The 5th Generation Fighter challenge [FAR]

[Darren9]

My interceptor is finished. Carries radome, 2x hidden vulcan, 4x aim-120, 2x aim-9 and 4x chaff & flare. Wave drag is 0.21 (with all missiles), mach 2.5 at sea level and 4.2 at 10000m (with all missiles). Sustained 12g+ both sub & supersonic.

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[TheHengeProphet]

And I'm back.

Unfortunately, Dwerto, I'm pretty sure that would fall under the legacy rules, of which I'm fairly certain Halsfury is no longer taking entries.

Darren9, that thing is absolutely hideous. I love it. I'm impressed you managed to knock it down to 0.217 m² wave drag area! That's a fair bit lower than my Spectre's 0.245... I notice you are still using Haack, so you might want to update to Hayes, which may unfortunately affect things, though it's mainly a bugfix set. Also, the mach 6g+ turn is supposed to be done over 10km, of which I'm pretty sure that plane could do. Any chance we can get a copy of that thing? I'd love to play around with it!

I'm not even certain if Halsfury still intending on continuing upkeep here, but I figure it's being put off until 1.1, considering the models will change considerably, along with engines.

[CrisK]

I'm considering creating a thread in the Spacecraft Exchange area just for jet fighters. It'd serve as a partner thread for this challenge.

[FourGreenFields]

I'm considering creating a thread in the Spacecraft Exchange area just for jet fighters. It'd serve as a partner thread for this challenge.

Isn't that what the FAR Craft Repository is for?

Ok, not specifically for jet fighters, but for FAR planes.

[Darren9]

Unfortunately the interceptor didn't make it through a FAR update, looks like there's been some changes in the ducting and the new wave drag is 0.5 and I can't see a way to easily recover it. Just encase you still want a look it's below but I think I'll start again.

http://www./Far10C.craft

[TheHengeProphet]

Sweet, thanks! I'll mess with it this weekend to see if I can "rescue" it. Though, 0.5 is not awful. Most of the planes that come through here are a lot closer to .9, except for a couple. I'm actually more concerned about what's happened with structural integrity lately, considering planes like my Spectre and CrisK's Flanker variant of his newest plane seem to tear themselves apart when nearing mach 2 in the latest update.

I might have to start using Kerbal Joint Reinforcement and see if that helps, considering they aren't listed as aerodynamic failures.

I think it'd be interesting to have a fighter repository that is separate from the regular FAR repository, considering things could start getting lost in such a far-reaching topic _{hurr hurr}; however, setting up criteria for fighters which can actually compete against each other almost cuts it into being a challenge once more... I'd set one up to my personal preferences, but I have magnificent powers of neglect (see my signature), and a fairly average computer where each of my eight cores are only 1.8GHz, preventing KSP from actually running at a reasonable speed where decent dogfights are concerned, due to Unity's lack of proper hyperthreading...

Edited September 11, 2015 by TheHengeProphet

[CrisK]

@TheHengeProphet, I updated my USAF and Flanker for the latest version of FAR and I'll upload the craft files to Dropbox in the morning. Both fly quite nicely.

A little eye candy, my USAF taking off from a carrier:

[Darren9]

Sweet, thanks! I'll mess with it this weekend to see if I can "rescue" it. Though, 0.5 is not awful. Most of the planes that come through here are a lot closer to .9, except for a couple. I'm actually more concerned about what's happened with structural integrity lately, considering planes like my Spectre and CrisK's Flanker variant of his newest plane seem to tear themselves apart when nearing mach 2 in the latest update.

I might have to start using Kerbal Joint Reinforcement and see if that helps, considering they aren't listed as aerodynamic failures.

I think it'd be interesting to have a fighter repository that is separate from the regular FAR repository, considering things could start getting lost in such a far-reaching topic _{hurr hurr}; however, setting up criteria for fighters which can actually compete against each other almost cuts it into being a challenge once more... I'd set one up to my personal preferences, but I have magnificent powers of neglect (see my signature), and a fairly average computer where each of my eight cores are only 1.8GHz, preventing KSP from actually running at a reasonable speed where decent dogfights are concerned, due to Unity's lack of proper hyperthreading...

I'm not sure what's going on now, can you load it up and check if the center fuselage is hollow, it could be a bug or it could be I messed something up, and take a look at my post in the FAR thread, that's why it's gone bad in my install.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Darren9

[winged]

My first design with FAR, AJE and Realism Overhaul (no reaction wheels in cockpits, Kerosene instead of Liquid Fuel)

Work in progress, no name yet, nor BD Armory.

