@Zyvx OH! In that case change the floppy hinge you use for take off to a fixed 10% or so. It greatly increases lift. I know a couple of our flappers can carry 3 cleavers, so you could attach one to your mech and see if you can airdrop it.
I wonder if this would benefit from a Spanwise Adaptive Wing. Basically a SAW wing is one where part of the wing can fold 90 degrees (up or down)during flight. The lower wing area means less drag so the aircraft can go faster, and the vertical section adds stability. Both features might be nice considering the bombs.
@Zyvx and @DustyT33 too. Check out FWG2014s Flamingo Ornithoper. It has pairs of wings flapping in alternating directions, eliminating most of the up and down motion that comes with most onirthopers. It's very steady, without a gyroscope. I think if we could incorporate that into our designs we'd get more stable flappers.
Plus I think if we had two sets of wings we could set one to floppy to keep the VTOL capability and the other to fixed so we could keep the speed, or at least some of it.
@Zyvx Speed isn't everything. There's also contro,l stability, ability to take off, etc. I think the reason why we got to making fast onithopters is because other people left us good base models to work from. I haven't created much of anything new as far as Onithopers go-except maybe the pitching tail, and that is mostly cosmetic.
When you feel like flying again, come join the party.
I'm not quite sure what you want fixed.
It's not standing upright because it is only on two landing gear, you can fix that by adding more gear, or a gyroscope.
If it's the sideways cockpits, you can fix that by moving the cockpit over the centerline.
Or is it something else?
I'll try. I don't completely understand it. First off the easy part, I streamlined the bird going from 988 drag down to 572. I estimate that was worth a 30% increase in speed.
Then I changed the floppy hinges that helped with take off and caused that speed "glitch" that the Jet Bird had, to fixed hinged that are activated with AG1, as with the Mk IV Swift, which also causes something like a 50% increase in top speed. Both effect compound so you get 1.3x1.5=1.95 speed change, or about double the speed of the 1000 mph Swift.
At least I think that's what happening. It could just be hamsters running on treadmills.
Sure, under Parts->Propulsion you will see three types of Inlets. Inlets, the standard; Slim Inlets, you used a bunch of those; and Fuselage Inlets, the round looking ones.. Fuselage Inlets can be shaped and sized like fuselage blocks and cones can. You can even put them behind another part, and they will still manage to take in some air.
So you could add a fuselage inlet to your "Needle", maybe instead of one of the fuselage blocks, or inline with one, and your vehicle could keep the same shape, because you could shape the fuselage inlet. That would let you get rid of some of your small inlets, reducing the drag and weight and making the Needle a bit faster. You might be able to take 500 points off your drag total that way.
Its an interesting idea. As far as possible improvements go:
1. Try to get your Center of Mass (red Ball) in front of your Center of Lift (Blue Ball) so the nose doesn't keep pitching up.
2. You could make it more stable by adding a gyroscope.
3. You could make it more streamlined and get rid of some of your intakes by putting a fuselage intake behind the nosecone (yes you can actually block off the opening).
With landing gear it depends on their aspect to the wind (think or wide) as well as if they are shielded by something else (like the fuselage). I've had some designs where the gear produced more drag when up.
What you need is someplace out of the way for the gear to fold up into.
On the plus side, if you climb higher, you'll get your speed back. In fact this thing picks up speed when climbing. At 65-70,000 feet, it will hit 1000 mph again. But it can go high enough that it's speed will tear it apart!
Okay, I'm pretty sure it isn't a glitch, and while I can't "stabilize" it, I think I can explain what's happening and tell you how to recreate it.
First off, the floppy rotator is what's giving you the big speed boost. Secondly, I think this kicks in near Mach 1 and that's important.
What I think is going on is that as you approach Mach 1 (750-800 mph at low altitudes) mph the wing-tips go supersonic(and that causes the rotators to flop erratically, and that's what causes all the shakes. Eventually, it syncs up with the wings and that's what gives you the big boost to speed an altitude. Whenever you finally decide to maneuver again, you break that rhythm, and your speed drops to around 680, or just shy of when the effect would kick in again, and stays there.
