Servo

Progress! @HB Stratos put some lovely KLAW stabilators which are much better than the poor elevator I had on it at first - they're independently hinged for pitch and roll control, and nigh-indestructible, and look great too. My part of the project is going well - visuals are there, but the wings are much less consistent than I hoped going into this project. I may have to pivot to end-on hinges, which would be a downgrade in space, but gurantee that it docks every time. Unfortunately, that would ruin any chance HB has of getting proper tanky wheels into this thing. True to form, the build doesn't rely on the DLC for functionality, losing a little in part count for gaining a lot in cool factor and wing stability.

I've been busy... With the wings in a somewhat acceptable state (they're nowhere near as smooth as my Tornado's, so I want to improve that), I shifted my focus to the aesthetics of the craft. It came together fairly quickly all things considered, but the mechanisms are the sticky wicket here. One version of this craft has an all-flying tail, a mechanism perfected by @HB Stratos. My version is a poor rendition, and has a bad habit of departing the aircraft during flight. The upper image includes a more conventional semi-flying tail, at the cost of cool factor, control authority, and the accuracy of the shape.

Work on my new swing wing design continues. Designed a functional actuation system, then realized that this setup is entirely too small to be used on the craft I had in mind (a F-111 Aardvark), so with the concept proven, it was time to return to the drawing board. This utter chaotic mess is my process for getting the wing shape and size correct, which was a remarkably tedious process, and one that I'm glad is over now. The I-beams mark the swept and unswept width of the wing, as well as the angles of the leading edge in either configuration. The structural panels are used as a measuring stick to get the position of the hinge and the peak of the wing glove in the right position. Lastly, the basic fins are the perfect part for forming wing gloves (they are offset so that I can access the RCS ball which is the rotation point), since they're a third the width of a wing panel. Now that the wing shape is correct and the angles are all good, the next step is to add the actuation mechanism back on and stress-test it to ensure that this design is up to the same standards as my other swing wings.

It's been almost a year since I release my last swing wing plane, so I feel that it's appropriate that I return to the thing that made me a name for myself in the first place. Part of the reason I haven't done one since is the time they take, and the fact that I didn't really think that I could one-up either my Tornado or my most recent Tomcat, but tonight I proved myself wrong on two counts. About 2h of work went into this mostly working demonstrator of a new technique that has the opportunity to completely upset how I do swing wings. Part of the major problem with stock swing wings was their profile - you just couldn't make a good one thin enough to make a proportional replica. The first innovation came with the Tornado, as I replaced the wing glove (typically made of wing panels) with one made from fins. This cut the total thickness of the system in nearly half, but still left the wing floating due to the fact that the hinges were slightly thicker than the wing themselves. Additionally, there were geometric constraints on where the hinge could be placed due to the dimensions of the hinge itself. Going back to an early swing wing (my second) of mine, the F-111, the hinge is placed such that a conventional hinge would protrude out and not match the shape correctly. The innovation of tonight was to reverse the hinge paradigm. Rather than have a fixed pin rotating within a cage, if the wing itself forms the cage, pinning a part of the main craft between it, much smaller geometry can be created for swing wings. It's an elegant solution which lowers part count, increases wing strength, and tightens up the geometry as well.

These are absolutely fantastic replicas! I love seeing stock hinges around, and am super impressed with the quality of both the mechanical functionality and the visual accuracy to the original.

In a whirlwind build process, I managed to knock out this F-117A Nighthawk replica in about three days. Turns out that reading the memoirs of the guy in charge of designing an aircraft as iconic and undoubtedly weird as the Nighthawk leaves you itching to fly one yourself. Whoda thunk? And really, who wouldn't want to fly this beaut? KerbalX download: https://kerbalx.com/servo/F-117A-Nighthawk

