I want to try and make a complete aircraft in Unreal. By “complete”, I mean an aircraft that starts on the ground, is able to taxi while having fully functional suspension, take off, fly, and land. Does it have to be a skeletal mesh or it can be simulated with timelines, turning physics and gravity on and off and constraints? I successfully made a manned drone that rotates itself and the cockpit controls, all by using timelines for animating the parts and turning off gravity to make it fly with thrusters. Do any of these apply in making an aircraft?
It seems what you are doing can work by using time lines but you might whant to do physics movement to have more control and simulate better air movements there are some good tutorials out there UE4 Tutorial: Realistic Plane Pawn - YouTube
This tutorial shows how you can make an airplane that flys pretty realistically and you could probably use your own modifications to improve we’re you see fit but I think having physics on would give you more air control and for landing take off you could many switch between movement modes like when it’s on the ground it behaves more like a vehicle and thin behave like a air craft when in air so u could try adding a vehicle movement component to it
Hope this helps
I would suggest using physics rather than timelines if you want it to feel authentic. For basic things like your drone, timelines work well, but a complete airplane will feel more realistic. However, you can still combine the two: utilize timelines for little details like moving pieces and physics for flight.