfaces moves accordingly ... A note, the ailerons (outer most surfaces on the wings) normally moves in opposite directions from one another to roll the aircraft on the Y axis. on some planes they can move down together at takeoff or landing to act as flaps like the inside wing surfaces, but they would seldom move together down or up when plane is diving or climbing. Same for the flaps, mostly used on takeoff/landing.

I Love your tutorials man. Wish you would do more of them. Your bike modelling one was ace!

you can do it with Shape Keys easily, too. I often use Shape Keys, because you can use them for a lot. But you did a Great Tutorial there!

Nice work. Perfectly explained. Can I get a video of the final rigging?

Good day. I am building a model of the Avro Arrow and I am going to use your teaching to make it work from the control columne.

Neat ! I'll be trying this... One suggestion - the f22 has thrust vectoring engine flaps. You should rig them to steer in vertical rotation ;)

Great video! I've just barely gotten into rigging and animation but this looks like so much fun :D thx for being so informative hope to see more videos in the future.

And that's how Ace Combat Shattered Sky's does it.. damn.

Great tutorial! Thanks for taking the time to create!

This seems quick and easy. But it might be possible to have better control using bones and the transform constraints. That way you can also get some amount of proportioning and perhaps some mix adjustment of flight surface controls. Having that extra degree of finesse may also make combined purpose control surfaces like elevons or flaperons more believable too.

Thanks so much! This was exactly the type or rigging I was trying to learn.

The Horizontal Stabilizers are called Flaperons on these jets, and they do move idependently, and are computer controlled.

Some modern computer controlled aircraft also mix flaps in as flaperons along with the regular ailerons if they have them. Got to watch some more footage of the jets in action or some videos how RC guys set up control surfaces on the fancier models. Or talk to some flight-sim guys, particularly those that are into the hard-core realism.

Thanks for sharing! He did this plane wind up in one of the RC simulators?

very nice educative tutorial just what i needed :)

I assume you're talking about the vectored thrust nozzles. I actually did rig those, along with the slats on the leading edge of the wing. But I didn't think I needed to include those parts in the video. Same concept, you know?

Great tutorial, thank you, but for realism, you should note that the f-22 raptor can be rotated to increase manoeuvrability.

awesome tutorial!

Very nice.. now the big question, how to import the mesh into other projects and still maintain the full controls? With bones it is possible, but with empties?

Thanks:) No, didn't go to school for this stuff. There are some great tutorials/courses online, though.

Also, the last thing of the tut is false, as the ailerons are there to change orientation. Once you're in the right orientation, they return to their "rest" position.

Yeah, no problem... I do it all the time. Just make sure your constraints are in local space.

Perfectly and simply explained. Does anyone know of any way to import this kind of rigging into Unity?

Is there also a tutorial on how you made the aircraft and the control surfaces?

very cool tutorial. Realy helpfull..

it was awesome... subscribed 👍

I tried this with one of my models. It works well on Blender, but I tried to import into Unity and it's not working at all. It's maybe Unity not compatible with that way of rigging?

Quick question: why did you bother rigging both sides? Wouldn't it make more sense to rig one side, then Copy rotation for the other side, with Invert selected for ailerons?

Awesome tutorial! Did you study animation in school or what?

wow..heyi are u still active?? can u model a fighter jet and texture more detail??

Big thumbs up!

The movement of the ailerons is completely wrong. They are used for turning (rolling) the airplane and should always move in opposite directions (when the left one is deflected upwards, the right one is deflected downwards, and vice versa). This produces a difference in lift and therefore a rolling moment, so the airplane turns towards the aileron that is deflected upwards. The movement of the ailerons is completely independent from the horizontal stabilizer. Good tutorial, though.

can you make a maya tutorial for it?

Does this rigging work for Unreal Engine?

Great walk through -- the roll surfaces on an aircraft are pronounced ALE-er-on, though.

I rigged a simplyfied model of a plane following this tutorial; however if i set up the Rig_control sphere with a locked rotation constraint, when the model follow a path the flaps are all messed up if the model rotate by 180°... (here is a video that shows what happen, higlighted in orange are the "target" empties ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-V_aJihkQWn0.html ). Any tips on how to solve it?

Ailerons do not move with elevators. They control roll not pitch

Thanks man...

Thank you.. ;)

I dunno... could be. I'm strictly a Blender guy :)

I have always heard them pronounced "A-Ler-Ons" or "Ale-er-ons"