Eek, my roots are showing! I forgot all about this thing. I was built long before I know about things like gyroscopes and nudging, and this is all about hinges and detaches.
The core plane/boat isn't so bad. I could do with a redesign. Invert the forward elevators (they're what's keeping it on the ground until 400 mph). Maybe put engines where those waxy bits of fuselage are in the back, nudge the hinges close to the body, hmm...
BTW check out DustyT33's Future Bird at https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/UiYpZa/The-Future-Bird. What I find interesting is the wing. I adjusted it a little, when when pusher to puller, and got something that can flap at close to 300 mph, and which can nearly produce enough lift to take off vertically. I think he might just be close to the next step in the evolution of the flapper.
@MDippold1995 That would be tough. Basically it would need to provide enough lift to overcome it's weight. I think that would require a wing on a shaper angle that could extend more on the down sweep.
There is a VTOL flapper that uses the landing gear to catapult the vehicle into the air, but I don't think that's quite what you mean.
@Jimmybob Thats just it. I did fix it in Overload, and then SP fixed it back. I only noticed because when taking off I suddenly had a lot more acceleration that I had had a minute ago.
Oddly enough when I do set it to 100hp in Overload I get 50hp.
@LiamW So I'd have to double the power output to offset the input reduction?
So if I wanted to turn a J15 engine into something 1/10 the size, power and fuel use I'd have to:
Scale Mass and dimensions (check) then
Scale Input to 0.1 (10%) fuel use
Keep Power the same (1/10th original power times ten to offset the input scaling equal 1).
It's a jet, a tiny one (13.5x8.8x4.4). It flies fine, too. It's just that it's supersonic at sea level, and I thought it would be more realistic if it were a bit slower, and wanted to put a less powerful (and thus less thirsty) engine it it.
@F104Deathtrap Thats what I did, but then it couldn't take off, thanks to the weird type of landing gear I'm using (hemisphere). Usually the hemisphere works nearly as well as wheels, sometimes even better, but the lower throttle input means the engine can't overcome the initial friction -so I guess I'll have to stick with a fuel guzzler.
Kinda makes sense. Anybody who can afford to buy a single person microjet probably ins't all that concerned about fuel economy.
@F104Deathtrap Thanks. Luckily that didn't happen, but I shot myself in the foot another way. After reducing the thrust I naturally had to adjust the wings to fix the trim and such. So after spending a bit of time fiddling with the wings to get it flying nicely again, I put it on the ground and discovered that it no longer had enough "oomph" to actually get it off the ground. So I had to keep the Input at the higher setting after all.
@LiamW So if I set an engines to .5 mass, .5 power and .5 input I'll get one half the weight and thrust, but which burns fuel at half the normal rate? But wait, input is set to Throttle.
So far everything I've tries to change adjusts the thrust, but the fuel consumption is the same.
EDIT: Okay, I scaled down the max to 0.5 on the INput Controller Settings and the PowerMUltiplier to 0.5 in the Engine settings and I think I got a pint sized J15 with half the size, mass, thrust, and fuel burn.
Oops, the pistons are supposed to be at 100%. That was something I was experimenting with and forgot to change back. It's the hinge at 600% that gets this in the air ASAP. When we try for an insect, it will have 6 legs and should require less power to lift, for the same weight. Oddly enough one hinge with two legs works just as well as two each with their own hinge.
I think the next real evolution for taking off would be to see if we can figure out how bats and some other flier can launch quadratically. I'm just not sure if the wings and pistons can take the stress of launch.
I know I can change the mass in Overlord, as well as the power. Changing the power isn't necessarily unrealistic. First off, not all jet engines have the same thrust to mass ratio. The F-100 Engines on the F-15 have about 3 times the the thrust to mass ratio of the earlier J-47 engines of the F86.
Besides, if I scale the mass in half I should scale the thrust in half just to keep the TMR the same.
You could always make it a requirement to be able to successfully land on a carrier, that would up the ante. Maybe even be able to take off from one too.
@FastDan You can go that fast in real life if you can get that high up and have enough fuel and thrust. At 100 million feet you're in space, the moon is only around 1.3 million feet away from the Earth! At that altitude there's not drag and you could reach whatever speed you wanted to, provided you still had some means of thrust and enough fuel to keep powering it.
Yeah. it's a fun concept. I think the really tricky bit will be getting the proper rotation and twist in the wing movement so that the wings can move forward and then downward, that creates more lift, produces less drag, and provides forward thrust.
BTW, have you considered the possibility of using one of your flappers as a tail or fluke to propel a fish or boat? It wouldn't require air, so it could work while submerged.
@Zyvx You will see it, but the idea your dragon gave me is better. We use "legs" with an activated hinge (like I used for the Landing gear for my two flappers), set at a higher power and angle than normal to catapult the flapper into the air all at once. No need to wait to built up speed anymore.