Now I can't figure out how to control it, at least not yet, but you can recreate it, by dropping to a lower altitude and speed. I've been able to do it at all three final approaches, and even did it again after cutting power and dropping low.
They just keep getting better. BTW, I'd call " a crew holding thingamabox" a gondola. It's what they call crew holding thingamaboxes on airplanes, balloons and airships.
You problems stem from the two cockpits. The game wants to center the airplane down along one cockpit and when you try to mirror it with two like this it ends up making multiple extra parts, and it throws off the center of mass, lift and pretty much everything else.
This can be fixed by taking the plane apart, getting rid of the extra parts, and reassembling it, but even if you do that, it's still going to fly off center, since it will treat once cockpit as the centerline.
Your best solution is to set it up with one cockpit right down the centerline. You could nudge one to center with the "Rotate Parts" tools, or just make the airplane an odd number of blocks wide.
1000ph @ 20,000 feet? That's some glitch. Most of my glitches just duplicate the F10 button. I can't wait to see your new SSO.
One of the things I like about these ornithopers is that Zyvx, you and I all experiment in different ways, so most of the improvements port over to the others' next designs.
Okay, I goofed. It turns out that reducing the rotator to .01 prevents lift off. But, the rotator also reduces speed considerably (say a third) at high altitude. I'm experimenting with manually adjusting the rotator with VTOL. That way you keep the easy short take off without loosing the speed.
@Joco80 No, it's not. Just look at the power to mass ratio. I checked the specs in Overlord, too. I figured it was just SP changing the power back. It does that with 100 hp engines.
Probably later on today, I got to fiddle with the control surfaces a bit. I'm not sure if I need a vertical stabilizer or not, It's only supersonic at high attitude.
Oh, and I'm been distracted by the 100 hp challenge. I'm still tempted to put a 100 hp car engine on one of my flappers and enter it. It will perform better than any unmodded 100 hp prop plane I've come up with so far.
EDIT: Okay, there will be a slight delay. I can't seem to get the faster bird off the ground, at least not while flying forward.
It's really good, but the engine is too powerful. It's got a 1000 hp engine and the real ICON has a 100 hp engine. Was that intentional or the engine switching bug?
@Zyvx OH, if you add some antihedral (that win dihedral pointing down) to your wings you can greatly increase the lift-so much so that my Swift needs trim just to fly level.
@Zyvx I will take off with 0,1, I checked. You can also use a longer, thinner wing-that's what I did for the Swift. They tend to flap a bit faster. Check out my Fork Tailed Swift (it's a successor to this plane) to see what I mean.
I will definitely check out DustyT33s new bird. Always good to see what the rest of the flock is up to.
Aha! It's the rotator that connects to the wing. I used Overload to reduce the angle from 10 degrees to 0.1 degrees and no more wobble. Let me know if you need a custom rotator.
I added a 100 hp car engine to one and some wheels for a easier, simpler take off. Just use the car engine until you get enough lift to take off, then start flapping- it's almost like a regular plane. I've been tempted to submit it to the 100 hp challenge!
Very nice plane. Very stable and easy to take off and land with.
@Zyvx OH! In that case change the floppy hinge you use for take off to a fixed 10% or so. It greatly increases lift. I know a couple of our flappers can carry 3 cleavers, so you could attach one to your mech and see if you can airdrop it.
I wonder if this would benefit from a Spanwise Adaptive Wing. Basically a SAW wing is one where part of the wing can fold 90 degrees (up or down)during flight. The lower wing area means less drag so the aircraft can go faster, and the vertical section adds stability. Both features might be nice considering the bombs.
Cool, and a practical application of walking technology. Can you make a walker than can fly too?
Cool.
+1Why throw it away, it's a nice looking plane?
+1@Zyvx and @DustyT33 too. Check out FWG2014s Flamingo Ornithoper. It has pairs of wings flapping in alternating directions, eliminating most of the up and down motion that comes with most onirthopers. It's very steady, without a gyroscope. I think if we could incorporate that into our designs we'd get more stable flappers.
Plus I think if we had two sets of wings we could set one to floppy to keep the VTOL capability and the other to fixed so we could keep the speed, or at least some of it.
