Ps, currently I am moving the rotor for-and backwards to find the spot where I can at least take off with the helicopter without it immediately flipping tail up or tail down. It is something in the range of z being between 3.3 and 3.4 once I found a good enough spot, I will turn on the gyro again and see how low I can set the values of gyroscopic speed and stability and still have a smooth flying heli with minimal control input just to keep it flying straight
Still fine-tuning the settings but already some findings after the first 5 minutes:
1) in the editor, you rotated the rotor 70° to the side. Which makes the pitch input work as 1/3 pitch and 2/3 roll and the roll input as 1/3 roll and 2/3 pitch. Just set it to zero and try again. It will make an immediate difference.
2) you seem to have put 1000lbs of dead weight on all the fuselage pieces. Not only makes this your helicopter obesely overweight, it also makes him completely tail heavy. If you click every fuselage block and set the 'dead weight' back to zero, flying, at least taking off will be a lot easier
3) for the gyroscope, gyroscopic speed and stability of 1000% is overkill. The aim of a design should be that even an inherently unstable design like a helicopter should be able to function with minimal gyroscope settings. Pitch Range, roll range and yaw power should ideally be set to zero as they make the gyroscope take over tht pitch, roll and yaw instead of the aerodynamic or rotor controls. They are handy for something like floating airbases or hover bikes, but shouldn't really be used in planes and helicopters. That is my personal opinion. However setting the yaw range and pitch range to 180° basically enabled you to flip your helicopter on its back while parked with engine shut down. If you use roll and pitch range, values of 30-45° are the most common design, even for hoverbikes.
@LettuceRob119 my first thought would be something like a French Sud-Est Vautour, but I decide to stretch the limits and go for something like a British Acro Vulcan as reimagined by German engineers
The elegant solution: increase the range of the two landing gear rotators from 90 to 135° the landing gear will no longer end up one over tht other and competing for space.
@YuYsukablyat that's between about 500 and 650 mph. Good to know. My idea was to make a potent 2-seat trainer and transform it into a 1-seat light ground attack craft with the space for the second seat used for a cannon and bomb bay
Congratulations. Your plane was the best entry in my Mr. Coats wants a ride challenge... Or rather the only flyable out of the 3 entries. By the rules of the game that should give you 10 upvotes. So I upvoted the 10 most interesting planes out of your arsenal. With this you are but one plane away from reaching silver. Congratulations
20 years of continuing improvements. The original F-18a came into service in the early 1980's. The super hornet in the mid-2000's.
Over that time there were lots of components that just got better, chiefly everything with a computer in it.
It also got stronger engines to carry more payload.
And if you see them side by side, due to the new engines, the Super Hornet has square air intakes. The 1980's model nas rounded ones.
1) front wheel works perfectly. Only that it buries itself in the fuselage. Either diminish the rotation range of the rotator or open the two fuselage blocks the wheel touches in the overload Editor and set the :DisableAircraftCollisions value from 'false' to 'true'
2 For the rear wheels, disconnect all and then reconnect, the rotator, the top arrow to the fuselage, the bottom arrow to the gear.
@AviVr yea. That's how SimplePlanes is. I am not saying you did anything wrong with 'taking a right-handed approach'. I know a couple of fellow builders who love it that way and go great lengths to defend their views. If I would wish you did something different, it would be that you would note it in the description. That's all.
And yes, I spend almost as much time testing and tweaking as I spend building. That's SimplePlanes for you....
Ps: left slider is Trim, right slider is VTOL. I know there is some discussion whether this is more intuitive than the regular SimplePlanes lauout. But this plane does it. So either fly around a.littlw until you get used to it or reverse the input for your own custom plane.
@MIGFOXHOUND31BSM26 that's the beauty of SimplePlanes. You can crash as often as you want and just reload and try again. Plus the jet fuel doesn't dissolve your skin on contact like the C-Stoff reagent of the Me-163 did.
