The subject matter alone requires an upvote from me. Very, very, rare build here. I’ve posted a couple of these, though my efforts were long ago and prior to my truly knowing what I was doing.
If you move the rear landing gear forward so that it’s just slightly behind the CoM line (red line), it should actually rotate and take off at close to the correct speed (under 200 KIAS).
People are always saying stupid things, such as: "Best Canberra on site!"...how do they really know? Have they seen them all, have they even done a cursory check? Probably not, so I don't take much stock in those comments. However, this one is just beautiful...if it's not the best Canberra on site, it's certainly one of my "favourites" and certainly your best work that I can remember. Everything is integrated well, the shape is spot on, the camo job just blows me away with how good it looks--you've always been good at that details are fantastic and the flight model is great. Very engaging, it flies like a larger jet with a lower wing loading, one has to anticipate roll ins and roll outs. Great work, I'm impressed.
Alas, @TOXICJohnny, like the F-5N from which it’s derived and with which it shares its mission of adversary training, it’s not a shipboard fighter. I didn’t include a catapult attachment, though I am sure you could add one quite easily.
Nice simple build. Doesn’t like to fly slow, which makes landing on the boat really challenging. Too bad we don’t have a practical way to do high lift devices like IRL.
@asteroidbook345 take the wings apart and figure it out, it’s called the triangle technique and it’s the only way to make nice tapering thickness wings. It requires patience and finesse, carefully angling the tapering triangle to align with other parts. I use the same techniques as Bog.
Well, it’s not exactly a beautiful jet...more like if someone told Pavlev Sukhoi, “Comrade! Take the most beautiful aircraft ever flown, the XB-70 Valkyrie of the Capitalist Empire of the United States of Amerika, and make it brutally simple!” This is a good rendition...a few critiques that some, such as everything @BogdanX, said already, but mostly minor things with the build itself. Flying wise, I’m glad you went with realistic, though a little more drag reduction would have helped things. Boy, it lands fast and it wants to float! Speedbrakes activated by “GearDown” would help with the realism there a little. But it flies plausibly well. But why did you reverse the trim?!?! In RL, pushing up or forward on the trim switch or trim wheel gives you nose down trim, not nose up! But overall, nice build.
I don’t hate realistic flight models. The RL jet never got that high or that fast, you could rationalize using the projected flight performance of the realized jet, but if you make this thing a Mach 5 jet that pulls 11 Gs and rolls at 720 degrees per second, I’ll hate that.
@Redstar45 understand, you’re just starting you SP adventures...you can customize engine power and drag through the in game mods included now since V1.9.200. Be sure to enable both FineTuner and Overload under the “Mods” menu. If you would like some help I can do so.
Nice work here. Good details, well thought out, flies nice with realistic performance. The only critiques I would offer would be that the roll rate is a tad on the slow side, I would have had it roll about 25% faster to match its pitch rate for harmonization of controls, as well as the roll rate of similar aircraft. Additionally, while pleasingly smooth to fly—I mean, this thing is like butter smooth—perhaps it’s a bit too smooth. Nice build overall.
Nice Starfighter. Simple, yet engaging. Tricky to fly, like the real beast. Not quite as fast as the real thing, you might lower the drag even more than it is now, believe it or not. But, for such a simple build, you have all the essentials, low drag, high speed, good but not great turn performance, tricky landings (I crashed my first attempt!). All SP Starfighters should be this good, nice work!
