Usually, an airplane only "turns" in one direction: up. Pitch-up actually, the plane can also pitch down but usually that's much much slower. The whole body of the plane is designed to give it lift, and you take advantage of that to pitch up, you have to fight it to pitch down.
So when a plane can hold a tight turn, what that really means is that it can pitch up very sharply and hold it.
Imagine a plane hanging from a rope tied around the wings. That rope is the center of lift, it holds up the plane. Lift works a lot like friction, it transforms speed into an upward pulling force, but it also slows the plane down. You want the mass of the plane, the heaviest part, in front of that friction because as soon as you start moving that weight is going to try to push its way to the front.
The further forward you put the center of mass, the more stable the plane will be, but the heavier the nose gets, the harder it is to pull up. A stable plane with a heavy nose can barely turn at all, and it won't want to pitch up very much at all. So for the sake of maneuverability, keep the mass ahead of the center of lift, but not too far.
@ThunderscreechEngineering Yes, that will be a positively silly amount of pollies devoted to text, or it will mess with the contours. Sometimes people get away with it, tho. The F14 that holds 1rst place this month has a card decal that sits almost a full block off the fuselage at one end, but its such a good build that no one cares.
@JangoTheMango The best solution I've come up with so far is to break the letters/insignia/whatever into tiny pieces and arrange each piece to match the curvature of the surface as closely as possible. It is incredibly time consuming and it adds a tremendous amount of polygons to the build making it very unfriendly for mobile users. The only time I used that method was on my A/B-26 Invader notice the red lettering on the waist is actually hundreds of tiny blocks.
@Strikefighter04 With regard to the suicide attack, this was a serious problem for interceptor pilots from the mid 40's up untill guided missiles became reliable: too much speed. An ME-262 going head to head with a B-24 has a closing speed of over 700 miles an hour. The guns only have an effective range of a few hundred meters, and that distance gets crossed in less than a second. Even from behind, the Messerschmitt will over shoot the Libby by over 200mph, that's not a lot of time to line up a good shot and pull away!
@Colonel1J2R3Wolf So if the gyro is turned off, and you're flying striaght up when it turns on, it will automatically pull itself to the maximum pitch/roll? And what are all the other settings?
Nice list! The TU-144 benefitted from a bit of industrial espionage, giving the Russians an edge in terms of R&D but in their haste to be "first" the accelerated development meant less time to perfect the production run. The result? Constant midiar system failures and an abysmal safety record. It's a shame, a little more time and they'd have had a real world-winner.
@Megaplanesinc Yes, that's possible. Just as it's possible with normal planes. But think about it this way: how often do you accidentally crash into the water? What if every single time that happened, the game crashed? What if it crashed even more often than that?
I think you'd be better served using wind to power this idea.
Negative friction is not so good for the game because unlike thrust, it doesn't have a top speed. In other words, you continue to accelerate until the game crashes.
@Ilikepotatos Lemme put it this way: my planes don't suck but I haven't been able to make a decent helicopter. The key to making a good chopper in this game is gyroscopes, but I haven't really figured out all the gyroscope settings yet.
@Freerider2142 Yeah, I've been planning out a starship type of craft for some time. If you set a turbojet to 2000x strength but only .01 max throttle input, you should be able to get something that is silently reminscent of a microwarpdrive. Then adding an airbrake with a max value of 5000 should be able to instantly bring the ship to a full stop at any speed.
The F-82? Yeah, but I don't know why they bothered, the P-47N had longer range. I guess 4 eyes are better than 2. It would seem that the second pilot could operate a radar set, so this is what replaced the P-61 for all-weather interception.
@ThePilotDude Yup, takeoff and landing were the worst times. I mean, it always is with any aircraft. But with those 50's jets it was worse because the wings were designed for high speed and didn't have all the fancy slats and swing wings and BLCS and other tricks we use nowadays to make jets easier to control at low speed.
@Othawne Thanks
@Othawne In some ways, she kind of reminds me of your car. Simple, not flashy, but with a shark-like sleekness.
@Othawne Well, she's just about perfect looking, great work.
Finland!
Very beautiful
Oh this is gorgeousness and gorgeousity!
@Awsomur almost
Why not shrink it down to 1:1 scale?
@ACMECo1940 An interesting idea
5
Usually, an airplane only "turns" in one direction: up. Pitch-up actually, the plane can also pitch down but usually that's much much slower. The whole body of the plane is designed to give it lift, and you take advantage of that to pitch up, you have to fight it to pitch down.
So when a plane can hold a tight turn, what that really means is that it can pitch up very sharply and hold it.
Imagine a plane hanging from a rope tied around the wings. That rope is the center of lift, it holds up the plane. Lift works a lot like friction, it transforms speed into an upward pulling force, but it also slows the plane down. You want the mass of the plane, the heaviest part, in front of that friction because as soon as you start moving that weight is going to try to push its way to the front.
The further forward you put the center of mass, the more stable the plane will be, but the heavier the nose gets, the harder it is to pull up. A stable plane with a heavy nose can barely turn at all, and it won't want to pitch up very much at all. So for the sake of maneuverability, keep the mass ahead of the center of lift, but not too far.
