Shazbot

Man, this game just isn't getting quite the attention it deserves. It looks so good. Also, it has the ideal engine for a KSP2.

I think the intakes and fuselage shape are a big deal here - much of the Cassowary's wide fuselage is covered by those two massive intakes, whereas the Midge F4B's fuselage flares out at the tail, which probably contributes a lot. Combined with the missiles, the gear bays on the wings and the general nature of stock parts, I think that amounts to a lot of cross-section area.

Tripled the voxel resolution, adjusted some parts for the new setting. If I had some time I could probably get it down even lower. The setting's fully strict, 3x the regular resolution. Wave drag IS mostly dependent on the shape, not the size of a plane, at least with relatively small ones. I'm using tons of mods with which I can fine-tune my jets.

The shape is a massive factor, look at this large fighter's wave drag.

Does anyone know the mach 1 wave-drag area of some real jets? I want something to compare my designs to. Also, some silly maneuvers: http://webm.host/33e45/ http://webm.host/51e40/

I'm baaack~ Got some more jets to show off. The imgur thing also contains webm links, so check them out!

thank you!

In case you're taking requests, I'd love to see a simple, radially attachable fighter-style canopy. No doodads, no clutter, just a nice and smooth shape.

Thanks I tried to crudely solve the problem myself by just setting wetThrust to 78.7, however it somehow made the engine get absurd amounts of thrust, maxing at 150kN at Mach 2 which probably isn't how it should be either. ThrustUpperLimit is at 150, maybe that should be toned down?

I think there's something wrong with the F-404, if I look at the thrust then it says dryThrust = 53.16 and wetThrust 53.16 too. Should wetThrust be at 78.7? The engine feels underpowered but that could be me doing something wrong with my plane. For the record I'm using the solver_redo branch.

Thanks, The pitch does indeed come exclusively from the tailplanes. The high-alpha assistance is done with the leading edge slat-thingies. The setting on them is maximum control deflection and -100 AoA. I since modified the plane to be both more aerodynamic and maneuverable, the result can be seen here: The new canards have the exact same setting as the slat things, with the addition of some roll control. I also made a dedicated thread for my jets here so that if I make more of them I don't flood this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130659-The-Flightless-Birds-a-series-of-FAR-fighter-jets

After Ferram4 gave me some tips on Reddit, I had a bash at improving the F-6. Here are two additional variants, the B and C: Gfycat! http://gfycat.com/MaleRelievedIrishterrier

At some point like a week ago or so, I decided to have a bash at making some FAR jets. I downloaded just about every aviation related mod I could find, and after some trial and error I came up with these designs. Because of the way the planes usually crash and burn spectacularly on their maiden flights (and the following dozen), I decided to name all my planes after flightless birds. I posted them in the FAR craft thread, but I thought I should give them their own one because they've become this series of sorts. Anyway, here are the noteworthy ones so far: F-1 Kakapo Named after a flightless parrot with the face of a Victorian gentleman, the F-1 Kakapo is inspired by light fighters such as the F-5 Tiger II. The rather simple design makes it decently sleek, and the single F100 engine nicked from an F-16 (thanks to the Advanced Jet Engine mod) gives it plenty of oomph. Handling was a priority, the plane is very manageable while still capable of some wacky stuff. Note the leading edge control surfaces (slats?): They move automatically depending on the AoA of the plane, which helps maintain stability during sharp turns and stuff. It's a feature that all subsequent jets also have. F-3 Ostrich After the F-2 crashed so many times on takeoff that I decided it doesn't deserve to fly, I moved on to the F-3. The Ostrich is a delta-canard plane inspired by the "eurocanards", the Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen. While it is ugly as sin, the plane is surprisingly aerodynamic. The delta-canard design seems to have some pretty funny (murderous) properties. Like, rather than just cobra maneuvers, this thing does backflips (and then explodes, usually). While it can fly with a modicum of stability, the slightest mistake will make it want to kill the pilot. The upshot is that if wrangled properly, it can pull off some really crazy stuff. The F-4 was an attempt at changing the F-3's wing configuration to something more conventional. It was awful. And fiery. Very fiery. F-5 Rhea Having discovered the fabulous versatility of procedural parts, I decided to revisit the F-1's concept. Aside from the procedural parts, I also changed the difficulty settings in FAR to the strictest possible area ruling for added masochism. The F-5 Rhea is somewhat inspired by the Mirage F1. In fact, thanks again to AJE it actually uses the same engine. The plane is all around decent, with no major bad habits and a handling that lets idiots like me fly it with some proficiency. F-6 Cassowary Notable for being the first even-numbered jet in the series that actually flies, the Cassowary looks like some weird mix of MiG-25 and F-15. It's an all-around improvement on the F-5 that turns harder, goes faster, and is easier to fly. The most notable aspect of this jet aside from the insane power of its dual F100 engines, is the sheer stability of it. No matter if you're going sub-100ms or mach 2, this thing is always very responsive and forgiving even at high angles of attack. Capable of holding just over 30° of AoA, "bouncing" up to 40° for short moments and pulling over 10g at high speed, this thing is an absolute joy to fly. That's all for now, more to come maybe. If people are interested I'll upload the .craft files, but the modset I'm using (at least for the first two) is pretty wacky.