I’ve been flying this thing around yesterday and today because I wanted to give it a good review. Overall, this is very entertaining, which is the best you can say for an SP build. If you think about it, the idea is ludicrous. An airplane like this, at 35,000 lbs would stop midair if you fired a 280 mm cannon...even if “recoiless”. The largest cannon employed is the 105 mm onboard the AC-130, which fires sideways, has a sophisticated recoil system and the Herc is about 4 1/2 times as heavy and powerful as your build. However, simply the idea of putting holes in the ships in game kept me at it, trying to master it enough until I could do so. Also, it was a brave decision to go with the constant speed prop thing, connected through the throttle. I doubt many players appreciate that, though to make it truly lifelike the way it’s setup (with max “thrust” at 70% instead of closer to 100%) it probably should incorporate both throttle and pitch controls. The Lorenz beam system is interesting, though not very practical as set up...any approach guidance system needs to be right in front of the pilot, or at least a repeater in front of the pilot. I suppose the nav might give a PAR to the pilot on approach, but, unfortunately, that’s impossible in SP. I like the idea, though. The build quality is appropriate; there aren’t any jarring misconnects with it, all parts, interior, exterior, wing technique, etc., is at the same quality. You also don’t the stupid “unlimited fuel” thing...nice move. Though not the most accomplished build out there, I’d definitely call it “above average”. The flight model is decent, it’s appropriately fast and maneuvers about as well as a Ju-288 would have, though I question if lugging around a 40,000 lb (more than total aircraft weight, BTW!) artillery piece wouldn’t have put more of a crimp in the performance. Perhaps the piece was might lighter because a recoiless rifle is more of a bazooka than a true cannon. The two biggest areas for improvement would be the lack of trim and to move that stupid cockpit rail right in the aiming sight line...I flew this on an iPhone, so it might not have that exact same view on PC or Android. But the lack of trim...that did the most to detract from the experience as I just had to constantly hold back stick to takeoff, fly around, aim (very painful) and land. If I had just one recommendation for your next build, it would be to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE put trim in it! But, overall, fun build.
Your build possesses that quality which makes a SP build great...it's extremely engaging. The maneuverability is extremely plausible and the performance is in the ballpark...is it a bit fast at all altitudes? Perhaps, but it's also powered by four enormous props in a high speed airframe which isn't huge, all of which makes for a speedy aircraft. Also, it should be noted, prop aircraft are flown at long ranges with the power back, which slows this down quite a bit, in reality max speeds are flown at bursts, with high cruise speeds being more desired for something like this than sheer max speed. I read the test pilot's...Count Baron von Luderdorff's test report on this thing, and he says..."der flugzeug hass quite ze long takeoff roll, due to the uniqe landing gear arrangement...if one was to redesign this lovely beast, perhaps a lowzer rotation velocity vould be in orzder, but it flies like a shmetterling vonce airborne!", Again, great work, love it.
Wow @Leehopard, I realize that people seem to absolutely love this build. It’s a bit surprising to me as I always thought the 105 had more personality. But, thanks!
I must say, beautiful jet, really fun to fly, highly plausible for a fictional build. The stopping distance isn’t ridiculously short, though I would never use Bandit as a measure of stopping distance for a 1960s hot rod like this one. The T-38 min allowed runway length is 8,000’, which is about the actual runway distance of Murphy Airport (not including the lead in arrow portion of the runway). If you have a drag chute, that helps a lot with stopping distance as well. But relatively small brakes on small, high pressure tires (and prior to the advent of anti lock brakes on aircraft) does not equal short stopping distances. But your jet flies great and I really enjoyed it.
Hmmm...you should take a few minutes to read my USAF insignia post. The national insignia (stars and bars) only goes on the top of the left wing and the bottom of the right wing.
@hRmm I'm sorry, really I am. I have no idea why you are having problems with this. No one else here has had any problems with this. If you're on PC or mobile, you can open in the build screen and try reattaching the missiles. I really don't know what else to tell you.
@hRmm well that’s frustrating as no one else seems to be having that problem...recommend you download again as you might have a glitched or corrupted copy. I’ve been downloading from the site every time you comment to make sure the version you’re using is the same version I’m using and it’s working just fine for me. Also, have you downloaded SP V1.9.205 yet or are you using an earlier version or the Beta?
The Lorenz Beam system is what we used in the U.S. through the 1950s, at least, until replaced in large part by NDBs, VORs and, eventually, the ILS. Great research and good idea, can’t wait to see the final result.