Update: downloading the aircraft again for some test flights, I found that the left and right nozzles are slightly off and also too far back. If you have this plane downloaded, consider changing the position of the nozzles from z=0.50 to z=0.65
Two quickies to improve the plane yourself:
1) The center of lift could benefit from being moved way forward towards the center of gravity. Move the wings a good deal forwards.
2) likewise with the wings so far back the pitch response is better if you invert the pitch surfaces on the wings from moving against the stabilizer to moving in the same direction.
Ps @Supersoli8, @TOMAIR0808, you upvoted before I wrote the explanation behind the craft. Please read WHY I made this and decide if you still want to keep your upvote. I won't blame you if you remove it.
So what is the problem with the bomb bay? I see you haven't added any rotators, hinge rotators or even pistons. So do you want it to rotate in, out, slide forward, slide down? And what is the problem so far other than that you haven't started yet?
First reaction, has nothing to do with the bay doors but... You are using a flight computer. In order for it to work properly, all 4 of its tabs must be facing downwards. If not, it messea up your Chase View. I know,.SimplePlanes doesn't document this properly, but it's basically a flat cockpit. If you mount it against to wall, it's the same as a cockpit pointing upwards
I use blueprints for all my historical builds. They do not shape a fuselage, but they provide an image behind your build that you can use to give your fuselage (and wings) the right shape.
(Ps, I gotten into the habit when I download a plan from the Internet to first actually color it blue so it is easier to distinguish the background from the fuselage pieces you work on)
Also you can use them to project a background image of your planes flying right behind your plane so this will show up in your screenshot of the plane when you publish it.
@Karsond I would prefer that you can see at least part of him. The idea of the challenge is to show him showing off his plane (car, boat, rocket tank.....)
I ran I to that problem a couple of times. You used a hollow fuselage for your top block. Hollow fuselages are very picky to where you attach your pistons or rotators. Basically their front and back attachment points don't work. You have to connect your rotators to the arrow that is sticking out of the side of the hollow fuselage, not to the one at the end. Once I did this, I got it to work.
!here's the picture
Can I request a flying crane version? For a helicopter that looks like something from the 1960's Soviet Union, that's exactly what they would have done with it too.
@Kingsman472 me too, but it's pretty hard to get a helicopter to fly decently without one, even if you don't use he gyroscope for steering and keep it just for stabilization. My helicopters always oversteer without one.
The flight computer has to be rotated. In the placement editor it's rotation needs to say: 0° x-axis, 0° y-axis, 0° z-axis, otherwise the chase view is messed up.
Once this was taken care of, it's a pretty nice plane and a surprisingly nice flyer. Mr Coats approves
Not bad for 46 parts, and it is a pleasure to fly as well. I do have some suggestions for improvements, primarily to make the tail wheel steerable for better taxiing. But I'm not here to criticize. I just enjoy flying the.plane too much
Before you publish this for good, consider uploading an updated version with cameras in the cockpit.
Ps, currently I am moving the rotor for-and backwards to find the spot where I can at least take off with the helicopter without it immediately flipping tail up or tail down. It is something in the range of z being between 3.3 and 3.4 once I found a good enough spot, I will turn on the gyro again and see how low I can set the values of gyroscopic speed and stability and still have a smooth flying heli with minimal control input just to keep it flying straight
Still fine-tuning the settings but already some findings after the first 5 minutes:
1) in the editor, you rotated the rotor 70° to the side. Which makes the pitch input work as 1/3 pitch and 2/3 roll and the roll input as 1/3 roll and 2/3 pitch. Just set it to zero and try again. It will make an immediate difference.
