Hurray, I have Gold Status. To celebrate, here is a gold-painted Golden Age Space Rocketship. The kind typically flown by the likes of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.

Well, actually it is a variation on my old VTOL testbed but with new fuselage and wings, so it looks like your favorite 1930's dieselpunk space movie prop. Out of time constraints, she doesn't have weapons or opening doors or even a cockpit. But she got lots of moving parts and she actually flies a lot easier than the 1970's anime spaceship I used as a starting point.

To name a few : This Rocketship has 10 different engines, and all of them rotate. The bottom four swing down for VTOL thrust. The top four rotate backwards to act as engine brakes (when braking) and the center back two rotate out in VTOL mode to act as yaw nozzles.
It also has differential output on the bottom lift engines to provide for pitch, roll and yaw in VTOL mode along with an automatic descent control for the lift engines.

As for flying: I build the rocket around my usual arrangement of VTOL down: flaps, VTOL up: VTOL nozzles rotate downwards and on full VTOL 30° back . So flying is just like all the other planes I build with this layout: (like here, here or here. )

• Conventional takeoff: line up with runway, VTOL full down, apply power. Rocket ship will rise by itself at about 200 mph.

• Conventional landing: Approach runway at about 30% power and VTOL full down, then kill power. Keep nose up as Rocket Ship glides down onto runway. Once on runway apply rocket brakes. Warning: You need lots of runway, so limit conventional landing to Wright, Avalanche and Yeager only

• STOL takeoff: as above but with VTOL about halfway up (just before the two center nozzles start flaring out)

• STOL landings :approach runway at 50% power with VTOL halfway up. Decrease power to 30% and on last leg of approach push VTOL slider all the way up to use nozzles as brake.

• VTOL takeoff: Push VTOL slider 3/4 up until lift rockets point straight down. Raise power. If rocket ship rolls backwards pull VTOL a little down. (Push up if rocket ship moves forwards) Keep ship steady as it starts to rise at about 90% power. Slowly pull VTOL to neutral to transition to horizontal flight.

• VTOL landing: Approach runway at about 50% power and VTOL halfway up like STOL landing. Move VTOL between 3/4 and full up to brake or just glide on remaining airspeed. Try to keep airspeed at about 50-80 mph as you descend to about 200 ft. Use controls to steer to desired landing spot and lower power to about 30% as automatic descent control kicks in.

Activate8 enables/disables the gyroscope leveling in VTOL mode. It is on by default, but you can disable it for pure power-based manoeuvering. However, this craft uses jet engines for lift and steering so with the jet's typical lag time steering is slow and oversteering is a definite possibility. So for longer hover flights keeping the gyroscope on is a good practice.
Activate7 takes this one step further and uses the gyroscope for actual steering.

As always, taking it apart, playing with the components and using all you can for your own builds is strictly encouraged. And if you want to know about one specific component or piece of code, feel free to ask in the comments section below, or hit me up at Discord. My username there is the same as the one I am using here.