@hRmm I must assume you didn’t pick it up in the flight manual or that it wasn’t clear from the instructions...you have to go to “Air-To-Air”, then select AG4 to arm the missiles. This allows you to arm the guns without having to listen to the missile acquisition tones. Selecting air to air without selecting AG4 will display “0x AIM-9L”. Subsequently selecting AG4 will the display “2x AIM-9L”. Or are you firing one and then zero displays?
@listeed that’s probably what it is, this build requires the .205, try it after you download the update, if you still have problems after that, please let me know.
@Tang0five what? Really? If you really can't download it (it's a v1.9.205 build, BTW), I can try to post another unlisted and you can try and download from there. Please let me know.
Plus, this is an F-16, which everyone loves, but there are a lot of F-16s out there on the site. Plus, it's grey, which also conspires against upvotes.
@TheKraken3 Actually, it’s an F-20. It’s done, I’m just waiting until V1.9.203 officially drops to release it to make sure it’s compatible with the latest software.
As for fuel burn, it is a bit more in SP than IRL. Much more with power multipliers, but far less than people complain about. 10x, though, is huge fuel burn and I would reduce it if possible. Flying as you would IRL, i.e., not flying around all the time at 100% RPM with the afterburner going helps a lot. Also, what player flies a build for even 10 mins, much less than 1:00 or 1:30 or 2 hrs? No one does. I hate unlimited fuel for all these reasons and wrote a whole screed on this a long ago.
Well, for your calculations, fuel density is 6.8 lbs/gal. Also, there’s a way to produce all the engine effects without burning fuel, try “powerMultiplier=0”, I don’t use exhaust effects in that way, so I’m not 100% sure, but that may be your solution. I don’t think this would be the way to fix your acceleration issue, though. Also, the autoroll issue is either weight or attach points not being symmetric. I often will place parts, mirror without attachments connected and manually attach both points just to make sure they’re symmetric. Even with all that I get asymmetric attachment points, but far fewer otherwise. To tweak, try deadweight as you say, a little bit farther out on the wing is as effective as a lot closer to the centerline.
Nice build, good functionality, interesting weapons. It does have a tiny bit of autoroll, but that is minimal. You used negative weights—yuck—next time you might try using the published weights, empty, plus the correct amount of fuel and loaded. The SP flight model actually does a good rendition of all those factors and yields some impressively good results. The turn rate is interesting...with weapons it’s slow, perhaps too slow, but when jettisoned, it’s really fast. I should check how many Gs it’s pulling, should be around 6, from what I remember. That’s realistic and good building. It does not bleed energy in high G turns as it should, which tells me you added drag back in but didn’t distribute it along the build, perhaps? But it is a cool build, different enough from the typical fast jet or airliner to get noticed, nice work!
@asteroidbook345 well, no I didn’t get to fly the Gooney Bird, I only got to fly on one. A few times. It was the embassy airplane at that time and I was just a kid.
Good inspiration. Back in 1974...? I was flying as a family member on the embassy plane from Chad to Spain when we stopped over at the Canary Islands. The Spanish AF had parked a Mirage F1 in the ramp next to our VC-47 and I remember vividly walking around the jet enthralled by that jet, all pointy and as perfect a looking fighter as ever was. I also like this vid of a little F1 low flying action...
The subject matter alone requires an upvote from me. Very, very, rare build here. I’ve posted a couple of these, though my efforts were long ago and prior to my truly knowing what I was doing.
If you move the rear landing gear forward so that it’s just slightly behind the CoM line (red line), it should actually rotate and take off at close to the correct speed (under 200 KIAS).
People are always saying stupid things, such as: "Best Canberra on site!"...how do they really know? Have they seen them all, have they even done a cursory check? Probably not, so I don't take much stock in those comments. However, this one is just beautiful...if it's not the best Canberra on site, it's certainly one of my "favourites" and certainly your best work that I can remember. Everything is integrated well, the shape is spot on, the camo job just blows me away with how good it looks--you've always been good at that details are fantastic and the flight model is great. Very engaging, it flies like a larger jet with a lower wing loading, one has to anticipate roll ins and roll outs. Great work, I'm impressed.