@Zyvx Speed isn't everything. There's also contro,l stability, ability to take off, etc. I think the reason why we got to making fast onithopters is because other people left us good base models to work from. I haven't created much of anything new as far as Onithopers go-except maybe the pitching tail, and that is mostly cosmetic.
When you feel like flying again, come join the party.
I'm not quite sure what you want fixed.
+1It's not standing upright because it is only on two landing gear, you can fix that by adding more gear, or a gyroscope.
If it's the sideways cockpits, you can fix that by moving the cockpit over the centerline.
Or is it something else?
Glad to help.
What I wonder now is what would happen it we hoked up pistons to that bird tail. Then we'd have five wings flapping.
I'll try. I don't completely understand it. First off the easy part, I streamlined the bird going from 988 drag down to 572. I estimate that was worth a 30% increase in speed.
Then I changed the floppy hinges that helped with take off and caused that speed "glitch" that the Jet Bird had, to fixed hinged that are activated with AG1, as with the Mk IV Swift, which also causes something like a 50% increase in top speed. Both effect compound so you get 1.3x1.5=1.95 speed change, or about double the speed of the 1000 mph Swift.
At least I think that's what happening. It could just be hamsters running on treadmills.
Sure, under Parts->Propulsion you will see three types of Inlets. Inlets, the standard; Slim Inlets, you used a bunch of those; and Fuselage Inlets, the round looking ones.. Fuselage Inlets can be shaped and sized like fuselage blocks and cones can. You can even put them behind another part, and they will still manage to take in some air.
So you could add a fuselage inlet to your "Needle", maybe instead of one of the fuselage blocks, or inline with one, and your vehicle could keep the same shape, because you could shape the fuselage inlet. That would let you get rid of some of your small inlets, reducing the drag and weight and making the Needle a bit faster. You might be able to take 500 points off your drag total that way.
Its an interesting idea. As far as possible improvements go:
1. Try to get your Center of Mass (red Ball) in front of your Center of Lift (Blue Ball) so the nose doesn't keep pitching up.
2. You could make it more stable by adding a gyroscope.
3. You could make it more streamlined and get rid of some of your intakes by putting a fuselage intake behind the nosecone (yes you can actually block off the opening).
Do the 800mm cannons work? I get recoil but no bang.
With landing gear it depends on their aspect to the wind (think or wide) as well as if they are shielded by something else (like the fuselage). I've had some designs where the gear produced more drag when up.
What you need is someplace out of the way for the gear to fold up into.
+2@LiamW Wouldn't he need to set ZeroonDeactivate to true as well?
On the plus side, if you climb higher, you'll get your speed back. In fact this thing picks up speed when climbing. At 65-70,000 feet, it will hit 1000 mph again. But it can go high enough that it's speed will tear it apart!
+1Okay, I'm pretty sure it isn't a glitch, and while I can't "stabilize" it, I think I can explain what's happening and tell you how to recreate it.
First off, the floppy rotator is what's giving you the big speed boost. Secondly, I think this kicks in near Mach 1 and that's important.
What I think is going on is that as you approach Mach 1 (750-800 mph at low altitudes) mph the wing-tips go supersonic(and that causes the rotators to flop erratically, and that's what causes all the shakes. Eventually, it syncs up with the wings and that's what gives you the big boost to speed an altitude. Whenever you finally decide to maneuver again, you break that rhythm, and your speed drops to around 680, or just shy of when the effect would kick in again, and stays there.
Now I can't figure out how to control it, at least not yet, but you can recreate it, by dropping to a lower altitude and speed. I've been able to do it at all three final approaches, and even did it again after cutting power and dropping low.
You built this on a phone? Can I double upvote?
+1I wonder if this could "grab" a Zeppelin? It would seem like the perfect complementary vehicle.
+1They just keep getting better. BTW, I'd call " a crew holding thingamabox" a gondola. It's what they call crew holding thingamaboxes on airplanes, balloons and airships.
+1It does it for me, too. I don't think it's a glitch though, and I think I know what causes it.
You problems stem from the two cockpits. The game wants to center the airplane down along one cockpit and when you try to mirror it with two like this it ends up making multiple extra parts, and it throws off the center of mass, lift and pretty much everything else.