I have yet another fighter jet in the flightless bird series! Meet the F-6A Cassowary, a 4th gen twin engine fighter, in the same sort of size class as the F-15 and Su-27. It's more fasty, more turny, and more angry than its predecessor. I used mostly procedural parts again, which resulted in a pretty slippery plane for its size. It blasts through the sound barrier even at low altitude and shows no sign of stopping at mach 2.8. Well, it would if the dual Pratt & Whitney F100 engines wouldn't catastrophically overheat at anything higher than that. Armament wise, it can carry 4 AMRAAMs and 4 Sidewinders. Both missile types are mounted in-line to keep the drag low.

I made a new jet in my flightless bird series, the F-5B Rhea. I made it mostly with procedural fuel tanks. Apparently they're lighter than procedural structural elements, so I just took a load of them and removed a lot of fuel, and hey presto, a lightweight plane! The procedural parts allowed me to make a much sleeker plane than my previous designs. So yeah, it's another light fighter, this time with some additional inspiration drawn from the Mirage F1, in addition to other jets of a similar role. I also turned the difficulty up a notch by setting area ruling to full, and it still reaches Mach 2.2 with the same SNECMA Atar as the F1, courtesy of AJE. It did however require an intercontinental flight to reach that speed! The handling is sublime. Easy to fly, pretty high AoAs, almost 9g turns at speed. It doesn't do cobras, at least with the low fuel amount I fly it with. It might reach higher AoAs with more weight. I'll put missiles on it at some point. For now, I'm really digging the way this thing flies. That's insane. I love it.

Hey Ferram, have you considered expanding on the control surface settings? For example, separate upper and lower deflection limits, so you can for example have ailerons on top of a wing that only move in one direction. I've also found that I wish I could toggle functionality on and off, so that I can choose which control surfaces are currently active. Both would be great to have for automatic (using the AoA slider) leading edge surfaces. I have them on some of my planes, and they work great when pitching up. Pitch down, and the'll point upwards and cause all sorts of hilarious havoc. So ideally I'd want them to only work in one direction. It would also be awesome to be able to turn them off to change the flight characteristics on the fly.

I like making FAR planes more than spaceships! Here's what I came up with using far too many mods. I name them after flightless birds because of low expectations. Here are two of my favourites. F-1B Kakapo, a light fighter inspired by the F-5, F-16 and F-20. Its a smooth flyer, the BDArmory AI has no trouble with it. F-3C Ostrich. A hideous gen4.5 "eurocanard" of sorts. The handling is extremely AoA-happy, but still smooth if you have a careful hand. No reaction wheels used, even for the really daft 180.

Hey guys, is there a way to get the B9-dependent engines? Perhaps (if permission can be gotten) it would make sense to include the B9 engine models in AJE until the actual B9 mod comes out.

The nose is an (empty) NCS adapter (under fuel tanks) + CH-J3 (under command & control). The CH-J3's antenna seems to make it way better than the other small nosecone. In other news, turns out the tiger thing super-maneuverable! I made it so that when you press brakes, the airbrake and the ailerons swing straight up. By pressing B and pulling up it can do cobras and even backflips and other things that will end in tears. The post-stall control is rather good when you ignore the fact that the wings sometimes like to tip over and slam you into the ground. http://imgur.com/a/wwIrY

looks pretty badass. Do B9 wings work flawlessly with nuFAR?

I'm really starting to dig nuFAR. I made this jet that I'm pretty pleased with. It's sorta based on the F-5 and F-20. Despite the very wavy yellow line, it gets just past mach 1 at sea level. The handling characteristics are pretty good, it can do crazy high aoa stuff at low speeds and as it speeds up, it becomes increasingly civilized but still capable of high g turns. Man, I really can't wait for this mod to get better, and for parts designed for it to arrive. The possibilities will be huge. http://imgur.com/a/PGnIR

It seems to me that the basic jet engine's shape is as terrible as it gets in terms of drag. Any workarounds?

I rate this mod a HYESZ/10 Now all we need is giant rollercoaster race tracks.

I think I\'ve made the most absurd working spaceship I could possibly come up with. It took roughly 4 billion tries before I got the whole thing right. It\'s a rocket launched space plane that lands on the Mun using rotating engines, then flies back to Kerbin and lands on the runway. A design flaw made the rear engines on the plane run out of fuel when the front ones still had some, and it actually ended up being a good thing as you can see. Oh, in case you didn\'t know, to launch vertically from the runway just grab the cockpit/capsule and press W. (the low res ones were taken from a livestream recording, the higher res ones when I was actually flying it)