Alas, @TOXICJohnny, like the F-5N from which it’s derived and with which it shares its mission of adversary training, it’s not a shipboard fighter. I didn’t include a catapult attachment, though I am sure you could add one quite easily.
Geez, did anyone have a successful mission?
I really like the FT formula you used for the flaps, BTW...inverselerp...?! Good use of a little used input.
Nice simple build. Doesn’t like to fly slow, which makes landing on the boat really challenging. Too bad we don’t have a practical way to do high lift devices like IRL.
@asteroidbook345 take the wings apart and figure it out, it’s called the triangle technique and it’s the only way to make nice tapering thickness wings. It requires patience and finesse, carefully angling the tapering triangle to align with other parts. I use the same techniques as Bog.
Well, it’s not exactly a beautiful jet...more like if someone told Pavlev Sukhoi, “Comrade! Take the most beautiful aircraft ever flown, the XB-70 Valkyrie of the Capitalist Empire of the United States of Amerika, and make it brutally simple!” This is a good rendition...a few critiques that some, such as everything @BogdanX, said already, but mostly minor things with the build itself. Flying wise, I’m glad you went with realistic, though a little more drag reduction would have helped things. Boy, it lands fast and it wants to float! Speedbrakes activated by “GearDown” would help with the realism there a little. But it flies plausibly well. But why did you reverse the trim?!?! In RL, pushing up or forward on the trim switch or trim wheel gives you nose down trim, not nose up! But overall, nice build.
First attempt!
I don’t hate realistic flight models. The RL jet never got that high or that fast, you could rationalize using the projected flight performance of the realized jet, but if you make this thing a Mach 5 jet that pulls 11 Gs and rolls at 720 degrees per second, I’ll hate that.
Beautiful build.
@Redstar45 understand, you’re just starting you SP adventures...you can customize engine power and drag through the in game mods included now since V1.9.200. Be sure to enable both FineTuner and Overload under the “Mods” menu. If you would like some help I can do so.
Simple Flagon, I like it. Nice custom missiles. A little bit quick on acceleration and it flies too fast, but otherwise it flies well.
Nice work here. Good details, well thought out, flies nice with realistic performance. The only critiques I would offer would be that the roll rate is a tad on the slow side, I would have had it roll about 25% faster to match its pitch rate for harmonization of controls, as well as the roll rate of similar aircraft. Additionally, while pleasingly smooth to fly—I mean, this thing is like butter smooth—perhaps it’s a bit too smooth. Nice build overall.
Nice Starfighter. Simple, yet engaging. Tricky to fly, like the real beast. Not quite as fast as the real thing, you might lower the drag even more than it is now, believe it or not. But, for such a simple build, you have all the essentials, low drag, high speed, good but not great turn performance, tricky landings (I crashed my first attempt!). All SP Starfighters should be this good, nice work!
