[Vaporware] F-104 V2.0 for 0.20.0

[Guest]

I was hoping to release this today but after flying it awhile on my dual core I can't. I think I am having two issues - thrust vector of the engine not pointed at CG and simply not enough lift being generated by the wings. These are pWing wings which I love. Not faulting them. The wings, flaps, horizontal stabilizer and base of the vertical stabilizer are all pWings. I hope there is a way to go in and edit the lift coefficient. If not, I will cheat by adding some hidden wings and editing their CL's.

I do find that I can keep it in the air if I use the stab trim a lot. It would be good if I could move the entire stabilizer with the yoke vs. trim like in the real plane.

This CRAFT has several firsts for me mainly making the operating flaps and slats, and the stabilizer. Kerbal DOES respond when you make adjustments to these control surfaces, which I had to see to believe. Also, I did some heavy parts clipping, and heavy use of the tiny cube for placing things everywhere with relative precision.

Anyway here it is ... I am off to work for a few days so throw some ideas out there. I am looking for really good looking tip tanks too if anyone knows of any.

I'll post a video tonight of the various moving parts.

021.0 not 0.20.0 sorry ...

Edited July 29, 2013 by Guest

[Guest]

http://youtu.be/6ksBEA_xU7w

[Greywind]

Always loved the starfighter; beautiful aircraft, and a beautiful replica.

[CheesySquid279]

First off, love it! Second, something I learned about the proc. wing mod is that no matter how big your wings, they always have .5 lift. Try TV Aerospace. Lots of good wing sizes, each with appropriate lift ratings. Also, it as conformal monopropellant tanks that make excellent wing tanks. It's not for specifically .21, but it still works if you don't install the config files. I'd check it out if I were you. Even if you don't use it, it still will add many parts that can greatly expand what aircraft you can create. I used one of the wings on my Fishbed. If you send me a craft file, I can see what I can do improvements wise. Also, love your use of part clipping. Especially the cockpit. Good representation of the Starfighter.

Edited July 29, 2013 by CheesySquid279

[Guest]

@Greywind, thank you for the comment!

@CheesySquid279 I believe you have solved the entire problem with the .5 lift comment. I am grateful for that. My flaps, horizontal stab, and wing, all have equal lift! Terrible! Adding to the problem no doubt, is I have not checked the lift of the narrow airfoils that make up the slats.

I do actually have the TV Aerospace mod, and love it by the way. Actually, I used it somewhat on my previous 104:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/f-104c/

Most if not all the airfoils and control surfaces are TV. This time, I went on a quest for total looks, plus from the previous 104 I had decided to attempt to make flaps and stab trim. I began by trying to get as close as I could in as many areas as I could. I thought I would try the pWing. If I have to, for this one, I will probably embed hidden wings, possible from TVA, and edit their lift. I am going to get this working one way or another, with the pWing if I can. I am not saying it is the best way to go, but I have decided I will try for the time being. Thanks again for the insight I am sure I will solve the problem with that info now.

[Guest]

If you figure the wing is lifting up and the stab is lifting down, then more or less, the only thing holding it aloft is the slats and flaps LOL. I wished there was a better way to replicate the forward fuselage. The thing I like (and realized by accident) is that having tilted the cockpit down, one can see the runway during the t/o roll from the cockpit view.

[Guest]

Ok I sifted thru the TVA winglets and found one in the similar size category as the 104's wing, and it's lift was 2.99. I just edited my pWing lift coefficient to 3.99 as it is bigger.

This should show some results. I am worried about how the rest (stab / flaps) will be affected. Incidentally I calculated my slats lift at .86 per side.

Now I can probably down rate my engine. It in the B9 addon. They set it at 225. I upped it to 450 to simulate afterburner capability, but then got crazy and took it to 750. I will put it back to 450.

================================================== ================

Ok I got improvement taking pWing to 3.99. Almost got a landing out of it. I think my joystick is garbage - that's another problem.

http://youtu.be/IScDJFmZ0g0

Edited July 29, 2013 by Guest

[Guest]

Slept on it and a couple ideas surfaced: the plane may be inherently unstable, largely do to Kerbals interpretation of how much emphasis is placed on the anhedral of the wings. I know in the original design, this was a compensation for the high tail (equlaizing top and bottom drag - if I am not mistaken). However, it gives the airplana the flying on the head of a needle effect or like staying on top of a ball. Gonna read up on the 104 today.

Also, the one thing keeping me in the air is constant manipulation of the stabilator - or - the entire horizontal stabilizer I have on top on a Damned Robotics hinge. I may need to tweak lift settings of the stock control surfaces I am trying to use as elevators, since to my knowledge there is not a way to attach larger surfaces to a Kerbal control surface. Perhaps tweakng a TV Aerospace control surface.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Guest

[CheesySquid279]

Forgot about your older one. Good idea editing the pWing mod. I think I'll do that too. I was looking through mods this morning and saw that the lazor mod had an afterburner-type thing and tried it out. It has pretty good visuals and also increases fuel consumption when you use it. Its toggleable too. Might want to take a look at it. Looks pretty neat. Also, I noticed that the f-104 had a sort of antennae coming out the nose. The stock antennae looks pretty similar. Might look cool to add that on.

[Guest]

Definately going to look at the after burner! Thanks for that. I got some tip tanks - the ones we're talking about - and scaled them up slightly. Nothing final but good for visualizing. I might work on the foreward fusalge this evening.

[Guest]

I reworked the front fuselage, shortened the whole plane a small amount, and repositioned and lengthened the intake ducts. The whole nosecone tapers a bit to linearly, but this is an improvement (i think). The airplane actually got heavier. The two orange things and the those intake extensions are actually RCS fuel. This was something I wanted to add anyway, for stall recoveries and to pretend to be Chuck Yeager. I am sure I will make the smale rocket addon to the 104 they had, so RCS was an eventuality. Blahblahblah.

Checking on the afterburner now.

[Guest]

Thought I was done with the cosmetics but I found "RedStar co-op 0.4.1", a very old mod - not fully funtional at this point in .21. Looks too good to give up on. Aerodynamics wise - I think if I double the lift on the main wing surface only, I will be where I want to be or very close. I am quite certain my CL and CG are too far apart. The stabilizer I made need to be down too much. I am close to stalling the main wing too much of the time as well. I will have to create a duplicate config file for pWing, for that wing. I will have to point to it properly from the CRAFT file as well.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/17081-Redstar-co-op-Airplane-parts

[CheesySquid279]

Nice! Almost forgot about that mod. Looks great!

[Guest]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/43624-F-104-Starfighter-v2-0-pre-release