Colibri MkF - The Autogyro

[FlipNascar]

So, some of you have flown it already, some of you have seen the WIP of the next version... But here's one that's good to go out of the box. The Colibri MkF offers zero practicality, but makes up for that with huge amounts of giggles. Seriously, this thing is fun. But, because it's got fixed blades you're limited to around 50m/s top speed. Handling is best between 30 and 40m/s. But hey, who am I to stop you from having your fun with it.

Take note, that if you have the Take Command mod installed, this craft will NOT work properly. Take Command does weird things to bearings.

So to operate this little baby, climb aboard, stage and remember to engage SAS. It's just not fun without out, and frankly is impossible to fly without SAS. While a true autogyro's rotor disc does spin much faster, and has a far shallower mast angle, this is about as good as we can get with a low part count (120 in the air!) in KSP. It provides a suitable mix of spinning blades, yet still capable of behaving. And with all the reaction wheels to counteract the torque you can do some fun stunts with it.

Full power, and go. Sometimes the blades don't start spinning until you've lifted the nose. But most of the the time it works all the time.

The only thing left to be said, is you really should try it for yourself... Because next up is the hinged version featuring fully flapping independently articulated blades, coming soonâ„¢...

Thanks to Rune for some suggestions way back near the end of September on mast+blade angles, and thanks to BlueCanary for some test flying.

Criticisms, comments and suggestions welcomed!

Direct download from KerballX

[Bubbadevlin]

Cool craft!, and I love the way you used the toroidal fuel tanks like that!

[FlipNascar]

Cool craft!, and I love the way you used the toroidal fuel tanks like that!

Thanks! They cause chaos when you crash though!! And you'll crash... It's the fun part of KSP. Crashing. Mmm explosions. I love them almost as much as pointless contraptions...

[Bubbadevlin]

Oh yes, crashing in game is definitely fun. Crashing THE game is not. And I definitely get the pointless contraptions too...

[Azimech]

This creation deserves more attention!

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

That's amazing! It looks good too!

[Rune]

Yes! I gotta try this at some point, for sure. Yay autogyros!

Rune. De La Cierva would be proud.