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Powerplant: General Electric J79 (75kN thrust with afterburner)

Dry mass: 5100kg

Wet mass: 12000kg

Max Takeoff weight: 17000kg (with droptanks)

Takeoff speed: 360km/h - 100m/s

Service Ceiling: 20000m

Range: ~ 6000-7000km without afterburner, ~8000km with drop tanks

Max speed: >Mach 2.5 - 2700km/h - 750m/s Engine will explode at Mach 2.8 (image 16)

Max speed at sea level: Mach 1.21 - 1520km/h - 422m/s (image 15)

Mods:

AJE

RO

Cockpit: Fantom Works

Procedural Parts

Procedural Wings

Adjustable Landing Gear

Ven Stock Revamp

Graphics: RVE for RSS

[TheHengeProphet]

@Darren9 Yeah, you appear to have a severe lack of area value here... That's really bizarre. Also, fancy using a B9 Procedural Wing for an airframe core, that's really neat. I suggest stripping off the BDA and Adjustable Landing Gear parts and posting it on the FAR thread; however, the point may be moot, considering wings are getting an overhaul anyways. On the other other hand, however, ferram4 might want to see that, considering it may involve something more severe.

Tried flying the plane, and it looks like it can only manage about a 12°-15° AoA before it stalls the main wings, which makes it hard to do much other than go in a straight line. Your nose-duct seems to be doing its job, but that mystery gap in your area is what's really screwing up your wave drag area. I suspect it may have something to do with the wing section being "sideways", but FAR shouldn't care about that...

Edited September 11, 2015 by TheHengeProphet

[Darren9]

^ It seems it's a problem with a thick B9-PWing being hollow and Ferram4 is aware of it. Now I've realised what's going on it can be solved on that particular Far10C by moving the rear landing gears closer together and the center air-brake back and down slightly. That has the effect of sealing what was a hollow box at both ends so it becomes solid and back to the expected 0.21 wave drag.

As for the low AoA and generally terrible handling it just met the G requirements so I posted it. There's limited wing shapes that'll fit on without increasing the drag.

[TheHengeProphet]

Wow, that's kind of a glaring issue there... Hmm, I wonder if whoever is providing upkeep on B9 Pwings has anything to say about it. I'm about to start work, so I'll have to ask later.

Interceptors don't really have to turn that well, they just have to be faster than their target, so I guess it really does fit that role. I'll try messing with the control deflection to see if I can't get it to less willingly stall out.

@winged That's a nice looking jet you have there. Reminds me of a jart. Still not sure if AJE is in, but I'll have to go check it out again. 6900kg of internal fuel mass is remarkable, especially considering the dry mass is so low, but I expect that might change when you start adding radar and such. I haven't tried messing around with Procedural parts, but I guess it might be worth looking into... even though they're not listed on the acceptable mods list. It is a good way to test max TO weight, though.

[CrisK]

I updated most of my planes today.

CrisK S-Flanker craft file

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CrisK S-USAF craft file

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CrisK Trainer craft file

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CrisK and Halsfury joint Dassault Rafale craft file

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I also updated the Boeing X-32, but I'm bored with its ugly duckling design and I haven't tweaked its performance. It flies very well at low speeds, but it's pretty boring to fly compared to the twin engine planes.

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Mods for all planes: Adjustable landing gear, FAR, B9 wings, BDArmory.

[TheHengeProphet]

Tested out your latest iterations, and they are an absolute joy to fly! I don't know why, but the Flanker just... feels stumpy, but it's a lot of fun. I thought your landing gear arrangements felt a touch odd, though. Really wide, and low in the back, which I guess works alright. Of your planes, my favourites to fly are the Rafale and the trainer, both of which will do what you tell them to. I can see the trainer being an absolute terror in a dogfight.

I noticed some built-in inefficiencies in the Rafale, so I'm giving it a major makeover. It's not really going to be a repro by the time I'm done with it. So far, I've widened the body to make full use of the air intakes and their ducting, as well as leveled the nacelles with the fuselage and wings, while also removing that oddly placed intake on the tailplane. This dropped the wave drag from 1.31 to 1.2. It still feels a little sluggish, but I think some area ruling might be able to help out here.

Of curiosity, what did you use to colour your planes?

Magically, aerodynamics are working like they used to again, even though... nothing should have changed significantly, so I'm totally baffled. All of the planes, yours and mine, seem to be flying as we designed them, ridiculous AoA values and all.

Update: So, I pitted the Spite against the Rafale, guns only, and it won three fights undefeated... so I pitted it against 2 Rafales at the goading of my friend, and... it was surprisingly even. The Rafale duo won 3 of 5 fights, and lost 2. I'm going to have to pit the Spite against the Flanker next.

Further update: The Flanker is scary maneuverable, but I couldn't exactly call it even, because the precoolers kept ripping themselves off due to aerodynamic stresses, for some reason. Might want to look into that.