2) you seem to have put 1000lbs of dead weight on all the fuselage pieces. Not only makes this your helicopter obesely overweight, it also makes him completely tail heavy. If you click every fuselage block and set the 'dead weight' back to zero, flying, at least taking off will be a lot easier
3) for the gyroscope, gyroscopic speed and stability of 1000% is overkill. The aim of a design should be that even an inherently unstable design like a helicopter should be able to function with minimal gyroscope settings. Pitch Range, roll range and yaw power should ideally be set to zero as they make the gyroscope take over tht pitch, roll and yaw instead of the aerodynamic or rotor controls. They are handy for something like floating airbases or hover bikes, but shouldn't really be used in planes and helicopters. That is my personal opinion. However setting the yaw range and pitch range to 180° basically enabled you to flip your helicopter on its back while parked with engine shut down. If you use roll and pitch range, values of 30-45° are the most common design, even for hoverbikes.
You deserve one upvote for the paint job alone.
And congratulations on making 1000 points
Actually it's just me reaching myself video editing on my phone.
@LettuceRob119 my first thought would be something like a French Sud-Est Vautour, but I decide to stretch the limits and go for something like a British Acro Vulcan as reimagined by German engineers
What's the matter with it?
@ThomasRoderik, @TemporaryReplacement : There is a new version of this airplane with an upgraded cockpit and lots of labels to finish the paint job
@dbqp no, sorry. Only the ones from the company website. I filled in the blanks with drawings from the 1929 airplane I got through Wikipedia
The elegant solution: increase the range of the two landing gear rotators from 90 to 135° the landing gear will no longer end up one over tht other and competing for space.
@YuYsukablyat that's between about 500 and 650 mph. Good to know. My idea was to make a potent 2-seat trainer and transform it into a 1-seat light ground attack craft with the space for the second seat used for a cannon and bomb bay
So what is the top speed you need to go transonic?
Love the details.
Congratulations. Your plane was the best entry in my Mr. Coats wants a ride challenge... Or rather the only flyable out of the 3 entries. By the rules of the game that should give you 10 upvotes. So I upvoted the 10 most interesting planes out of your arsenal. With this you are but one plane away from reaching silver. Congratulations
Congratulations @Mineglacier7251yt . Your plane won the first place. Runners-up are @Supersoli8 and @Imakestupidplanes
Keep on it. It took me one year to get to silver. One year later I made Gold.
20 years of continuing improvements. The original F-18a came into service in the early 1980's. The super hornet in the mid-2000's.
Over that time there were lots of components that just got better, chiefly everything with a computer in it.
It also got stronger engines to carry more payload.
And if you see them side by side, due to the new engines, the Super Hornet has square air intakes. The 1980's model nas rounded ones.
@Halcyon215 still allow me to build a simple pioneer aircraft around my detailed pioneer engine. If you don't like it, you can always delete it.
I kept thinking, how do you use 600 pieces in a smooth shape like this, then I saw the cockpit.....
You mean just a dummy engine to be used as a fancy visual in a boat or airplane?
1) front wheel works perfectly. Only that it buries itself in the fuselage. Either diminish the rotation range of the rotator or open the two fuselage blocks the wheel touches in the overload Editor and set the :DisableAircraftCollisions value from 'false' to 'true'
2 For the rear wheels, disconnect all and then reconnect, the rotator, the top arrow to the fuselage, the bottom arrow to the gear.
That's all, honestly
@AviVr yea. That's how SimplePlanes is. I am not saying you did anything wrong with 'taking a right-handed approach'. I know a couple of fellow builders who love it that way and go great lengths to defend their views. If I would wish you did something different, it would be that you would note it in the description. That's all.
And yes, I spend almost as much time testing and tweaking as I spend building. That's SimplePlanes for you....
Ps: left slider is Trim, right slider is VTOL. I know there is some discussion whether this is more intuitive than the regular SimplePlanes lauout. But this plane does it. So either fly around a.littlw until you get used to it or reverse the input for your own custom plane.
@MIGFOXHOUND31BSM26 that's the beauty of SimplePlanes. You can crash as often as you want and just reload and try again. Plus the jet fuel doesn't dissolve your skin on contact like the C-Stoff reagent of the Me-163 did.
