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Lockheed Martin-NASA QueSST X-59

4,165 Formula350  2.9 years ago

Based on the real life X-59 Test Plane by Lockheed and NASA, but in a livery more of my Liking! :)
https://www.nasa.gov/aero/x-59-quesst-overview

I started this >3 years ago but backburnered it due to frustration, and now finally decided to go back and finish it... for the most part.
It is not as 'done' as I'd like, not having "skinned" wings to cover up their ugliness, but it's far better than where it had been.

It's flight behavior is something to be lacking, at least if you're like me and keep the throttle at 100%, always... lol
To put it simply, she thinks she's a an SSTO instead of an SST... as it loves nothing more than to point the nose skywards!
(SSTO=Single Stage to Orbit; SST=Super-Sonic Transport)

Due to that, I've taken some creative liberties with certain elements...
The wings' control surfaces are only Roll. The tail fins, which are Rotator controlled, also come with their own small elevator flaps solely for Trim.
As I wasn't sure if the canards were fixed or a moveable control surface, I left them fixed but installed two small wings inside the nose to help make it behave better. (This is also why I removed Pitch from the wings, because with all 3 control surfaces, it can get squirrely!)
The landing gear isn't ideal, but I've not actually tried making my own and I didn't want to experiment on this one since it caused me enough headaches lol DESPITE the derpy angling, you can land on it with no issues! So, take that, physics!

Cockpit is obvious like the real thing and therefore has no visibility, relying on a front camera, if realism is your thing. Granted we aren't limited to the tight view angles that the real camera is, so, there's that...
I mounted it with 3 cameras total: 2 inside the front housing, one of which has auto-centering enabled (Camera 2), and the third camera is mounted under the aft belly rear of the landing gear, to provide a nice view and assist with touchdown.
There are Six Air Brakes mounted on the back of the engine, actuated by Brake.
Furthermore, it also has a Parachute just in case you have issues getting it down earlier enough and you're running out of runway!

The Trim control, again, is to help with leveling flight, and onscreen to provide a handy visual reference to where it's at. NOTE: I forgot to invert them, so Trim Down = Nose Down and thus Trim Up = Nose Up (sorry!)
.

Takeoff:
No Trim, Full Throttle.
Tail will lift, that's "normal" for her.
Once it "bounces" off the runway once, pitch back and it'll climb.
Leaving gear down for a little bit will help equalize its nose-up tendency.
...or...
Raise it and set "Trim Down" to roughly -33%, which after around 550MPH will be sufficient to keep it level. (It has so little self induced roll that I didn't bother to tweak for it)

Enjoy!

General Characteristics

  • Created On Windows
  • Wingspan 39.4ft (12.0m)
  • Length 96.1ft (29.3m)
  • Height 14.6ft (4.4m)
  • Empty Weight 16,976lbs (7,700kg)
  • Loaded Weight 31,544lbs (14,308kg)

Performance

  • Power/Weight Ratio 1.068
  • Wing Loading 20.5lbs/ft2 (99.9kg/m2)
  • Wing Area 1,541.0ft2 (143.2m2)
  • Drag Points 2791

Parts

  • Number of Parts 88
  • Control Surfaces 9
  • Performance Cost 484