Nice, and I thought I was gonna surprise you with a four wing butterfly! Interesting way of using the LG to start the Dragon moving. I think you gave me an idea.
Woah Nellie! Overlord opens up whole new dimensions of possibilities. Fixed my wing problem in seconds. Now I can go find all my planes that don't quite fly right and fix them-not to mention adjusting parts such as engines to better match the actual specs for whatever plane I try to model.
Thanks again everybody!
Scaled wings do affect the aerodynamics. I posted a test on that awhile back. What happens is that while the wing may look smaller, it still behaves like a big wing. So your plane might roll like it has a much longer wing-that is slow to respond.
@Zyvx
It's a cool idea. I took your wings and combined it with a glider design I have and it can fly on autopilot at 155 mph while only dropping about 2 feet per minute. I'm hoping to offset those 2 feet.
Mine can't take off, though. At least not yet.
EDIT: Okay, I got it flying on autopilot at 200 mph without losing altitude.
It's neat, but for the life of me I can't understand why you put guns on it. A parachutist with a handgun probably outclasses this in an aerial battle.
There is nothing special about horizontal stabilizers. They are just wings with different control surfaces (pitch) and settings (trim=on) and fuel (default=none) than a primary wing (roll, trim=off, default fuel=full).
Eek, my roots are showing! I forgot all about this thing. I was built long before I know about things like gyroscopes and nudging, and this is all about hinges and detaches.
The core plane/boat isn't so bad. I could do with a redesign. Invert the forward elevators (they're what's keeping it on the ground until 400 mph). Maybe put engines where those waxy bits of fuselage are in the back, nudge the hinges close to the body, hmm...
BTW check out DustyT33's Future Bird at https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/UiYpZa/The-Future-Bird. What I find interesting is the wing. I adjusted it a little, when when pusher to puller, and got something that can flap at close to 300 mph, and which can nearly produce enough lift to take off vertically. I think he might just be close to the next step in the evolution of the flapper.
Ooh, much better. Short runway time, and 170 mph near the ground. Nice.
I thought we had to the 28th to submit.
Nice idea, but your wings need to be angled so they can sweep down more below the plane and push the plane up. Right now they just push it down.
BTW, I lengthened the strut connecting the wings to the plane, increased the piston length and direction and this thing can flap at close to 300 mph!
@MDippold1995 That would be tough. Basically it would need to provide enough lift to overcome it's weight. I think that would require a wing on a shaper angle that could extend more on the down sweep.
There is a VTOL flapper that uses the landing gear to catapult the vehicle into the air, but I don't think that's quite what you mean.
Have you considered a hybrid version? I did up one with a prop, and it looks like the wings are about the equivalent of 100hp each.
@Kerbango Yeah, something like that. Voltron64's car already has the side panels, so why not use them for lift and control surfaces?
Have you considered having the panels on the side fold down to serve as wings?
@dovahdesigns Thanks. So it's a common bug, and no just something on my end.
@Jimmybob Thats just it. I did fix it in Overload, and then SP fixed it back. I only noticed because when taking off I suddenly had a lot more acceleration that I had had a minute ago.
Oddly enough when I do set it to 100hp in Overload I get 50hp.
I assume that it must have a propeller, right? Otherwise someone could submit a jet or something.
BTW, I'm running into a bug where SP keep upping my 100hp engine to 250. Is anyone else experiencing this?
It's literally the part of your glider with the rocket in it, wrapped up with some lights, parachute, lights and a detacher. Nothing fancy.
@LiamW So I'd have to double the power output to offset the input reduction?
So if I wanted to turn a J15 engine into something 1/10 the size, power and fuel use I'd have to:
+1Scale Mass and dimensions (check) then
Scale Input to 0.1 (10%) fuel use
Keep Power the same (1/10th original power times ten to offset the input scaling equal 1).
It's a jet, a tiny one (13.5x8.8x4.4). It flies fine, too. It's just that it's supersonic at sea level, and I thought it would be more realistic if it were a bit slower, and wanted to put a less powerful (and thus less thirsty) engine it it.
+1@F104Deathtrap Thats what I did, but then it couldn't take off, thanks to the weird type of landing gear I'm using (hemisphere). Usually the hemisphere works nearly as well as wheels, sometimes even better, but the lower throttle input means the engine can't overcome the initial friction -so I guess I'll have to stick with a fuel guzzler.
Kinda makes sense. Anybody who can afford to buy a single person microjet probably ins't all that concerned about fuel economy.
@F104Deathtrap Thanks. Luckily that didn't happen, but I shot myself in the foot another way. After reducing the thrust I naturally had to adjust the wings to fix the trim and such. So after spending a bit of time fiddling with the wings to get it flying nicely again, I put it on the ground and discovered that it no longer had enough "oomph" to actually get it off the ground. So I had to keep the Input at the higher setting after all.
+1@LiamW So if I set an engines to .5 mass, .5 power and .5 input I'll get one half the weight and thrust, but which burns fuel at half the normal rate? But wait, input is set to Throttle.