The Stealth Fighter This is another one of those planes that needs no introduction - it redefined the face of modern warfare in much the way that its spiritual ancestors from Clarence "Kelly'" Johnson's and Lockheed's Skunkworks design group did, but under the leadership and vision of a new generation. I'd bet that anyone who's into aviation in the slightest has seen this plane, and many aircraft nuts like myself have read (or in my case, are currently reading) the tale of its creation right from the metaphorical horse's mouth. Ben Rich was the successor to Kelly Johnson as the head of Lockheed's Advanced Development Projects division, more commonly known simply as the Skunkworks. Rich was one of the first to see the value of radar stealth to an attack aircraft, and championed the project from its conception to delivery in 1983. His excellent memoir (aptly titled "Skunkworks") has an image of his iconic fighter on the cover, and as soon as I picked up the book, I knew that I wouldn't be satisfied until I could see that view myself, in KSP. How'd I do? Chasing screenshots aside, this is my favorite build in a long time, for a large number of reasons. Probably the most important is the fact that the Nighthawk is a plane that has vexed me for a long time. My early forays into replicas were consumed with the Jet-of-the-Day project between @NorthAmericanAviation and myself, in our attempt to replicate every single military jet aircraft that the U.S. has ever flown. We succeeded in all but two. The first was Kelly Johnson's magnum opus, the SR-71 Blackbird, partially because we couldn't top the absolutely jaw-dropping replica from @eorin and @Exothermos, and the second was the F-117A, because neither of use felt that we could take it on. Now, two and a half years later, I've returned to finish what we started. The second reason is that this craft is a fantastic example of why 1:1 replica building is so rewarding. The parts are just the right size to accurately render the shapes of each and every one of the Nighthawks oddly-shaped panels (even the ones on the bottom!), the functional elements are here too, in the form of bomb bays and landing gear doors, and creative part usage is literally front and center in the cockpit glass and air inlets, and somehow, it maintains passable flight characteristics even for such an un-aerodynamic design. At any smaller scale, certain elements would be lost: the shape of the cockpit glass, the angles of the body panels, the wingtips, the shape of the vertical stabilizers, and on and on. Plus, the perfect 1:1 scale really lets you appreciate the size of aircraft in comparison to each other. The F-117 might look small, but it's roughly the same dimensions as a F-14 Tomcat, and the scale lets you appreciate the shape of the plane in all its glory. All of this plays into this being an absolute joy for me to fly. Just looking at it when it lifts into the air gives me chills. And I hope it does the same for you. If you haven't heard the story of the F-117 and the other black projects that helped the world survive the Cold War, I highly recommend Rich's account, but aside from that, the next best thing I can give you is the download link. Craft Download https://kerbalx.com/servo/F-117A-Nighthawk For optimal flying characteristics, trim pitch up 50% and fly without SAS. If you dial in the trim, it's solid as a rock without SAS, somehow.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... a blank radar screen? Download it today! https://kerbalx.com/servo/F-117A-Nighthawk

Thanks! It's definitely a struggle with this one, but that's reassuring to hear The fuselage is finished now. Not 100% happy with how the front halves of the engine nacelles turned out, but that's a change to be made later. They're too high on the fuselage, which forces the cockpit to be deformed to match. It shouldn't be too hard to fix, just takes time that I didn't have tonight. Other than that, the obvious next step is the vertical stabilizers. After the reshaping of the engine nacelle and the stabs, the only remaining challenge will be undoubtedly the toughest challenge remains: making the darn thing fly. Ben Rich described it as a "planeload of aerodynamic sins", and I'm inclined to agree. Somehow, thanks to the minimal front-facing wing panels, the center of lift is only about a meter in front of the center of mass, which makes the job of making it flyable somewhat easier. An additional challenge remains though, as the engines (six wheesleys, currently) are angled downwards, making takeoff difficult. This could be fixed by switching to junos, but such a ludicrous number of them would be required that I'm avoiding that option. If it comes to it, I might just edit the craft files, but that might get broken in 1.8 unfortunately. Pictured above is an initial flight test, which both confirmed the necessity of angling the wheesleys down about 2 degrees, and the fact that the thing doesn't want to fly in its current state.

I've been kept busy by a career save recently (I'd never actually completed the tech tree until this playthrough), but with that done, I freed up enough time to start on another 1:1 build (it'd been a while). Not coincidentally, I've been reading Ben Rich's excellent account of his time at Skunkworks. The F-117A has been on my list for a long time, so I channeled the inspiration to being working on the iconic Stealth Fighter. Not coincidentally, I've been getting good use of of the techniques that I developed for building my B-2 Spirit. The faceted construction which I used to give the B-2 a properly profiled blended-wing-body is even better suited to the F-117A, and the 1:1 scale allows for larger wing parts to be used over the build for more accurate replication of angles and face shapes. It may not be clear from these screenshots, but the wing and underside is accurately profiled to match the real thing, rather than being purely flat. The bomb bay, capable of carrying two laser-designated bombs is replicated here as well. Unfortunately, the engine change in 1.8 breaks this design, so I will have to experiment once I finally get around to updating my game.

I've been a bit of a denizen of the SPH for a long time. I decided a few weeks ago to challenge myself to do several things I'd never done before, including: not give up on a career save after the first Kerbal death Land/return from somewhere outside the Kerbin system Complete the tech tree Visit somewhere other than Duna or Eve I'm most of the way into the tech tree, after a relatively efficient path through it (as near as I can tell). Spoilers have the missions up to the ones I flew today: The Long Road to Duna: KSC's best engineering interns were tasked with designing the Duna return mission, and they came up with a hideously complex mission profile to visit Duna and Ike in a single mission, requiring a total of no less than 6 aerocaptures, 4 rendezvouses, the transfer of cans of fuel between spacecraft, and the coordination of two spacecraft on interplanetary trajectories. Rather than fail the interns right away, the KSC admins decided that it would be prudent to test out such a mission and spacecraft on a nearer target. The Mun had not yet been landed on, and would be a perfect proof of concept for the mission. Thus, Magellan 0 was launched, with Jeb, Landos, and Bill aboard. The mission had the arduous mission of ensuring that all of the delta-v calculations were accurate and ensuring the stability of the launch vehicle, before attempting a pair of landings on the moon to simulate biome-hopping on Ike or Duna. Landos was also tasked with figuring out how to use the newfangled science tech that the Kerbal Science Agency had given them. He found out quickly that they hadn't packed enough solar panels, and made a mental note to tell the engineers back at KSC to put more in the Duna mission boxes. After a short hop to the neighboring biome, he rendezvoused the mothership to head home. While the mission could have conceivably continued until all biomes on the Mun had been reached, the Duna transfer window was coming up quickly, and Jeb was getting bored. Seeing as he was sitting on enough delta-V to make the transfer right then and there, he was wisely recalled from the Mun with the others to debrief and prepare for Magellan 1. .... but not before another ill-fated attempt at station-building. Seeing a lucrative contract, the engineers decided to throw together a new station to replace the obsolete Roanoake station, which to date, had never been crewed. Unfortunately, the launcher was aerodynamically unstable. Fortunately, that meant that it was able to safely land in the water several Kilometers off the coast of the KSC. Embarrassed, but not deterred, the crew dutifully fished the station out of the water, slapped some fins on the rocket, and relaunched it. Thus, the Humbolt Station was launched, setting the stage for the beginning of the Magellan 1 mission...

Beautiful build! The cockpit looks fantastic (more people need to do solar panel cockpits), and the bodywork shows a lot of mastery of part use.

You deserved it! This is an utterly fantastic replica in every way - I can't imagine anyone topping it for a very long time. You got the looks, you got the performance, and you did it in only ~300 parts. That's insane.

The oddest duck out there - a Soviet/Polish agricultural jet biplane which was an odd victim of the cold war. Download it here: https://kerbalx.com/servo/PZL-M-15-Belphegor

One of the oddest planes that ever were: the PZL M-15 Belphegor I built this yesterday in response to a challenge to build a straight-winged plane posed by @HolidayTheLeek The tanks on this thing were the most difficult part of the build, but I think I did all-right. It's certainly the cleanest solution that I could come up with. Download link here: https://kerbalx.com/servo/PZL-M-15-Belphegor

I've finally released by BG+Stock BF-109E attempt 1. This was my first shot at the BF-109. It flies a lot better, but isn't as accurate as the other version I've been working on. Download Link: https://kerbalx.com/servo/BF-109 This is the rebuild. Note the more accurate wings, fuselage shape, and other details. Unfortunatly, this came at the cost of 50m/s of the top speed and 50 parts.

I kinda finished my BF-109. Unfortunately, I looked back at it and realized that I missed a lot of the nuances of the shape and profile. But it looks smooth, is recognizable, and flies really well (110m/s top speed) So I'm torn - release a knowingly imperfect replica, or basically start over and do it right.

I'm biased - replicas are my bread and butter. But I love them because they're a challenge to build and make look good. Plus, you can always see your skills improving. It's been a very long time since I actually went to space. Now, IMO the best replicas are those that break the tradespace of looks - performance - part count (pick two). If you can make something look good, fly well, and be accessible to those of us playing on lower-powered machines, you're a fantastic builder. My heart. But in actuality, so long as you can stand the look of your own craft, I don't care if it's an ugly brick or not.

I've been building a fictional WWII+ Era ground attack aircraft for @HolidayTheLeek and @Xen0m3's AU in which WWII never really ends, leading to all sorts of lovely Dieselpunk-style planes. This is the North American A-59 Tornado, a ground-attack figher-bomber based on Curtis's work on the XP-55 Ascender. I'm also experimenting with KS3P's lovely image effects, if you couldn't tell. A secondary project, spurred by the same AU is this lovely plane - a super-BF-109, but I may wind up just making a normal -109 as well, while I'm at it.

That looks amazing! That's the best-looking lifting body out there by a mile. Plus, it's good to hear that it doesn't fly too well...

There's a new fighter on the block- The F-4 Phantom II is here! Download Link: https://kerbalx.com/servo/McDonnell-F-4-Phantom

I finally finished up and released my F-4 Phantom II! This thing has been in the SPH for a long time, so I'm glad to finally finish it. I've been wanting to revisit the Phantom for a long time, but I wanted to make sure I did it justice. With recent advancement in abusing communotrons and variometer cockpits, I decided to return to the Lead Sled and give it another shot. Download Link is here: https://kerbalx.com/servo/McDonnell-F-4-Phantom

A (hopefully) final detailing pass on the Phantom. Added cockpit frames, rearview mirror, splitter plate support posts, antennae, squared off the vertical stab, fixed the slats, added action groups, and a bunch of other small changes. All that leads up to here. This isn't my best craft yet (that honor still lies with my F/A-18), but it's finally at a level that I feel comfortable releasing it soon. There's just so many small problems that I have with this design that won't be fixed short of a total rebuild. Lines aren't as clean as I would like, colors shift awkwardly, and dimensional accuracy is sacrificed in order to get the proportions right.

I've had some fun with IVA flying at the helm of the rare non-replica craft that I build in a while. The loadout for toss bombing against the KSC. SOP is to drop the bombs in pairs in a 200m/s climb 5km away from KSC to increase probability of hitting. The result of a spectacular direct hit against the KSC - the flight profile on this one was to fly in high, dive down, then pitch up quickly in a loop, dropping the bombs at about alpha = 30 and 3km range. I was greeted by this view after I completed the loop. This flight was flow entirely within IVA, including a successful landing (off the runway. You can't have everything)

A project from before the ARIA is nearing completion. I've been working up the courage to revisit the F-4 for a long time, and have just recently figured that I could do those intakes justice. A good shot of probably my favorite part of the build - the after-fuselage between the engines. This bit required a good bit of ingenuity to figure out how to get the shape right - using structural panels like on my Voodoos didn't work, so I had to get creative. And it wouldn't be a Phantom if it wasn't an utter flying brick. Here it is flying somewhat happily on one wing. If it had another set of landing gear, I'm confident that I could have landed it like this.