Vertitrace Helicopter (Stock)

[Rezolution]

Hi all.

It has been a while since I posted a craft, but Breaking Ground has brought me back from another hiatus.

Today I present the Vertitrace three bladed helicopter.

 

 

Essentially, I wanted to see if I could implement an R/C three channel helicopter design with the new Breaking Ground parts. As in real life, it was never meant to represent the most efficient or advanced use of helicopter technology. Rather, I was mainly just curious to see how it would work in Kerbal. As such, it is not fast and has a few quirks, but overall the craft can be said to be flyable.

If you choose to download and try it out, keep in mind the following:

-Rear rotor is bound to pitch axis.

-Custom 1 cuts power to and brakes the rear rotor. You must do this if you intend to enter into a hover and/or land the craft.

-Custom 2 enables motors with 100% torque. Throttle controls RPM only on main rotors.

It is more stable when two small reaction wheels are added to the lower railings (line of fuel tanks that connect to the landing skids), but I wanted to build something that did not need wheels in order to fly.

Here is a link to the .craft file for any interested parties:

Vertitrace

Thanks for reading!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

*Update: Custom 1 no longer has effect. Rear rotor rpm is tied to pitch. Old version had rpm and torque tied to pitch.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Rezolution
Clarification. Updated .craft file.

[IkranMakto]

Well that's simple, too simple to download it. You could bind tail rotor to pitch axis, BG has much more features than IR. 

[Rezolution]

1 hour ago, IkranMakto said:

Well that's simple, too simple to download it. You could bind tail rotor to pitch axis, BG has much more features than IR. 

I suppose I should have put in a little more description. I actually did bind the tail rotor to the pitch axis. I hid the KAL-1000 inside the fuselage.The reason I use custom 1 to brake and toggle the rear rotor is due to the added lift generated from the free wheeling prop. You need to kill that quickly at low speeds in order to prevent a nose over.

I suppose it may look simple, but it actually took quite some time to balance correctly as well as to tweak all of the motors and lifting surfaces. 

Additionally, although you can’t see it from the pictures, the main rotors are attached independently to a central I-Beam in order to prevent having to attach one motor to the other. This prevented me from having to use a free-spinning motor as a counterbalance.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Rezolution

[IkranMakto]

43 minutes ago, Rezolution said:

The reason I use custom 1 to brake and toggle the rear rotor is due to the added lift generated from the free wheeling prop. You need to kill that quickly at low speeds in order to prevent a nose over.

Tail rotor rpm or torque? You could bind only rpm and tail rotor will stop on its own. Also there is one better way - blade angle of attack with constant speed of rotors. One guy before you created a larger coaxial helicopter, but with original swashplate mechanism. And I made this. I really want to see more interesting and maybe useful crafts, instead of barely flying machines which many of us make a lot and usually save as "unnamed spacecraft" ;} 

Edited August 20, 2019 by IkranMakto

[Rezolution]

3 hours ago, IkranMakto said:

Tail rotor rpm or torque? You could bind only rpm and tail rotor will stop on its own. Also there is one better way - blade angle of attack with constant speed of rotors. One guy before you created a larger coaxial helicopter, but with original swashplate mechanism. And I made this. I really want to see more interesting and maybe useful crafts, instead of barely flying machines which many of us make a lot and usually save as "unnamed spacecraft" ;} 

That is a good idea. Probably should have just bound rpm. I did that on the main rotors, after all! I went through a lot of variations, so I think I just got lost in the weeds on that one. Easy enough to fix, however.

Even still, the concept works. Ultimately, I had not seen anyone try this yet, so I thought I would. It actually flies alright. It was just never meant to compete with a real helicopter. 

I wasn't sure if you meant mine should be classified as "barely flyable." Seems a bit harsh.

Maybe just not that useful? I will grant you that one. Then again, for the same reason one might argue that one of these isn't either. I guess it just depends on who's using it!

Thanks again for your tip about the rotor/ rpm binding. I'll definitely change that.

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Rezolution
Clarification.

[IkranMakto]

8 hours ago, Rezolution said:

I wasn't sure if you meant mine should be classified as "barely flyable." Seems a bit harsh. 

Sure, but

10 hours ago, Rezolution said:

 You need to kill that quickly at low speeds in order to prevent a nose over.

It isn't that "barely flying", I mean you have to put in your craft something special. High speed, increadibly small size, heavy cargo, control without reation wheels, flying on another planet or good to use in career mode(cheap).

I see you were inspired by simple rc helicopters, but that's not the best way to make 6+ tons vechicle 

Spoiler

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by IkranMakto
Grammar

[Rezolution]

7 hours ago, IkranMakto said:

I see you were inspired by simple rc helicopters, but that's not the best way to make 6+ tons vechicle 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I could not agree more. In fact, I actually said as much in my preface:

On 8/20/2019 at 8:58 AM, Rezolution said:

As in real life, it was never meant to represent the most efficient or advanced use of helicopter technology. Rather, I was mainly just curious to see how it would work in Kerbal. As such, it is not fast and has a few quirks, but overall the craft can be said to be flyable.

My whole purpose was to see how one of those three channel 'copters would fly in Kerbal, given the same basic design. Turns out, they can be made to fly very similarly to their R/C counterparts (which, also, were never meant to be great helicopters; just cheap and easy to fly).

Look, it is clear you have a very specific vision of the type of craft you feel should be included in this forum, to which my helicopter obviously does not belong. We simply have different opinions on that matter.

At any rate, I did update the .craft file with a newer version that binds rear rotor rpm to pitch, rather than rpm and torque. I think I like the way it flies even better, so thank you for pointing out my oversight. 

Again, hope you all enjoy it.

Cheers.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Rezolution
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