@marcox43 I knew they experimented with light sensors, but had no idea it was for that purpose. Very interesting
@ThunderscreechEngineering Yes, that will be a positively silly amount of pollies devoted to text, or it will mess with the contours. Sometimes people get away with it, tho. The F14 that holds 1rst place this month has a card decal that sits almost a full block off the fuselage at one end, but its such a good build that no one cares.
@RailfanEthan Hmmmm. I'm stumped.
@JangoTheMango The best solution I've come up with so far is to break the letters/insignia/whatever into tiny pieces and arrange each piece to match the curvature of the surface as closely as possible. It is incredibly time consuming and it adds a tremendous amount of polygons to the build making it very unfriendly for mobile users. The only time I used that method was on my A/B-26 Invader notice the red lettering on the waist is actually hundreds of tiny blocks.
@InternationalAircraftCompany RARARARARWARTHUNDERNOTATRUESIM
RARARARARARADCS
RARARASTURMOVIKRARARARARA
Is that about right?
@BaconRoll I forgot about nudge sensitivity! Thanks
@CRJ900Pilot @Maxwell1 @EliteArsenals24 Thanks for the support, fellas
@jamesPLANESii Yeah, that'll have to be the way for the stripe and the wing letters.
This looks awesome! I love how sleek you made her. I'm working on her sister "Black Magic"
@PlanesOfOld Yeah, SP has come a long way, and so have your planes!
@Strikefighter04 With regard to the suicide attack, this was a serious problem for interceptor pilots from the mid 40's up untill guided missiles became reliable: too much speed. An ME-262 going head to head with a B-24 has a closing speed of over 700 miles an hour. The guns only have an effective range of a few hundred meters, and that distance gets crossed in less than a second. Even from behind, the Messerschmitt will over shoot the Libby by over 200mph, that's not a lot of time to line up a good shot and pull away!
I really like the camo design!
@Freerider2142 Don't be sorry, posts like that are what forums were intended for.
@Colonel1J2R3Wolf So if the gyro is turned off, and you're flying striaght up when it turns on, it will automatically pull itself to the maximum pitch/roll? And what are all the other settings?
I would say ~ 2.031 oodles give or take .001 bits.
@jamesPLANESii Frankly, I haven't heard anything about the copilot. I am sure they deserve some credit, though.
@Megaplanesinc It's your choice, dude. I'm just sharing what I know.
@Megaplanesinc "beefy ipad"
lol
@Botfinder Navy actually. The Airforce wouldn't take her, their loss, lol.
Nice list! The TU-144 benefitted from a bit of industrial espionage, giving the Russians an edge in terms of R&D but in their haste to be "first" the accelerated development meant less time to perfect the production run. The result? Constant midiar system failures and an abysmal safety record. It's a shame, a little more time and they'd have had a real world-winner.
@Megaplanesinc Yes, that's possible. Just as it's possible with normal planes. But think about it this way: how often do you accidentally crash into the water? What if every single time that happened, the game crashed? What if it crashed even more often than that?
I think you'd be better served using wind to power this idea.
Negative friction is not so good for the game because unlike thrust, it doesn't have a top speed. In other words, you continue to accelerate until the game crashes.
@Ilikepotatos Lemme put it this way: my planes don't suck but I haven't been able to make a decent helicopter. The key to making a good chopper in this game is gyroscopes, but I haven't really figured out all the gyroscope settings yet.
Helicopters are very challenging. You should try, but don't be too hard on yourself if it doesn't come together as easily as your other aircraft.
@Freerider2142 Well, it's good to hear that the warm feeling in your heart isn't the result of coronary disease or some sort of microwave weapon.
You're frontpage-famous now!
@Freerider2142 Yeah, I've been planning out a starship type of craft for some time. If you set a turbojet to 2000x strength but only .01 max throttle input, you should be able to get something that is silently reminscent of a microwarpdrive. Then adding an airbrake with a max value of 5000 should be able to instantly bring the ship to a full stop at any speed.
Since it is a warpdrive capable starship, you could be excused for making it accelerate and stop unnaturally fast...
@Saikanadian Good man
The link! It's dead, Jim.
It crashes the game if you touch water, it also crashes the game if you aren't careful about limiting your maximum speed somehow.
@PhantomBladeCorp Stalin mostly just beat up on his own dudes, but I can see your point.
Wait. Why would the airforce need a snorkle?
@WaffleCakes Awwwww shhhhhh... shoot. Thats awesome. Thank you very much!
@WaffleCakes Quadruple Apache, actually. The Mustang ran on Merlins, the P-38 and the Apache both had crummy old Allison V-12's.
@Chancey21 I was just thinking that!
The yellow ball needs to be the same height as(or slightly below) the red ball.
The red ball needs to be in front of the blue ball.
The easiest way to make it work is to keep the wings as far back as possible and the nose relatively heavy. But dont overdo it.
The F-82? Yeah, but I don't know why they bothered, the P-47N had longer range. I guess 4 eyes are better than 2. It would seem that the second pilot could operate a radar set, so this is what replaced the P-61 for all-weather interception.
@ThePilotDude Yup, takeoff and landing were the worst times. I mean, it always is with any aircraft. But with those 50's jets it was worse because the wings were designed for high speed and didn't have all the fancy slats and swing wings and BLCS and other tricks we use nowadays to make jets easier to control at low speed.