I kike the bulld and would really love to upvote it. Unfortunately it flies pretty sluggish for a speed bomber and lands even worse. I'm keeping my eye out for the updates version
Update: I found a decent workaround by just counting the number of 'ticks' the program makes in the first second(s) of running:
In the variable settings popup, add a variable FPS and definitely it as FPS= Time<1?FPS+1:FPS
Then we can use the time frame to somewhat accurately model the distance travelled or the total number of engine rotations by adding the new value divided by the frames per second
Long story short: upvotes are a popularity game. Most planes get drones out by the sheer number of new entries. The way you get noticed and eventually get upvotes is by having lots of followers that see your plane in their Jet Stream or having a sponsor with more points than you highlighting your plane so their followers will see it too. It took me the better part of a year to get some kind of 'traction' that resulted in upvotes and points.
The best way -in my experience- to get noticed is to participate in lots of Challenges. By nature everyone participating in a challenge regularly checks all the other entries, so you will at least get looked at by a small number of people, but still more than would notice your plane if you just posted it in the general pool.
The 250 mph landing speed needs some adjustments. The first thing I did on my download was to install flaps and air brakes. Other than that, it's a really nice build
So the propellers are dummies slowly turning on a rotator. Then you have a jet engine hidden in the fuselage for thrust and a turboprop engine without a prop to make the right sound? And the craziest thing is.... It actually flies real well....
Congratulations @Lemoncat for building the winning entry and @FuzzyAircraftProductions and @42 for the runners-up. Upvotes will be distributed within the next hours
Also set your calendar for the rematch next December.
1) look and feel: Perfect. You aimed for a diecast toy plane. You got one. The two-part fuselage comes out very well. Extra for the little details like the 'screw' in the bottom and the *Made in China *label next to it
2) Construction Solid. nothing fancy or delicate but it does the job, quite well actually.
3) Flyability Solid. Flies generally without vices and lands quite easily, even without flaps, once you find the right power settings.... And get used to not having a vertical stabilizer.
Overall verdict: looks like a diecast plane, flies like one. This one had a good shot at becoming the winner of tht challenge. Unfortunately there was one entry that did everything just a little better. Overall ranking:
1) look and feel: Exactly what one would imagine a 10 piece Lego plane to look like
2) Construction Solid. Nice simulation of what a Lego plane should look like.
3) Flyability Fair. It doesn't have landing gear so you have to spawn it in the air and you can't land. That being said, it flies real nice and one should definitely consider downloading this plane and saving it for use as AI air traffic.
Overall verdict: Nice Lego plane to have around. A bit simple for a Christmas present, but definitely a toy. Overall ranking:
1) look and feel: Fair. A nice effort to simulate a rubber engine balsa plane. Although I would have wished the rubber engine to be more visible and also for a plane named 'Spitfire' to have at least a wing reminiscent of the original.
2) Construction Solid.
3) Flyability Slightly Minus. Even with fuel capacity enhanced to have something like 30 seconds of engine time, the plane has a pretty hight landing speed for a construction without flaps or air brakes. Flying it is definitely a challenge. Overall verdict: Still a nice toy plane. I hope you or someone else will take this and develop it further. Overall ranking:
Dark horse contestant with possibilities. Congratulations!
1) look and feel: Perfect. Just the stamped metal toy one would have seen in the 1950's. My only gripe is that for all the decals and paint, it should have at.least a black stripe on the front fuselage indicating a cockpit.
2) Construction Solid. Nothing fancy but nothing to grumble about either.
3) Flyability Good. A bit underpowered but otherwise a nice flyer.
Overall verdict: Superb! Imagine a vintage toy plane and this is what you get. Overall ranking:
1) look and feel: Fair.Definitly a plane older kids would love to build and paint but rather a craft project than a toy.
2) Construction Marvelous. Love the zany use of wings and fuselage pieces to make the plane look like a piece of plywood craft.
3) Flyability Fair. Due to the small prop the plane reacts a bit sluggish and with a top speed of 100 mph, you really can't do much overland flying. Still, it flies and I can see the kid who build this imagine flying one of the early prewar aircraft like the Bleriot or Sopwith pioneers
Overall verdict: Good: A nice reimagining of the idea of a toy airplane. Too bad a plane older kids would love to build and paint but rather a craft project than a toy. Overall ranking:
1) look and feel: good. Definitely a toy plane, although it looks more like something by Playmobil.ot Fisher-Price than by Lego.
2) Construction fair. The loading ramp feels a little simple compared to the rest and its activation by the VTOL slider instead of -let's say Activate1- honestly feels a little cheap.
3) Flyability Fair. The engines are overpowering, giving the plane a top speed of 1000+ mph but also guzzling fuel. Landing speed is pretty high too
Overall verdict: A nice plastic toy plane kids would love to play with. Too bad for the high speeds flying. Overall ranking:
1) look and feel: Perfect. This is a Lego toy.
2) Construction Perfect: nice imitation of the Lego construction.
3) Flyability slightly subpar. Tends to flip over when landing on water.
Overall verdict: Nice Lego plane. Too bad it's so hard to land Overall ranking:
1) look and feel: Perfect. Definitely a toy plane
2) Construction slightly minus. The rudders and ailerons tend to stick out of the wings when turning.
3) Flyability Fair. Really oversteers on the ailerons. High landing speed and tendency to flip over when braking too hard.
Overall verdict: Surprisingly simple neat little toy plane. However it should have been called Plastic Toy Plane because that is how it looks in its color scheme Overall ranking:
Love the artwork, but honestly: the plane is built to 'counter them (the jets) in their speed advantage.' and it only makes 300 mph? I have seen simpler prop planes do 700...
@nwa too bad. I was about to convert it to my standard layout of VTOL down=flaps, VTOL up = VTOL nozzles, and make tht nozzles turn backwards 20° for braking. Guess I will have to post my own plane now.
There has been a post about this on propeller effectiveness and apparently the most effective way to increase propeller performance is to increase the diameter, then to increase the number of blades, then on a distant third place, to increase the thickness. So yes, propeller thickness does help with performance but not so much that you should consider making your plane look ugly by giving it an impossibly thick prop. Just play with the thickness to make your prop look believable and esthetic and don't worry too much about performance
That being said, there is a whole science on making props extremely short and extremely thin to simulate the screws on ships. But then again this is purely esthetic also since props don't work under water.
Ps, it flies better when you delete the fuel in the wings and instead add one fuel tank under the engine. One 20 gal.tank is enough. Just to.get the center of gravity down
Nice design. Love the use of two 'intakes' in the engine exhaust. However what's the deal with the brake on the ailerons? You should put the brake on the flaps instead and change the direction so that on braking the inner flaps move down and the outer flaps move up.
Ps, I noticed that the right wheel is set a bit further after than the left. If you are a purist, feel free to give both wheels an equal z-value directly upon downloading.
I love it... As a design. Unfortunately it is almost twice as big as the original (Wikipedia says the wingspan of a real life Ki-61 is 39 ft) and a tad slow for a WWII fighter as well.
@SimplyElegant: took the liberty to improve a little on the flying characteristics. Uploaded the plane as 'private'because I don't want to ride on your laurels. So take a look and do with it what you want.
@TheBoeingPerson It's a side effect of the 'map' function in the view menu (the tip left button after clicking the eye on the main menu). Originally it was designed to show blueprints behind your plane to help building scale models. However you can also post screenshots of your plane in flight and use that as a background when taking your images while uploading.
I saw you changed the 'brakeTorque' on the wheels from 50 to 5. Does that really help keeping the plane from rolling over when braking? Or did you use some other design trick like placing the wheels way forward of tht center of gravity?
I would wish a camera on the driver's seat and steering set to 'roll' (right hand joystick) rather than 'Yaw' (left hand) but I stand in awe at the look of this thing, with barely 100 pieces.
Oh, damn you, autocorrect. The one time you rely on it flagging a typo, it stays quiet. Yes, I meant I LIKE the build, but it still needs some tweaks.
I apologize for any racial slurs I posted. It was definitely not my intention.
I kike the bulld and would really love to upvote it. Unfortunately it flies pretty sluggish for a speed bomber and lands even worse. I'm keeping my eye out for the updates version
I'm right now trying to make a video explaining custom steering wheels, and I put my driver and wheel on the left side, just out of habit.
+1Nice details, as ever. And a very British right-side steering.
+1I actually built the same airplane one year ago. Yours has by far the better engine and other details, and it flies easier as well. Congratulations
+1Update: I found a decent workaround by just counting the number of 'ticks' the program makes in the first second(s) of running:
In the variable settings popup, add a variable FPS and definitely it as
FPS= Time<1?FPS+1:FPS
Then we can use the time frame to somewhat accurately model the distance travelled or the total number of engine rotations by adding the new value divided by the frames per second
Wonderful plane, especially for 96 parts. My only gripe so far is that it does not use actual wing rotation to simulate the wing warping.
+1Long story short: upvotes are a popularity game. Most planes get drones out by the sheer number of new entries. The way you get noticed and eventually get upvotes is by having lots of followers that see your plane in their Jet Stream or having a sponsor with more points than you highlighting your plane so their followers will see it too. It took me the better part of a year to get some kind of 'traction' that resulted in upvotes and points.