But otherwise, landing is actually pretty smooth
Update: downloading the aircraft again for some test flights, I found that the left and right nozzles are slightly off and also too far back. If you have this plane downloaded, consider changing the position of the nozzles from z=0.50 to z=0.65
Two quickies to improve the plane yourself:
1) The center of lift could benefit from being moved way forward towards the center of gravity. Move the wings a good deal forwards.
2) likewise with the wings so far back the pitch response is better if you invert the pitch surfaces on the wings from moving against the stabilizer to moving in the same direction.
Ps @Supersoli8, @TOMAIR0808, you upvoted before I wrote the explanation behind the craft. Please read WHY I made this and decide if you still want to keep your upvote. I won't blame you if you remove it.
@Supersoli8 no, it just uses the Mr.Coats figure and therefore it's flight computer became the standard cockpit
So what is the problem with the bomb bay? I see you haven't added any rotators, hinge rotators or even pistons. So do you want it to rotate in, out, slide forward, slide down? And what is the problem so far other than that you haven't started yet?
First reaction, has nothing to do with the bay doors but... You are using a flight computer. In order for it to work properly, all 4 of its tabs must be facing downwards. If not, it messea up your Chase View. I know,.SimplePlanes doesn't document this properly, but it's basically a flat cockpit. If you mount it against to wall, it's the same as a cockpit pointing upwards
Get her I to SimplePlanes... Mr Coats doesn't want to be the only one in there
I use blueprints for all my historical builds. They do not shape a fuselage, but they provide an image behind your build that you can use to give your fuselage (and wings) the right shape.
(Ps, I gotten into the habit when I download a plan from the Internet to first actually color it blue so it is easier to distinguish the background from the fuselage pieces you work on)
Also you can use them to project a background image of your planes flying right behind your plane so this will show up in your screenshot of the plane when you publish it.
No problem. Just post it anyway. As long as it runs halfway decent on a recent model smart phone it should be good
@Karsond I would prefer that you can see at least part of him. The idea of the challenge is to show him showing off his plane (car, boat, rocket tank.....)
I ran I to that problem a couple of times. You used a hollow fuselage for your top block. Hollow fuselages are very picky to where you attach your pistons or rotators. Basically their front and back attachment points don't work. You have to connect your rotators to the arrow that is sticking out of the side of the hollow fuselage, not to the one at the end. Once I did this, I got it to work.
!here's the picture
Love the way you used Mr. Coats' paint schemes for the whole plane
No problem. Posing is just taking the parts in the 'spanner tool' and moving and rotating it.
Ps, how did you get the label to display Cyrillic letters?
Can I request a flying crane version? For a helicopter that looks like something from the 1960's Soviet Union, that's exactly what they would have done with it too.
So if I get it right, the idea is to rebound the tutorial plane?
@Kingsman472 me too, but it's pretty hard to get a helicopter to fly decently without one, even if you don't use he gyroscope for steering and keep it just for stabilization. My helicopters always oversteer without one.
And you did all that without using a gyroscope?
Hahaha... Didn't think someone would take my suggestion of a parachute and a bottle rocket seriously. Nice job. Mr.Coats will live it
The flight computer has to be rotated. In the placement editor it's rotation needs to say: 0° x-axis, 0° y-axis, 0° z-axis, otherwise the chase view is messed up.
Once this was taken care of, it's a pretty nice plane and a surprisingly nice flyer. Mr Coats approves
Some issues with stability and the landing gear is too far aft for my taste. Still it has potential. Looking forwards to your next versions
@caid0ngming ok. So now you got to take the figure and build an airplane around it, or a kiddie car
Challenge accepted....
Have I ever... A 50 ft. 900 mph Canadian goose....
July 2 nd? Forgive me if I pass. By July 2nd I may be have detailed sketches of what I am about to build.
Not bad for 46 parts, and it is a pleasure to fly as well. I do have some suggestions for improvements, primarily to make the tail wheel steerable for better taxiing. But I'm not here to criticize. I just enjoy flying the.plane too much