I’ve been flying this thing around yesterday and today because I wanted to give it a good review. Overall, this is very entertaining, which is the best you can say for an SP build. If you think about it, the idea is ludicrous. An airplane like this, at 35,000 lbs would stop midair if you fired a 280 mm cannon...even if “recoiless”. The largest cannon employed is the 105 mm onboard the AC-130, which fires sideways, has a sophisticated recoil system and the Herc is about 4 1/2 times as heavy and powerful as your build. However, simply the idea of putting holes in the ships in game kept me at it, trying to master it enough until I could do so. Also, it was a brave decision to go with the constant speed prop thing, connected through the throttle. I doubt many players appreciate that, though to make it truly lifelike the way it’s setup (with max “thrust” at 70% instead of closer to 100%) it probably should incorporate both throttle and pitch controls. The Lorenz beam system is interesting, though not very practical as set up...any approach guidance system needs to be right in front of the pilot, or at least a repeater in front of the pilot. I suppose the nav might give a PAR to the pilot on approach, but, unfortunately, that’s impossible in SP. I like the idea, though. The build quality is appropriate; there aren’t any jarring misconnects with it, all parts, interior, exterior, wing technique, etc., is at the same quality. You also don’t the stupid “unlimited fuel” thing...nice move. Though not the most accomplished build out there, I’d definitely call it “above average”. The flight model is decent, it’s appropriately fast and maneuvers about as well as a Ju-288 would have, though I question if lugging around a 40,000 lb (more than total aircraft weight, BTW!) artillery piece wouldn’t have put more of a crimp in the performance. Perhaps the piece was might lighter because a recoiless rifle is more of a bazooka than a true cannon. The two biggest areas for improvement would be the lack of trim and to move that stupid cockpit rail right in the aiming sight line...I flew this on an iPhone, so it might not have that exact same view on PC or Android. But the lack of trim...that did the most to detract from the experience as I just had to constantly hold back stick to takeoff, fly around, aim (very painful) and land. If I had just one recommendation for your next build, it would be to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE put trim in it! But, overall, fun build.
It is a gloriously ugly cannon armed fighter, and I can appreciate that.
Your build possesses that quality which makes a SP build great...it's extremely engaging. The maneuverability is extremely plausible and the performance is in the ballpark...is it a bit fast at all altitudes? Perhaps, but it's also powered by four enormous props in a high speed airframe which isn't huge, all of which makes for a speedy aircraft. Also, it should be noted, prop aircraft are flown at long ranges with the power back, which slows this down quite a bit, in reality max speeds are flown at bursts, with high cruise speeds being more desired for something like this than sheer max speed. I read the test pilot's...Count Baron von Luderdorff's test report on this thing, and he says..."der flugzeug hass quite ze long takeoff roll, due to the uniqe landing gear arrangement...if one was to redesign this lovely beast, perhaps a lowzer rotation velocity vould be in orzder, but it flies like a shmetterling vonce airborne!", Again, great work, love it.
Wow @Leehopard, I realize that people seem to absolutely love this build. It’s a bit surprising to me as I always thought the 105 had more personality. But, thanks!
Even if it were just a description without an actual post, I'd upvote this!
I must say, beautiful jet, really fun to fly, highly plausible for a fictional build. The stopping distance isn’t ridiculously short, though I would never use Bandit as a measure of stopping distance for a 1960s hot rod like this one. The T-38 min allowed runway length is 8,000’, which is about the actual runway distance of Murphy Airport (not including the lead in arrow portion of the runway). If you have a drag chute, that helps a lot with stopping distance as well. But relatively small brakes on small, high pressure tires (and prior to the advent of anti lock brakes on aircraft) does not equal short stopping distances. But your jet flies great and I really enjoyed it.
Those ARE some nice screenshots.
@LeonardoEngineering I hope you are well...and thanks for the upvote. How are you doing?
Hmmm...you should take a few minutes to read my USAF insignia post. The national insignia (stars and bars) only goes on the top of the left wing and the bottom of the right wing.
@hRmm I'm sorry, really I am. I have no idea why you are having problems with this. No one else here has had any problems with this. If you're on PC or mobile, you can open in the build screen and try reattaching the missiles. I really don't know what else to tell you.
@hRmm well that’s frustrating as no one else seems to be having that problem...recommend you download again as you might have a glitched or corrupted copy. I’ve been downloading from the site every time you comment to make sure the version you’re using is the same version I’m using and it’s working just fine for me. Also, have you downloaded SP V1.9.205 yet or are you using an earlier version or the Beta?
The Lorenz Beam system is what we used in the U.S. through the 1950s, at least, until replaced in large part by NDBs, VORs and, eventually, the ILS. Great research and good idea, can’t wait to see the final result.
@FlyingHueman thanks! I appreciate it and am very glad you like it.
@hRmm I must assume you didn’t pick it up in the flight manual or that it wasn’t clear from the instructions...you have to go to “Air-To-Air”, then select AG4 to arm the missiles. This allows you to arm the guns without having to listen to the missile acquisition tones. Selecting air to air without selecting AG4 will display “0x AIM-9L”. Subsequently selecting AG4 will the display “2x AIM-9L”. Or are you firing one and then zero displays?
@hRmm no...AG4 arms both missiles, but as IRL, each missile acquires separately and is fired separately.
@CRJ900Pilot of course I can help.
@listeed that’s probably what it is, this build requires the .205, try it after you download the update, if you still have problems after that, please let me know.
@WolfSpark, thanks. I'm happy you like it.
@Tang0five what? Really? If you really can't download it (it's a v1.9.205 build, BTW), I can try to post another unlisted and you can try and download from there. Please let me know.
@Tang0five thanks. I was just about to release it, but I'm still getting the red Beta warning message on the post.
Plus, this is an F-16, which everyone loves, but there are a lot of F-16s out there on the site. Plus, it's grey, which also conspires against upvotes.
88 upvotes is very good. My builds only rarely break 100.
Safe, 3/5. EPC/HF/FTD.
I have to say, I agree with @Numbers ...the tail is usually the first thing to go when an aircraft breaks up inflight.
You could use this function to do a ripple release on a group of bombs, say for my F-105.
@TheKraken3 you are correct, sir!
@TheKraken3 Actually, it’s an F-20. It’s done, I’m just waiting until V1.9.203 officially drops to release it to make sure it’s compatible with the latest software.
Tiny, Simple and Cute. A bit of a handful to fly as it's very pitch sensitive, but it sure is fun!
As for fuel burn, it is a bit more in SP than IRL. Much more with power multipliers, but far less than people complain about. 10x, though, is huge fuel burn and I would reduce it if possible. Flying as you would IRL, i.e., not flying around all the time at 100% RPM with the afterburner going helps a lot. Also, what player flies a build for even 10 mins, much less than 1:00 or 1:30 or 2 hrs? No one does. I hate unlimited fuel for all these reasons and wrote a whole screed on this a long ago.
Well, for your calculations, fuel density is 6.8 lbs/gal. Also, there’s a way to produce all the engine effects without burning fuel, try “powerMultiplier=0”, I don’t use exhaust effects in that way, so I’m not 100% sure, but that may be your solution. I don’t think this would be the way to fix your acceleration issue, though. Also, the autoroll issue is either weight or attach points not being symmetric. I often will place parts, mirror without attachments connected and manually attach both points just to make sure they’re symmetric. Even with all that I get asymmetric attachment points, but far fewer otherwise. To tweak, try deadweight as you say, a little bit farther out on the wing is as effective as a lot closer to the centerline.
Nice build, good functionality, interesting weapons. It does have a tiny bit of autoroll, but that is minimal. You used negative weights—yuck—next time you might try using the published weights, empty, plus the correct amount of fuel and loaded. The SP flight model actually does a good rendition of all those factors and yields some impressively good results. The turn rate is interesting...with weapons it’s slow, perhaps too slow, but when jettisoned, it’s really fast. I should check how many Gs it’s pulling, should be around 6, from what I remember. That’s realistic and good building. It does not bleed energy in high G turns as it should, which tells me you added drag back in but didn’t distribute it along the build, perhaps? But it is a cool build, different enough from the typical fast jet or airliner to get noticed, nice work!
@asteroidbook345 well, no I didn’t get to fly the Gooney Bird, I only got to fly on one. A few times. It was the embassy airplane at that time and I was just a kid.
Good inspiration. Back in 1974...? I was flying as a family member on the embassy plane from Chad to Spain when we stopped over at the Canary Islands. The Spanish AF had parked a Mirage F1 in the ramp next to our VC-47 and I remember vividly walking around the jet enthralled by that jet, all pointy and as perfect a looking fighter as ever was. I also like this vid of a little F1 low flying action...
A swing wing Mystère?!? How ludicrously fun!