Maneuverability Challenge - Reverse Flight and Crazy Ivan

[sevenperforce]

The challenge: Build an aircraft that can pull a Crazy Ivan.

If you don't know what a Crazy Ivan is, watch this awesome scene from Firefly:

Spoiler

 

Simply, a Crazy Ivan is a mid-air 180. It works best with aircraft which have two engines mounted rather far apart and best if those engines are reversible. At full throttle, one engine is reversed, producing a dramatic torque that results in a 180-degree yaw. Then the engine is switched back to normal and the engines fire together, stopping the aircraft in midair and then taking off in the opposite direction.

Rules:

• Aircraft engines only (no rockets)
• Aircraft control surfaces only (no RCS or reaction wheels)
• Must be capable of normal rolling takeoff and landing

Goals:

• Pull a Crazy Ivan
• Using reversible thrust on both engines, fly your plane backward
• Take off and land backward or forward

Good luck!

[Bloojay]

16 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Aircraft engines only (no rockets)

Revoke this rule pls, Serenity uses rocket engines that happen to look like Aircraft engines

[Joseph Kerman]

The maneuver is impossible in real life; the closest you can get to the Crazy Ivan is the Herbst maneuver.

[Bloojay]

@Joseph Kerman Then it's a damn good thing KSP and Firefly are the opposite of real life aint it?

[Joseph Kerman]

1 minute ago, Bloojay said:

@Joseph Kerman Then it's a damn good thing KSP and Firefly are the opposite of real life aint it?

I cannot even perform the Cobra with the Panther engines.

[Bloojay]

44 minutes ago, Joseph Kerman said:

I cannot even perform the Cobra with the Panther engines.

 Use yo gorram imagination, now stop cloggin this poor mans thread

This is my submission btw 

Now if you'll excuse me I have to edit my OBS settings to be less... terrible.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Bloojay
typo

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, Joseph Kerman said:

The maneuver is impossible in real life; the closest you can get to the Crazy Ivan is the Herbst maneuver.

It's only impossible for a passively stable vehicle. All real jet fighters have the center of pressure well behind the center of mass, and there is no way to invert this. But in KSP, with airbrakes and other drag-altering mechanisms, it's not necessarily impossible to get the center of pressure to change. Then all you need is off-axis yaw to do a 180-degree spin.

That's why I also added the "fly backwards" challenge. With some action groups, it should be possible to get a plane that can fly backwards or forwards, and if you can do that, you can definitely pull a Crazy Ivan.

3 hours ago, Bloojay said:

Revoke this rule pls, Serenity uses rocket engines that happen to look like Aircraft engines

The side engines on the Serenity are some sort of nuclear air-turborocket.

2 hours ago, Bloojay said:

 Use yo gorram imagination, now stop cloggin this poor mans thread

This is my submission btw 

Now if you'll excuse me I have to edit my OBS settings to be less... terrible.

Wow, gorgeous! Kudos to you.

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, Joseph Kerman said:

I cannot even perform the Cobra with the Panther engines.

I can perform the Cobra if I throttle down the Panthers so that TWR is < 1 without afterburners. Throttle low enough that you have level sustained subsonic flight, then increase the throttle to max and immediately nose up to a stall before the Panthers have time to spin up. As soon as you stall, but before the Panthers have throttled up, hit the afterburner to immediately push your TWR over 1. Then you can use thrust vectoring to dance on your tail for a bit. Once you start to accelerate, kick the afterburners off and nose forward again.