The best way -in my experience- to get noticed is to participate in lots of Challenges. By nature everyone participating in a challenge regularly checks all the other entries, so you will at least get looked at by a small number of people, but still more than would notice your plane if you just posted it in the general pool.
The 250 mph landing speed needs some adjustments. The first thing I did on my download was to install flaps and air brakes. Other than that, it's a really nice build
+1Great. We have our share of PEA WWII aircraft to use as AI target practice already. Time we get some nice WWI aircraft that Aren't Fokker Triplanes
So the propellers are dummies slowly turning on a rotator. Then you have a jet engine hidden in the fuselage for thrust and a turboprop engine without a prop to make the right sound? And the craziest thing is.... It actually flies real well....
Actually a pretty nice flyer for 77 parts. Would have wished some decals though.
+1Congratulations @Lemoncat for building the winning entry and @FuzzyAircraftProductions and @42 for the runners-up. Upvotes will be distributed within the next hours
Also set your calendar for the rematch next December.
Grading:
1) look and feel: Perfect. You aimed for a diecast toy plane. You got one. The two-part fuselage comes out very well. Extra for the little details like the 'screw' in the bottom and the *Made in China *label next to it
2) Construction Solid. nothing fancy or delicate but it does the job, quite well actually.
3) Flyability Solid. Flies generally without vices and lands quite easily, even without flaps, once you find the right power settings.... And get used to not having a vertical stabilizer.
Overall verdict: looks like a diecast plane, flies like one. This one had a good shot at becoming the winner of tht challenge. Unfortunately there was one entry that did everything just a little better.
Overall ranking:
Runner-up. Congratulations!
Grading:
1) look and feel: Exactly what one would imagine a 10 piece Lego plane to look like
2) Construction Solid. Nice simulation of what a Lego plane should look like.
3) Flyability Fair. It doesn't have landing gear so you have to spawn it in the air and you can't land. That being said, it flies real nice and one should definitely consider downloading this plane and saving it for use as AI air traffic.
Overall verdict: Nice Lego plane to have around. A bit simple for a Christmas present, but definitely a toy.
Overall ranking:
Dark horse with possibilities. Congratulations!
Grading:
1) look and feel: Fair. A nice effort to simulate a rubber engine balsa plane. Although I would have wished the rubber engine to be more visible and also for a plane named 'Spitfire' to have at least a wing reminiscent of the original.
2) Construction Solid.
3) Flyability Slightly Minus. Even with fuel capacity enhanced to have something like 30 seconds of engine time, the plane has a pretty hight landing speed for a construction without flaps or air brakes. Flying it is definitely a challenge.
Overall verdict: Still a nice toy plane. I hope you or someone else will take this and develop it further.
Overall ranking:
Dark horse contestant with possibilities. Congratulations!
Grading:
1) look and feel: Perfect. Just the stamped metal toy one would have seen in the 1950's. My only gripe is that for all the decals and paint, it should have at.least a black stripe on the front fuselage indicating a cockpit.
2) Construction Solid. Nothing fancy but nothing to grumble about either.
3) Flyability Good. A bit underpowered but otherwise a nice flyer.
Overall verdict: Superb! Imagine a vintage toy plane and this is what you get.
Overall ranking:
WINNER. Congratulations!
Grading:
1) look and feel: Fair.Definitly a plane older kids would love to build and paint but rather a craft project than a toy.
2) Construction Marvelous. Love the zany use of wings and fuselage pieces to make the plane look like a piece of plywood craft.
3) Flyability Fair. Due to the small prop the plane reacts a bit sluggish and with a top speed of 100 mph, you really can't do much overland flying. Still, it flies and I can see the kid who build this imagine flying one of the early prewar aircraft like the Bleriot or Sopwith pioneers
Overall verdict: Good: A nice reimagining of the idea of a toy airplane. Too bad a plane older kids would love to build and paint but rather a craft project than a toy.
Overall ranking:
Worthy Contestant. Congratulations!
Grading:
1) look and feel: good. Definitely a toy plane, although it looks more like something by Playmobil.ot Fisher-Price than by Lego.
2) Construction fair. The loading ramp feels a little simple compared to the rest and its activation by the VTOL slider instead of -let's say Activate1- honestly feels a little cheap.
3) Flyability Fair. The engines are overpowering, giving the plane a top speed of 1000+ mph but also guzzling fuel. Landing speed is pretty high too
Overall verdict: A nice plastic toy plane kids would love to play with. Too bad for the high speeds flying.
Overall ranking:
Worthy Contestant. Congratulations
Grading:
1) look and feel: Perfect. This is a Lego toy.
