VincentLaw

One day left until 1.0, but I figured I'd make an entry anyway. It's been a while since I played with roller bearings. After a number of iterations I came up with this bearing which is pretty stable at both high angular velocity and high torque. The propeller could probably use some improvement, and The craft has too many parts to be of practical use, but I managed to hit 160 m/s at 10217 m before running out of fuel. Each shaft is powered by 16 turbojet engines which can get pretty messy with particles, so the only mod used was disabling particle effects to reduce lag. Craft file download here. No guarantee it will work with 1.0: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzhG7bt4aJ2dZHl2c2c2eHh3WHM/view?usp=sharing Another screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/BWeI79h.jpg

I tried using a screw to control the height. It kind of worked, but It couldn't lift very much weight. The ramp is probably better. Also, reaction wheels worked better for controlling rotation than the powered wheels. You can also see a weird bug in this picture that caused the root part (structural fuselage) to be improperly scaled.

Dun dun dun.... download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c6h7021p0p7ma72/Wheel.craft no jet engines, no ion engines, infinite range, 100% stock.

Your prop came off because you cut the throttle to 0%. You should keep it at 15% throttle or more even when coming in for a landing (until you come to a complete stop) so that the prop stays spin stabilized. I had to use a different bearing design because of the ARM patch, and the joint on this one isn't very stable. Also, as I hinted at in the first post, it goes slowly at launch because of the fixed pitch propeller. I designed the propeller for maximum speed, so it doesn't get much thrust at low speed. If you wanted higher acceleration at low speed, then it would reduce the max speed.

The ARM update broke my old helicopters, so I decided to revisit the stock turboprop. (my last turboprop was in version 0.17) These designs use decouplers as bearings so that the rotating part is not separate from the craft (a la roller bearings). With my experience from other projects, I was able to make this faster, smaller, and more maneuverable that my previous turboprop. The tail and wings keep it stable enough that contra-rotation is not needed. I also switched from tricycle gear to conventional gear for prop clearance and including tail wheel steering. Notes: *Sometimes the propeller will break on start. This is a KSP bug. Just reload the mission. *Do not exceed 60 m/s or the prop may become unstable and can separate. *Never reduce throttle below 15% unless parked at 0 m/s (even when landing and taxiing). Low prop RPM while moving can make the prop unstable. *Never time warp. *Do not press the stage button more than once or else the prop will separate. *Be careful not to brake too much to avoid nosing over. *Recommended cruise speed 55 m/s. *Landing speed ~35 m/s. *Thrust increases with speed because it is a fixed pitch propeller (The prop is stalled out at low speed). *~200 part count. Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/myxolpz322b04hz/Turboprop%20Mk_%202.craft Swirly Exhaust: Island Flyover:

I redirected an asteroid:

First off, nice job Aphobius. I'll just make an entry with this old thing. It is a practical heavy lift helicopter. Unlike the post above this by ihtoit, no mod parts were used. 3076 m altitude 62.8 km from KSP As you can see, I had plenty of fuel to go futher, but I got bored. It flies more slowly than a slug. The little distance indicator there is at KSP on the other side of the mountain range. I accidentally exited the flight after landing so I lost the F3 screen info. And the download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/scfpgat6ocw1n32/Heavy%20Helicopter.craft (or the thread if you want more details http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55393-Stock-Helicopter )

Thanks. He did a good job of not exceeding the roll input limitations. I like that he showed the ejection system too. The rotors are most likely tearing themselves apart because you don't have any struts connecting the rotor arms. You should run at least one strut between the I-beams across the middle that isn't connected to the decouplers. This will reduce the stress on the decouplers and help keep them from bending unevenly.Your lift problem could be solved by adding more fins, increasing the length of the blades, or possibly increasing the angle of incidence of the blades. The larger the rotor, the more efficient it will be. You also would not have any pitch authority if you did manage to take off because the blades are not angled as I showed in the picture on page 2. You would not have any yaw authority either because of the missing vertical fins at the rotor tips.

It's not that difficult to make the rotors not pass through each other, but since KSP doesn't detect same-ship collision, it doesn't really matter, and it makes designs a bit more bulky. Jet engine exhaust used to have a "laser beam of doom" effect that would destroy any part that got behind it (within a certain distance). For this reason, it used to be necessary to design rotors so that the blades did not intersect. That is why I used to prefer coaxial design because it was the easiest way to keep parts out of the exhaust. If you look at this design, you can see how difficult it used to be to make designs that were not coaxial. Those props are about as close as they could get to the fuselage without the exhaust shearing it in half. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/21688-Stock-0-17-TurboPROP-%28fully-functional-propellers%29?highlight=turboprop (If you want to comment on that design, do in this thread) You could try slowly modifying my design until you have something different. My cargo helicopter just used a modified subasssembly from the first one in this thread, so I didn't have to redo the rotor from scratch. (unfortunately the subassembly didn't preserve strut connections). Otherwise, send me the file and I can tell you what you are doing incorrectly.

