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).
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.
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.
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!
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.
@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.
@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.
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.
@LiamW Wouldn't he need to set ZeroonDeactivate to true as well?
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.
It 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.
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.
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?
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
Yea!
@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.
@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.
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.
@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.
@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.
How 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