This can be fixed by taking the plane apart, getting rid of the extra parts, and reassembling it, but even if you do that, it's still going to fly off center, since it will treat once cockpit as the centerline.
Your best solution is to set it up with one cockpit right down the centerline. You could nudge one to center with the "Rotate Parts" tools, or just make the airplane an odd number of blocks wide.
1000ph @ 20,000 feet? That's some glitch. Most of my glitches just duplicate the F10 button. I can't wait to see your new SSO.
One of the things I like about these ornithopers is that Zyvx, you and I all experiment in different ways, so most of the improvements port over to the others' next designs.
@DustyT33 It's up!
This is neat.
Nice!
+1Okay, I goofed. It turns out that reducing the rotator to .01 prevents lift off. But, the rotator also reduces speed considerably (say a third) at high altitude. I'm experimenting with manually adjusting the rotator with VTOL. That way you keep the easy short take off without loosing the speed.
@Joco80 No, it's not. Just look at the power to mass ratio. I checked the specs in Overlord, too. I figured it was just SP changing the power back. It does that with 100 hp engines.
Probably later on today, I got to fiddle with the control surfaces a bit. I'm not sure if I need a vertical stabilizer or not, It's only supersonic at high attitude.
Oh, and I'm been distracted by the 100 hp challenge. I'm still tempted to put a 100 hp car engine on one of my flappers and enter it. It will perform better than any unmodded 100 hp prop plane I've come up with so far.
EDIT: Okay, there will be a slight delay. I can't seem to get the faster bird off the ground, at least not while flying forward.
+1It's really good, but the engine is too powerful. It's got a 1000 hp engine and the real ICON has a 100 hp engine. Was that intentional or the engine switching bug?
Glad you like it. It's an odd way of doing it, but the other methods I tired kept hitting the tail. or prop.
As far a the vertical stabilizer goes, we all have done that, but at least it's an easy fix.
Nice first effort.
@GenericWhiteGuy Don't be sorry. The second guy who invented the wheel still invented the wheel. I just gotta give you credit for trailbrazing.
@GenericWhiteGuy Maybe but you've already "been there, done that." I just tired out your Mosquito Mk 2.
Brilliant.
@Zyvx You have to see this: https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/QgAriy/Ornithopter-battleship
Amazing, unreal, fantastic. Not any of those words do this thing full justice.
+1Yea!
@DustyT 33 Genius, sheer genius. Oh, BTW, thanks to you my latest bird's gone supersonic!
@Zyvx OH, if you add some antihedral (that win dihedral pointing down) to your wings you can greatly increase the lift-so much so that my Swift needs trim just to fly level.
Sweet! It' even faster than my Swift! My only suggestion now is to put the Gyro to AG8, so you don't have to bother with AG1 to activate it.
Correction: Just what is it that's tied to AG1? I've taken this thing apart and can't find it!
+1@Zyvx I will take off with 0,1, I checked. You can also use a longer, thinner wing-that's what I did for the Swift. They tend to flap a bit faster. Check out my Fork Tailed Swift (it's a successor to this plane) to see what I mean.
I will definitely check out DustyT33s new bird. Always good to see what the rest of the flock is up to.
Aha! It's the rotator that connects to the wing. I used Overload to reduce the angle from 10 degrees to 0.1 degrees and no more wobble. Let me know if you need a custom rotator.
@Zyvx Do you know why the wings "wobble" back and forth a bit at slow speeds?
Congratulations! You achieved VTO! Flapping Wing Fliers are a real thing now in SP. Maybe you should create a "Flapper" tag for search purposes.
I added a 100 hp car engine to one and some wheels for a easier, simpler take off. Just use the car engine until you get enough lift to take off, then start flapping- it's almost like a regular plane. I've been tempted to submit it to the 100 hp challenge!
I looks like a toy put together with wood glue and a rubber band, but wow! It flies great. It doesn't feel underpowered at all. Fantastic job.
Here is my mod of it: https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/8548IB/Gannet-Flapper.
It can fly at 350 mph (@ sea level) and swim submerged at nearly 100 mph, and can take off while submerged.