So far everything I've tries to change adjusts the thrust, but the fuel consumption is the same.
EDIT: Okay, I scaled down the max to 0.5 on the INput Controller Settings and the PowerMUltiplier to 0.5 in the Engine settings and I think I got a pint sized J15 with half the size, mass, thrust, and fuel burn.
Thanks everybody!
Oops, the pistons are supposed to be at 100%. That was something I was experimenting with and forgot to change back. It's the hinge at 600% that gets this in the air ASAP. When we try for an insect, it will have 6 legs and should require less power to lift, for the same weight. Oddly enough one hinge with two legs works just as well as two each with their own hinge.
I think the next real evolution for taking off would be to see if we can figure out how bats and some other flier can launch quadratically. I'm just not sure if the wings and pistons can take the stress of launch.
I know I can change the mass in Overlord, as well as the power. Changing the power isn't necessarily unrealistic. First off, not all jet engines have the same thrust to mass ratio. The F-100 Engines on the F-15 have about 3 times the the thrust to mass ratio of the earlier J-47 engines of the F86.
Besides, if I scale the mass in half I should scale the thrust in half just to keep the TMR the same.
You could always make it a requirement to be able to successfully land on a carrier, that would up the ante. Maybe even be able to take off from one too.
@FastDan You can go that fast in real life if you can get that high up and have enough fuel and thrust. At 100 million feet you're in space, the moon is only around 1.3 million feet away from the Earth! At that altitude there's not drag and you could reach whatever speed you wanted to, provided you still had some means of thrust and enough fuel to keep powering it.
That way outside the scope of an airplane though.
+1How do you get that rear RCS thruster to stay reverse False?
It's nice. You might want to enter it into Spectre2520's Propeller Challenge: https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/ayekUK/Propeller-Challenge
Yeah. it's a fun concept. I think the really tricky bit will be getting the proper rotation and twist in the wing movement so that the wings can move forward and then downward, that creates more lift, produces less drag, and provides forward thrust.
BTW, have you considered the possibility of using one of your flappers as a tail or fluke to propel a fish or boat? It wouldn't require air, so it could work while submerged.
@Zyvx You will see it, but the idea your dragon gave me is better. We use "legs" with an activated hinge (like I used for the Landing gear for my two flappers), set at a higher power and angle than normal to catapult the flapper into the air all at once. No need to wait to built up speed anymore.
I got a working prototype, too.
Nice, and I thought I was gonna surprise you with a four wing butterfly! Interesting way of using the LG to start the Dragon moving. I think you gave me an idea.
Thanks, glade you like it. I got another design on two in the works.
BTW, if I sent you a wing could you set up a piston on it? Whenever I try to use free spinning floppy rotators they just go limp.
Woah Nellie! Overlord opens up whole new dimensions of possibilities. Fixed my wing problem in seconds. Now I can go find all my planes that don't quite fly right and fix them-not to mention adjusting parts such as engines to better match the actual specs for whatever plane I try to model.
Thanks again everybody!
Scaled wings do affect the aerodynamics. I posted a test on that awhile back. What happens is that while the wing may look smaller, it still behaves like a big wing. So your plane might roll like it has a much longer wing-that is slow to respond.
+1If you don't use a mod yet, I could just post a wing with built in flaps that you could resize.
I'm impressed.
@Zyvx Yeah, it actually started as a (bat) plane, thanks.
Thanks. I'll have to install Overload and see about reducing the deflection angle.
How? I know how to resize the control surfaces but not how to reduce the angle that they pitch.
@Zyvx
It's a cool idea. I took your wings and combined it with a glider design I have and it can fly on autopilot at 155 mph while only dropping about 2 feet per minute. I'm hoping to offset those 2 feet.
Mine can't take off, though. At least not yet.
EDIT: Okay, I got it flying on autopilot at 200 mph without losing altitude.
It's neat, but for the life of me I can't understand why you put guns on it. A parachutist with a handgun probably outclasses this in an aerial battle.
Good first upload.
I like it. It's certainly better than my first plane, and even better than some of my more recent ones.
Does the "Home" button work? That would be a great.
Would a seaplane that takes off and lands on water qualify?
Nice, but I think it's RAT ( Rocket Assisted Takeoff), not JAT.
Not bad, I got it up to 1564 mph.
I'm sorry. I've got a version with only 10 parts, but I was going to submit that for a different challenge.
It's a nice plane.
Maybe a pintle mount for an MG; a removable roof
How about you make a Vicker's Wave?
I like, but I think it would be better if the VTOL didn't turn the wings with the props.
There is nothing special about horizontal stabilizers. They are just wings with different control surfaces (pitch) and settings (trim=on) and fuel (default=none) than a primary wing (roll, trim=off, default fuel=full).
It's still a nice plane, though.
Nice Foxtbat. Looks right, handles well. It even outperforms the real thing.