Firespitter propeller plane and helicopter parts v7.1 (May 5th) for KSP 1.0

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

I don't get why people say my parts are too cartoony!

Almost looks like a jeebee

[Snjo]

Whoa, that's an actual plane?!? Why have I never seen that before?

It can not be very safe.

[Tex_NL]

Whoa, that's an actual plane?!? Why have I never seen that before?

It can not be very safe.

Indeed it isn't. Visibility is extremely poor and it's rather unstable. On the other hand, it is insanely over powered end therefore for a prop plane freakishly fast.

[Logan.Darklighter]

Here's the Wikipedia entry on the Gee Bee. It was a famous racing plane. But it was INCREDIBLY twitchy. It killed more than one pilot.

A recreation of the Gee Bee is featured in the opening of the fabulous (and sadly underrated) film THE ROCKETEER. (Incidentally also directed by Joe Johnston, who also directed "Captain America - The First Avenger". The man most definitely knows how to do period pieces!

Take special note of the soundtrack by James Horner. It's incredible and moving and really gets across the feeling of the romance and wonder of flight during those segments with the planes and the Rocketeer flying.

[Ariellus]

Snjo i have some problems with the fighter cockpit, could it be that you changed the size in your last updates?

cause the connection points are IN the part occours in clipping if you want to attach parts at the front and the back node

[Snjo]

Snjo i have some problems with the fighter cockpit, could it be that you changed the size in your last updates?

cause the connection points are IN the part occours in clipping if you want to attach parts at the front and the back node

I just noticed this a couple of hours ago. Yes I did some rescaling, but I don't know how that slipped by me. Must have been a cfg file confusion.

Anyways, uploading a new version to the spaceport right now. Alternately, get it here: The ol' pre-release

v4.1

Seaplane floats. Tail float with non lifting rudder (only works in water)

Smoothed the animation of the IVA flight sticks in non-precision mode

The tail gears now have 150 impact resistance to get around their tendency to blow up on takeoff/landing

Less info on the helicopter rotor context menu, so it will fit on screen.

Corrected attach points for the fighter cockpit

Edited April 27, 2013 by Snjo

[Tex_NL]

Thanks to FireSpitter I've been able to design this UAV beauty.

It may sound contradictory but it is both extremely agile and very stable. Powered by 12 PB-NUK's and piloted by MechJeb this baby can fly indefinitely and it really wants to. At full throttle and full pitch it can be airborne before the first 'zebra crossing' on the runway. And thanks to the air brakes, linked to the wheel brakes, it also stops on a dime.

Now I just need to send it to either Eve or Duna.

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

Indeed it isn't. Visibility is extremely poor and it's rather unstable. On the other hand, it is insanely over powered end therefore for a prop plane freakishly fast.

Back in the days of race planes... the geebee was the king.

[BlueSubstance]

AWESOME! Thank you!

[Read have Read]

Did you change the floats from the Pre-release to release? I had a plane working beautifully on 3 floats and now even with a metric ton of struts they sag, bow, and collapse and fail on take off.

[Snjo]

Did you change the floats from the Pre-release to release? I had a plane working beautifully on 3 floats and now even with a metric ton of struts they sag, bow, and collapse and fail on take off.

As part of a test I increased the breaking force 100 times. Maybe that changed something.

Look for the lines

breakingForce = 60000

breakingTorque = 60000

and try setting them to 600. But I can't see how that would make a difference. Other people have them set to just shy of infinity in their parts...

I don't think anything else changed. Except possibly some small weight tweaks to the rudder part.

[Doomydoom]

Can you change your classes from private to public so other mods can get at them? Prefer not having to compile my own version of Firespitter to mess with things.

[Snjo]

Can you change your classes from private to public so other mods can get at them? Prefer not having to compile my own version of Firespitter to mess with things.

Oh, sure. Out of curiosity, what are you looking to mess with?

[Doomydoom]

I'm making autogyros. What I actually needed to touch was the rotation speed of the rotor blades. Also the sound which I'll get to tomorrow. And I ended up adding a bool to disable the scaling down of rotor steering with throttle because things were just nosing down or up out of control and I didn't have the pitch authority to deal with it at full throttle (that was an actual code change, I don't think I could do that from another dll).

My current test gyroplane: http://i.imgur.com/v19X8cI.jpg

Edited April 30, 2013 by Doomydoom
pickshur

[Snjo]

Ah! I'm not sure which way I'm going with it yet, but I have a new class to handle the plane propeller spin, and I might move the helicopter rotor spin out from copterThrottle and into that new class, just to keep things a bit cleaner.

The new class does constant spin rates for the propeller, much like the copterThrottle, but also windmilling, and most importantly, it doesn't have other junk thrown into it, like the hover.

I think I have three different classes right now that controls the helicopter thrust in some way. That's not good.

Also, I'm on the hunt for uncached values. Don't want to search through parts every update.

[Doomydoom]

These gyroplane things are actually pretty interesting to fly around in in KSP. I just started making them on a whim after throwing a helicopter part on top of a jet to see if it worked or not. I barely knew anything about them yesterday. Spent all day today on wikipedia and coding and trying to figure out how to fly them right. Next stop: Gyroplane on Laythe.

[Snjo]

Here's the dll and source, recompiled with public classes.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22972712/temp/Firespitter_Plugin.zip

[Mekan1k]

Snjo- I have a request- Could you make a version of the helicopter propeller that can be used as gyrocopter blades? You know, unpowered, Gives lift but not thrust, that sort of thing.

[Snjo]

Snjo- I have a request- Could you make a version of the helicopter propeller that can be used as gyrocopter blades? You know, unpowered, Gives lift but not thrust, that sort of thing.

I've recently found some stuff out that should make this a possibility yes, as well as auto rotate on the regular helicopter engines. I'll add it to my list

[Doomydoom]

Snjo- I have a request- Could you make a version of the helicopter propeller that can be used as gyrocopter blades? You know, unpowered, Gives lift but not thrust, that sort of thing.

I have versions made right now that do this but just scale thrust with speed (up to a point). I'm not sure how different the mechanics of having upward thrust and upward lift are, though.

[Read have Read]

Okay, it seems like the included landing gear on the floats is stiffer than the fighter tail wheels and transmits more force to the gear bay sections, causing them to act like giant floatation leaf springs. Will investigate further.

[ahappydude]

Snjo, got a suprise coming up haha

edit

Basic animation for the propelers in. Now i need to find out how i can use your propeler module to get some lift haha cheers

Edited May 1, 2013 by ahappydude

[sproginator]

Awesome! Lol

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

Snjo, got a suprise coming up haha

edit

Basic animation for the propelers in. Now i need to find out how i can use your propeler module to get some lift haha cheers

Friggen epic. Now we can play a little road warrior.

[ahappydude]

A mad max inspired rocket and airplane would be kind of interesting hmm... Then you could use the damage wheel function so you can repair all parts, ex the frame, wheels, blades