@DragonAerotech Likely. She is still very rough. And at this times its only 1947 in my world, we have atomic bombs and are working of reactors but I will likely never use them in my airships. Imagine if this thing was nuclear powered and flying in formation in a fleet than got hit with a long range shell and exploded?? It would wipe out the whole fleet. And the radiation would be everywhere. The next version I will be putting on way better engines and likely having four engine pods inside of two for lift.

@TheOwlAce Oh I see! Perhaps we were on the same wavelengths as far as that matter is concerned? XD

@TheOwlAce There were a couple of issues but its hard for me to offer advice when I haven't even tried to make an airship of my own, but you wanted my thoughts on her so I'll try anyway.

Appearance wise it was a little hard to think of her as a ship as she more looked like an extremely short flying airstrip OR a rather large flying wing with limited control. VERY steam-punk-ish. It has a different feel overall from your' previous flying ships but that's beside the point. This lady was designed to carry aircraft from point A to point B via air and launch fighters.

After downloading her I took a good look at her in my hangar. One issue I saw in there, that would later turn up in flight was, an off-center, center of balance. The Center of Thrust is always approximate when multiple power plants are put in with different configurations but the center of lift is always a good guidemark as its a major consideration for how the game engine interprets flight. I also noted that the engines meant to provide some level of pitch, via VTOL slider control, are mounted about a third of the way down its length. Just with the angle of the mounting beam I can tell you were trying to get these six T1000s as far forward as you could. It was a valiant effort but didn't quite work out in the end, I just don't think they quite have enough power to get the Graf to nose up on the ground. That turned up during flight tests as well. With nudging now at your' command, T2000s can be nudged in together too which would provide them with a lot more power. It would likely pull the center of gravity further forward though so I've no idea what it'd do to the flight characteristics of an airship. I also saw that she carried 4k gallons of fuel. Not bad for an inter-continental bomber but probably a pretty limited amount with an airship powered by what is it, 18 T1000s?

I went on ahead to take off from South Airfield on the Wright Islands. Knowing I had no elevators I tilted the props to about a 45 degree down-angle and throttled up. She quickly picked up speed but immediately began to yaw to starboard - not quickly or abruptly but the pull was noticable as by the end of the runway the wheels on the far starboard side were off of the runway. I pitched the props further down to try to get the ship to lift off but still to no avail. This is pretty unsurprising though if you consider that 18 engines altogether provide 0.262 HP/Weight - a third of them only amounts to a 0.0873 HP/Weight ratio. Given the large number of landing gear keeping her from tipping or anything though she continued accelerating on the greens right up to a small cliff. It was there that the Graf finally grabbed the air. I didn't dare pull up the landing gear because the little birds would need theirs to take off. I finally got up to about a mile in altitude playing with the tilt rotors however I noticed something important. The airbreaks on the fighters were reacting to the VTOL input.

As anticipated she had a tendency to bank to starboard. Yaw helped some with that - plus a bit of panicking and button mashing the "A" key out of sheer habit so the little birds might have been helping with their own ailerons but I don't know they're awfully small to effect such a large mass. lol

I switched to Camera 1 and activated AG1. I'm not sure if my recent setting of the tilt rotors had caused it or if the sudden activation of 2,000 more HP caused her to nose up. Either way, I fiddled with the tilt rotors to bring the bow down a bit more. With a mere 10 degrees above the horizon, I activated AG2 - which caused the first fighter instead of going forward to slide backwards through the other two fighters, not as in destroying them but passing through them. I was perplexed as the camera didn't stay on the aircraft, let alone what I'd just seen. (It was then that I realized Camera 1 was not for that aircraft it was an orbital camera on the starboard side of the strip.)

Again I had to adjust the pitch given the change in the center of gravity and correct for the roll to starboard through yaw and tilt-rotor control which took some time. I managed to finally get the horizon level and decided to switch to camera 3, punched AG3 and after several seconds AG4 and smoothly lifted off with virtually no roll on the "strip". After all the airship was moving faster than the little Ju-122B-2's stall speed. lol I was also interested in checking out this new version of the Ju-122. As I recall I think the predecessor had some control issues - namely going into a strange stall and flat spin. I jinked, barrel rolled, looped, climbed and dived for about a minute after take off. I was really impressed - you'd fixed all of her stability issues. Sixty seconds was too long though as I'd just taken the weight of the center-most fighter off of the Graf and left her at 7,500 feet or so. I hadn't been watching my instrumentation and was just getting a feel for the fighter. By the time I switched back the Graf was a couple of hundred feet underwater. All I can think is that with the release of the mass of the central fighter which left more weight in the aft, the tilt-rotors in combination with the increased mass caused it to loop or at the very least stall out. That isn't a design flaw though, I should have thought about it, so it was a bit of cranial flatulance on the part of this tunnel-visioned video gamer pilot. lol

I play on a mediocre HP laptop. I don't know its stats off hand but it handles 1,000 plus part builds with a good bit of lag and it meets the criteria for my once in a blue moon play on Mabinogi. (It's the closest free game I could find to my old video game fix, FFXI, okay?! lol) Ahem - I digress. All the engines on the Graf though gave it immense lag. Even after the Graf dived into the drink and I was rolling in that new hostile, agile and wicked lil Junkers - it looked like the belly and canopy side were just switching places from frame to frame. (If I had turned down my resolution that might have fixed that too though.)

Ideas to chew on for a new Graf; 1. Find a way to get the lil birds along the center of mass, though I have no advice on how, that would correct for that issue short of overhead gantries attached to both sides with a centrally located detacher. 2. Add in some props that are set up for Trim control that rotate in opposite directions to give it some capabilities to roll. 3. Use AG 8 for some elevator trim, like you used to do with your' larger birds. Then you just turn off AG8 when you don't need it. Trim props would be just like the VTOL props only while one side tilts down the other would tilt up - there's no need for an AG to disable them. 4. Finally, although it would make the naval Ju-122s a bit scary to land, take off the air breaks and add an equal amount of weight where they are mounted to keep the flight dynamics about the same. (If it has an effect at all.) as VTOL controls caused them to deploy. If not removing them - switch them back to "Brake" for control.

Overall though, once again I'm struck with the sheer ingenius idea of building a flying carrier the way that you have here. There are some control issues but it was a success for launching an aircraft from over a mile in altitude. I'm amazed this thing could take flight without roll or pitch control surfaces to begin with. I am humbled at viewing your' mad scientist skills. lol

Oh, one other comment .. since Das Germanishe Weltreich has nuclear weapons and, presumably, nuclear power - why not DL an "unlimited" fuel tank and start using these on your' airships? I have two of them in my subassemblies. One has a couple of million gallons of fuel and another that has over 500 million. I have yet to figure out WHY anyone would need that much fuel though. XD

@DragonAerotech im going to be making a better version soon with better controls.

@DragonAerotech what do you think?

@DragonAerotech No, the carrier has rotors that pivot and only has yaw.

@TheOwlAce I haven't tried either of the Graf Zepplins though I had fun with some of your' other airships. I am curious though, when you maneuver in the fighter, doesn't that effect the control surfaces of the carrier too?

@DragonAerotech with the new fighters.