2) Construction Perfect: nice imitation of the Lego construction.
3) Flyability slightly subpar. Tends to flip over when landing on water.
Overall verdict: Nice Lego plane. Too bad it's so hard to land
Overall ranking:
worthy contestant: congratulations!
Grading:
1) look and feel: Perfect. Definitely a toy plane
2) Construction slightly minus. The rudders and ailerons tend to stick out of the wings when turning.
3) Flyability Fair. Really oversteers on the ailerons. High landing speed and tendency to flip over when braking too hard.
Overall verdict: Surprisingly simple neat little toy plane. However it should have been called Plastic Toy Plane because that is how it looks in its color scheme
Overall ranking:
Runner-up. Congratulations!
December 26th. Thank you all for the wonderful toy airplanes. Currently grading all the entries. Wil announce the winners shortly
Congratulations on hitting 4000. Already awaiting your special build for when you reach 5000
Wings need to be moved back a bit to get a better center of lift, but otherwise I like this craft
Actually flies pretty well. Congratulations
+1Ps, if you use a flight controller, it has to be mounted on the floor with all four tabs facing downwards. Otherwise it will mess up your chase view.
+1Love the artwork, but honestly: the plane is built to 'counter them (the jets) in their speed advantage.' and it only makes 300 mph? I have seen simpler prop planes do 700...
@nwa too bad. I was about to convert it to my standard layout of VTOL down=flaps, VTOL up = VTOL nozzles, and make tht nozzles turn backwards 20° for braking. Guess I will have to post my own plane now.
+1There has been a post about this on propeller effectiveness and apparently the most effective way to increase propeller performance is to increase the diameter, then to increase the number of blades, then on a distant third place, to increase the thickness. So yes, propeller thickness does help with performance but not so much that you should consider making your plane look ugly by giving it an impossibly thick prop. Just play with the thickness to make your prop look believable and esthetic and don't worry too much about performance
That being said, there is a whole science on making props extremely short and extremely thin to simulate the screws on ships. But then again this is purely esthetic also since props don't work under water.
+1Ps, it flies better when you delete the fuel in the wings and instead add one fuel tank under the engine. One 20 gal.tank is enough. Just to.get the center of gravity down
Ever thought of using a gyroscope, not for steering, but just for stabilizing?
Nice design. Love the use of two 'intakes' in the engine exhaust. However what's the deal with the brake on the ailerons? You should put the brake on the flaps instead and change the direction so that on braking the inner flaps move down and the outer flaps move up.
Ps, I noticed that the right wheel is set a bit further after than the left. If you are a purist, feel free to give both wheels an equal z-value directly upon downloading.
@Hooha12 ok. So your build DOES deserve my upvote
I love it... As a design. Unfortunately it is almost twice as big as the original (Wikipedia says the wingspan of a real life Ki-61 is 39 ft) and a tad slow for a WWII fighter as well.
Don't know why you are using fixed pitch, but it looks great.
@SimplyElegant ok. Got it deleted. I swear I thought I posted it as private
@SimplyElegant: took the liberty to improve a little on the flying characteristics. Uploaded the plane as 'private'because I don't want to ride on your laurels. So take a look and do with it what you want.
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/q9EiWx/SimplyElegant-Island-Hopper-Reworked
@Hooha12 interesting choice.
So this aircraft has basically two sets of wings and stabilos on top of each other? One blue and one gray?
+1@IRISHAEROSPACEGROUP yea, I told you I would make a cockpit and cargo space.
@IRISHAEROSPACEGROUP hold off in upvoting the plane yet..a version with VR cockpit and cargo doors is coming up in a couple of days
Aww... Sh't. My half-finshed project won by virtue of its paint job....
(Honestly, I can't find no other reason)
@TheBoeingPerson It's a side effect of the 'map' function in the view menu (the tip left button after clicking the eye on the main menu). Originally it was designed to show blueprints behind your plane to help building scale models. However you can also post screenshots of your plane in flight and use that as a background when taking your images while uploading.
This video explains it all in detail
I saw you changed the 'brakeTorque' on the wheels from 50 to 5. Does that really help keeping the plane from rolling over when braking? Or did you use some other design trick like placing the wheels way forward of tht center of gravity?
+2Doors that fall off included?
+1I would wish a camera on the driver's seat and steering set to 'roll' (right hand joystick) rather than 'Yaw' (left hand) but I stand in awe at the look of this thing, with barely 100 pieces.
Looks more like a Playmobil plane to me, but has a nice Playability.
Any plans to build one in SP?
+2@QuesoAirlines yes, I recall those: "The flying car, next year in your garage?"... They were showing articles like that at least since 1950.
+1