Here's my rough take on the dragonfly 'thopter from Dune. This is a VTOL aircraft, and can be flown either as an ornithopter or a fixed-wing craft. The flapping wings are essentially just for show. The landing legs can fold up out of the way to allow for rolling taxiing and landing. This is especially handy if you don't feel like going through the hassle of VTOL landing, and the craft is a reasonably good glider. This one is pretty mobile-friendly, and very easy to fly if, like me, you're rubbish at flying helicopters. Plus the version in the movie works as a glider, so I though I'd try to keep that feature. Unarmed, but that's easy to change!
Controls:
Pitch: pitch
Yaw: yaw (with RC nozzles for yaw control when hovering)
Roll: roll
Throttle: throttle VTOL engines and thopter wings
Trim: trim
VTOL: VTOL (neutral for takeoff and hover, full up for normal forward thrust)
Landing Gear: gear up for rolling taxi and landing, gear down for landing legs.
Action Groups
AG1: deploy wings
AG3: deploy ramp
AG4: ramp extension (activate after 3, for use with landing legs)
AG8: deactivate for fixed-wing mode
Specifications
Spotlights
- Swinly 2.5 years ago
General Characteristics
- Created On Android
- Wingspan 46.7ft (14.2m)
- Length 37.1ft (11.3m)
- Height 8.4ft (2.6m)
- Empty Weight 13,481lbs (6,115kg)
- Loaded Weight 13,481lbs (6,115kg)
Performance
- Power/Weight Ratio 1.25
- Wing Loading 7.6lbs/ft2 (37.1kg/m2)
- Wing Area 1,772.0ft2 (164.6m2)
- Drag Points 5889
Parts
- Number of Parts 348
- Control Surfaces 5
- Performance Cost 2,557
@DrGoat thank you! Can't take credit for the looks - that goes to Denis Villeneuve, Sam Hudecki, and the rest of that design team.
@laSoul thanks! Yeah, it's such a cool cockpit design that I must have gotten a little carried away... If only I could figure out how to get the pistons to fully retract every time they're deactivated. "zeroOnDeactivate" doesn't seem to have that effect.
Great work, funny enough, both yours and mine suffer from the cockpit zone being about 2 feet too long in comparison to the OG. Neat trick on getting the wing vibration and positions.
Also looks really cool
Cool concept
@Swinly Thanks! It was such a good bit of prop design that I couldn't resist having a go at it
This very nice