Further further update: The USAF fighter is amazing. It's ability to maneuver at just about any speed is ridiculous... It's been beating the Spite about 70% of the time in guns only duels.

On another note, my aerodynamics started acting wonky again, which is weird, because it occurred within the same session of play, causing the Spite to start stalling at around 17°, rather than around 25°. I haven't figured out any methods of reproducing it, so I can't really even bring it to ferram4's attention and expect a result.

Hmm... I thought random asymmetric stalls were fixed... I think I'm just going to hope for the wing overhaul coming soon.

Edited September 12, 2015 by TheHengeProphet

[CrisK]

@TheHengeProphet, Thanks! I’m happy that you took the time to fly all of my planes!

I changed the landing gear setup from the previous setup so that I can land in remote areas and perform short landings on aircraft carriers in Kerbinside and the Martime pack.

If you want to make the Rafale feel less sluggish, just increase the control percentage on the canards to 6 or 8. The AI pilot does not fly the Rafale well - I would expect it to loose to your Spite 100% of the time.

I used Kerbpaint to color the crafts.

The Flanker and USAF are extremely maneuverable at any speed, and they rarely stall. As a result, both make good AI drones. I snuck a probe into each of their bodies so they should be setup to act as drones. Unfortunately, the Flanker is a bit fragile. I'm aware of that problem - it's because I removed the front and rear struts for aesthetic reasons. If you add them back (strut the precoolers together, then strut the precoolers to the main body in the front and back) its durability becomes unrealistically good. However, this adds 8 more parts and looks bad.

The Flanker is a bit stumpy. The tail needs to be extended by 1/3rd and the intake/precooler/engines need to be moved back. However, there's no stock part that looks good as an extended tail section. I used the structural tubes from Infernal Robotics rework and they look great in this role, but I'd like to keep the mod requirement for each craft to a minimum.

The USAF is as close to perfect as I can get performance-wise. It's also very light on parts.

That weird stall bug has something to do with B9 wings. Ferram and I exchanged a number of posts about it, and he concluded that it was a B9 wings quirk. I agree - I haven't been able to replicate the bug with stock wings.

[TheHengeProphet]

Except it's been happening with my Spite, primarily, which only uses stock wings, so... maybe I should strip it down again and send it to him, because some time mid-flight it started stalling the leading-edge wing parts, wherein I could not previously get it to stall at all. I'll have to strip it down and see if it continues to do it on a completely stock model.

The asymmetric stalling happens glaringly obviously on my Black Mamba and Devil Ray planes, which heavily use B9 PWings, which explains a lot... Ugh.

Oh, so... soon I'll upload my updated Rafale, of which the AI uses much better than previously (apparently). Also, when I've been having the planes dogfight, I've been using full thrust on the engines, because it get almost boring watching the low-power dogfights.

Okay, turns out it was that the delta wings have their attachment point rather far back and were flexing due to aerodynamic stress, causing them to exceed stall angle, but in a strange and unpredictable manner. Struts fixed it. I was also able to get back the mass gained from the struts by lowering the mass on the trailing wing body, so the plane still weighs only 9.2t, and for now, I'm keeping it there out of spite of rule 9.

Thanks for linking to Kerbpaint!

Well, I can't get Kerbpaint to work with any reasonable functionality at all, so... oh well.

Edited September 12, 2015 by TheHengeProphet

[NotAnAimbot]

Hi guys, trying to rebuild my fighter jet inventory after I had to uninstall Windows.

Although I'm getting better at setting the controls' sensitivity as to not rip my planes apart when turning, does anyone know how to make a plane even sturdier? I've tried struts, but most of the times they look extremely ugly on it.

[CrisK]

@TheHengeProphet Weirdly, once the bug manifests on one craft it applies to all of your crafts. I fixed it by starting a new game and recreating the bugged crafts.

[NotAnAimbot]

B9 isn't up to date for 1.0. Just learned that 2 secs ago.

So sad.

i cri evrytim.

Anyone got other good fuselage and stuff mods?

[CrisK]

I updated my larger Flanker today. It was a challenge to make this thing supermaneuverable, durable, and competitive with the smaller fighters. Weirdly, it's actually more maneuverable than any of the other fighters. I haven't quite figured out why; it's partially dumb luck.

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It's about 40% larger than the other Flanker, and carries a much larger payload while retaining supermaneuverability.

Thanks for linking to Kerbpaint!

Well, I can't get Kerbpaint to work with any reasonable functionality at all, so... oh well.

Edit: I will upload a version of Kerbpaint that works with KSP 1.04 to Dropbox in the morning and send you a PM with the link.

Hi guys, trying to rebuild my fighter jet inventory after I had to uninstall Windows.