It is possible, but there is a reason I use contra-rotating rotors in my helicopters. Reaction wheels provide only a tiny fraction of the torque that the jet engines produce, which is why I called them "ballast" in the first post, They are not very effective for counter torque. RCS works if you give it a long enough moment arm, but it runs out of fuel quickly. mounting a jet engine sideways like a tail rotor works, but jet engines have too much thrust, so they have to be mounted on a short arm to provide the correct torque, which causes a large side force. using a small rocket engine has the same problem as RCS of bad fuel efficiency. One thing I have not tried is more fins at the rotor tips to control yaw enough for counter-torque. It would not make sense for that to work, but sometimes KSP doesn't make sense, so it can be worth trying ideas that seem illogical. Another problem with a single rotor design is there is no way to control roll with a single rotor in KSP (unless you mount the cockpit vertically, then the controls act differently) so you would either need a ton of reaction wheels, or RCS for roll control. As you can see in one of my posts on page 2, roll input basically works like a collective that depends upon the direction of rotation, so if the rotor is mounted at the center of mass, it doesn't induce roll. The main advantages of a single rotor design would be lower part count, and lower chances of the sticky bug affecting the rotor (it seems to affect parts randomly, so less rotors means less chances of sticking).

This should help as long as you are not color blind. If you are colorblind an unable to decipher these, let me know and I might number them or something. For first image: The red angle gives pitch authority to the rotor blades. The higher the angle, the more pitch authority, but at the cost of lift. I am guessing getting the angle backwards will invert your pitch controls, but I have not tested it. The cyan angle is the angle of incidence of the blade. This is necessary to generate lift. for wing parts, the ideal angle is probably around 20 degrees for hovering. Steeper angles increase power required to hover, but increase max speed. (I'm not sure if control surfaces can stall in KSP, so steeper angles may be better. Maybe someone can confirm this.) The green control surfaces give yaw authority. They also act as stabilizers, but reduce max speed. The yellow circle is a micronode. These are very strong joints, so it helps keep the engine from breaking off. The blue strut increases engine efficiency. Without it, momentum will cause the engine to point at an angle. For second image: The cyan strut reduces axial loading on the rotor hub and keeps the rotor blades inline. Without it, they will bend around wildly. The green vertical decoupler allows the rotor blades to rotate relatively freely around the mast. Being connected to an I-beam seems to mitigate (but not eliminate) the new sticky bug. It acts like a periodic torsion spring, so really lightweight rotor blades will get stuck easily at low throttle. The red horizontal decouplers are attached using symmetry so that they are equal distances from the axis of rotation. They allow rotation of the rotor disk relative to the mast to reduce out of plane torque on the rotor hub. Without it, rotor failure is inevitable. If you want to eject the rotor blades for some reason, these are the best decouplers to use since they will be flung away from the craft. For third image: The red distance determines roll authority. The larger the gap, the stronger roll controls will be. Left roll input increases the lift on a counterclockwise spinning rotor and decreases the lift on a clockwise spinning rotor. Right roll input does the opposite respectively. For this reason, the left rotor should always spin clockwise and the right rotor should always spin counterclockwise (when viewed from above and behind). If you get it backwards, then your roll controls will be inverted. The blue stack separator is not necessary, but it absorbs some of the shock between the rotors and the fuselage. I'm not actually sure if the green decoupler does anything. It might mitigate the sticky bug, or it might not do anything useful. As you can see, there is complete three axis control from the rotors themselves, and the contrarotation cancels torque. so RCS, SAS, reaction wheels, etc. are not necessary. If you are trying to make an SSTO, you might actually want to take all controls off of the rotors and just use wing parts on them, since control input may cause them to rotate at speed. If you are going high speed and the rotor tries to rotate, it will most likely be ripped off. You can also see how I put vertical stabilizers on one end of the rotor blades on my SSTO to help keep them from rotating. Tip: the center of lift of the swept wing part is at the root of the wing, so it's actually better to mount them from the outside of the rotor disk pointing in.

It relies on a physics exploit. It used to work really well, but now (since 0.21) there is a bug that makes it hit and miss. Basically, all parts are wobbly to a certain degree, but decouplers are extra wobbly. Certain combinations of parts make them even more wobbly (to the point of being able to rotate indefinitely), but now there is a bug that makes some parts completely rigid some of the time for no reason. It seems that certain combinations of parts make the new bug happen less frequently, but I honestly don't understand the new bug. No download link because it is not compatible with this 0.22. It could only barely make it into orbit, but I could probably do a better design now. Obviously it is a hybrid helicopter, so it stowed the rotors for minimum drag and went into space like an airplane. It was capable of transition between helicopter and airplane modes during flight.

Okay, Here it is flying around with the world's ugliest bus. (Also, I just updated the file to remove the canards. They were causing undesired pitching.)

Since RocketscientistV expressed interest, here is a cargo helicopter. (cargo not included). Again, I recommend quicksaving before spooling up, and if the rotors get stuck, quickload and it will probably work the second time. This one also sometimes has a problem with unbalanced torque which I have not figured out. I blame KSP inconsistent physics bugs. helicopter download link here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/scfpgat6ocw1n32/Heavy%20Helicopter.craft (warning, 304 parts) It can lift the equivalent mass of about one orange fuel tank, so basically anything you can drive into the cargo bay is liftable. Press 1 to open and close the gate on the back. Raise the landing gear while on the ground to make it easier to drive cargo in. Cargo used in the screenshots is MeticulousMitch's Delorean DMC 12, available here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/49670-Cars-by-MeticulousMitch?highlight=delorean Screenshots: