Amount of specifications required for simulation

At the risk of asking a question that might have been asked many times before, how much information is required to fully model an aircraft in DCS World?

A friend of mine and I had what we think is a neat idea, but I want to know if it's feasible first.

(Note - I'm not a module developer, so there's probably some stuff I'm missing)

For the 3D model, you need detailed pictures and schematics of the aircraft, its dimensions, etc. Videos can help for the different animations, landing gear, control surfaces and the like.

One of the hardest parts will be the flight model. You need performance data on the aircraft and its engines. Them it's a matter of interpreting the data, flight-testing your FM and comparing it to the performance graphs you have. Some of the data can be found from evaluation programs, and NASA has a jet engine simulation that can be of use.

For systems modeling, if you want to make a full ASM module, you need to know what systems are present on the aircraft, data on them and how they interact with each other. E.g. for a radar, you need to know its range, scanning arc, type of antenna, its different detection modes, how info is displayed on the cockpit's screens and HUD and how he can interact with it, etc. If you can find it, the aircraft's manual can be of great help for that.

Out of curiosity, what aircraft are you planning to develop ?

As with most answers, I'm going to say "it depends". My Beginner's Guide is 72 pages long and only covers the SFM and basic modeling at this point. It might be half way done for covering full aircraft development.

If you want a simple or approximate simulation, you can get away with simple or approximate data gathering. In other words, start with something similar and tweak it until it feels right.

However, if you want to get something that behaves reasonably correct across all of the flight envelope, you will need a substantial amount of data and programming.