Although I'm getting better at setting the controls' sensitivity as to not rip my planes apart when turning, does anyone know how to make a plane even sturdier? I've tried struts, but most of the times they look extremely ugly on it.

If you post a picture of your design (or the craft file) we can give you some tips.

Edited September 13, 2015 by CrisK

[NotAnAimbot]

If you post a picture of your design (or the craft file) we can give you some tips.

Well, I kinda fixed the problem. Introducing the XF-1 LuftJager, a relatively small, fast and maneuverable fighter. I don't know how to put the throttle limit exactly at 50, so it's at 50.5

Please don't disqualify me for that.

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At first, I tried to make a design like the MiG-29/Su-27, but then I came up with a more compact one.

Update: Dammit, forgot flares. I'll add them tomorrow.

Edited September 13, 2015 by NotAnAimbot

[FourGreenFields]

Well, I kinda fixed the problem. Introducing the XF-1 LuftJager, a relatively small, fast and maneuverable fighter. I don't know how to put the throttle limit exactly at 50, so it's at 50.5

Please don't disqualify me for that.

http://imgur.com/a/UMcfW

At first, I tried to make a design like the MiG-29/Su-27, but then I came up with a more compact one.

Update: Dammit, forgot flares. I'll add them tomorrow.

First: ÄÖÜ can be spelled as AeOeUe. It's Luftjaeger or Luftjäger. Allthough seriously, you'd usually just say Jäger.

2. Most importand thing is to increase wing mass/strength if you want a robust plane.

You can also clip struts so you can't see them. Often enough a must when using B9PW due to too much flex.

CoM and CoL aren't as importand anymore. FAR analysis tools (the pretty graphs and scary looking numbers) are importand.

Also: green line is your cross section, yellow basicly how good/bad you area ruled. Blue is pressure coefficient, allthough I am not sure in what way that matters, because I have no clue.

Keep in mind that using fairings as nose section usually leads to severe overheating problems at high speeds.

And if you do the top speed shots, open FAR flight data. That shows whether you're able to keep that speed using your engine power.

[TheHengeProphet]

Probably best to keep the FAR flight data open in general, unless you are starved for screen real estate due to low resolution. Also, if your fairings are overheating before your B9Pwings, I don't know what's wrong, because they have a much higher temperature tolerance. Then again, I've never really used them, so what do I know?

FourGreenFields has it pretty right as far as those lines go. I really don't know what the pressure coefficient is for, probably because I've been too lazy to look it up.

Is there radar on there? That might serve better for a nosecone, but I really don't know exactly what you're going for in design here.

[FourGreenFields]

Also, if your fairings are overheating before your B9Pwings, I don't know what's wrong, because they have a much higher temperature tolerance. Then again, I've never really used them, so what do I know?

http://kerbalx.com/crafts/2466

IIrc top speed at roughly 10kmâ„¢ was Mach 3.9 or something (been a while since I checked). Would explode then. Overheated much earlier than my B9PW designs anyway. Be happy, otherwise I'd have modded that to pass the challenge.

[NotAnAimbot]

Probably best to keep the FAR flight data open in general, unless you are starved for screen real estate due to low resolution. Also, if your fairings are overheating before your B9Pwings, I don't know what's wrong, because they have a much higher temperature tolerance. Then again, I've never really used them, so what do I know?

FourGreenFields has it pretty right as far as those lines go. I really don't know what the pressure coefficient is for, probably because I've been too lazy to look it up.

Is there radar on there? That might serve better for a nosecone, but I really don't know exactly what you're going for in design here.

The radar is actually housed in the Mk2 adapter below the cockpit, giving its strange shape. I'll try changing it for a nosecone when B9 becomes updated.

- - - Updated - - -

First: ÄÖÜ can be spelled as AeOeUe. It's Luftjaeger or Luftjäger. Allthough seriously, you'd usually just say Jäger.

2. Most importand thing is to increase wing mass/strength if you want a robust plane.

You can also clip struts so you can't see them. Often enough a must when using B9PW due to too much flex.

CoM and CoL aren't as importand anymore. FAR analysis tools (the pretty graphs and scary looking numbers) are importand.

Also: green line is your cross section, yellow basicly how good/bad you area ruled. Blue is pressure coefficient, allthough I am not sure in what way that matters, because I have no clue.

Keep in mind that using fairings as nose section usually leads to severe overheating problems at high speeds.

And if you do the top speed shots, open FAR flight data. That shows whether you're able to keep that speed using your engine power.

The Ä for Jäger just came up as a big, messed up letter in KSP, so I decided to just leave it to a normal A. Also, Jäger just means hunter, so I put Luft in front of it for a bit more precision.

I'll try getting the graphs asap, but I can't for now.