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Upsilon's Quality Flying Cars?!

BagelRabbit

By BagelRabbit
in KSP1 The Spacecraft Exchange

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BagelRabbit

BagelRabbit

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Have you ever felt that retro, 1960s urge to take an everyday automobile, tweak it and watch it soar through the sky?

Probably not, but I have.

Introducing...

...the Skymobile series!

I'm not good at names.

These are some very nice-looking automobiles... with the added bonus of being able to fly! I've spent quite a bit of time balancing their features to make them very pleasant to drive, as well.

It's time to take a walk down memory lane, and discuss the many varied flying cars that I've created!

The Skymobile Mk1

RDEqpBl.jpg

Status: Died as a prototype; never got its bugs fixed.

The Skymobile Mk1 was my first attempt at creating a balanced flying car. It actually did surprisingly well, and was capable of flying at speeds of over 40 m/s. It was also incredibly cute. Unfortunately, work on this Skymobile stalled after a number of bugs with the wheels became clear. Nonetheless, this design paved the way for future flying-car development.

The Skymobile Mk2

a0kV8CS.jpg

Status: Also died in prototyping phase.

While the Skymobile Mk2 initially showed a lot of promise, it eventually had to be scuttled as a result of the easily-breakable solar panel parts that made up its chassis. A rough landing or even a Kerbal jumping on the thing would break the panels, destabilizing the build and making further progress impossible.

The Skymobile Mk3 (actually, more like mk2.5...)

Status: .craft file has been released. Here it is.

iQjaIjK.jpg

The Skymobile Mk3 was a radical departure from previous versions, featuring a spindly wheelbase and incredibly small size. While this design was terrible at roving, it was nonetheless flight-capable... and featured a clever design with reasonably low part-count. I'm actually quite pleased with how this one turned out.

Specs:

Parts ... 44

Mass ... 1.5t (fully fueled)

Dimensions ... 1.3m x 1.1m x 1.6m

Flight Speed ... 40 m/s

Kerbals ... 1

The Skymobile Mk4

mcswAkB.jpg

Status: .craft file has been released. Here it is.

The Skymobile Mk4 is capable of flying around at over 150 m/s, driving reasonably well, and even traversing Kerbin's seas at about 10 m/s. It's also considerably safer than its earlier iterations, thanks to a roof and walls with high impact tolerance. Though this version isn't as pretty as some earlier ones (some aesthetic tweaking is needed), it's nonetheless likely to be the first Skymobile to be widely released.

Specs (will likely change slightly):

Parts ... 62

Mass ... 3.5t (fully fueled)

Dimensions ... 1.8m x 2.0m x 2.5m

Flight Speed ... 150 m/s

Kerbals ... 2

~~~

Let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by!

-Upsilon

Edited by UpsilonAerospace
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BagelRabbit

BagelRabbit

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Love the concept!

Thanks! It took a bit of fiddling around to get this to work, but the end result is nice.

I should mention that the car flies as a result of a lot of wings and control surfaces. There are two Type-E Wing connectors on there, as well as a total of seven (mostly hidden) Elevon 4's. Only one of the elevons regulates pitch, two regulate roll and two regulate yaw, for a fairly reasonable balance. The other two are just to provide lift.

Amazing! That´s what I´ll use as Minmus rover!

Not a bad thought, though I recently removed the downwards-facing RCS ports (they were messing with the pitch and roll a little too much). Also, most rovers can fly on Minmus, as long as you put on a couple of RCS ports or LV-1Rs, but very few can fly on Kerbin :wink:

A nice, neat, compact little package. Nice job!

Thanks Tw1! I tried to make it look very simple but very aesthetically pleasing. While some bits may still need aesthetic tweaking, the rover overall looks nice... in my opinion anyway.

This looks awesome!

EDIT: Derp I'm blind.

You're not blind, you're just wearing cool sunglasses... that happen to impair your vision a little :)

~~~

I've been gradually making improvements to the Skymobile. I took it over water for the first time, in a duration run that eventually dragged on to a full 14:19 with about five RCS units left in the tank. I'm liking this thing.

(Oh, and Jeb got to pilot this time. He really seemed to enjoy it.)

i2QTOTA.jpg

[EDIT:]

Here's a top view from the same run, to get a sense of the footprint of the craft. I just realized that most of these images are front-view, and I want to show the craft from all angles...

8nQl857.jpg

Edited by UpsilonAerospace
Adding another image!
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BagelRabbit

BagelRabbit

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Thanks for the positive feedback and the +Rep, everyone! I really appreciate it.

Upsilon, you inspired me!

http://i.imgur.com/Ot3Tqr3.png

You can check it out here!

However, while it appears that yours flies like a conventional plane, mine is more of a hover car. I think yours looks better than mine though:wink:

It's a nice little craft... though as I said in your post, the Kerbal does need a little more protection. :)

I really like this, actually no i dont like it at all, I LOVE IT!!!! Good job man

Thanks Vagani. That means a lot to me, as you're a really awesome car builder. I must say, the lessons I learned while designing for your challenge came into play pretty strongly when I made this thing.

This is literally one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

I need to have the download link out soon. After all, I don't really want to release this after 0.25 comes out...

Gotta make my GAZ-49P flyable.......too bad its part count is absurd due to attention to every concieveable detail

Even this really simple-looking car has a part count in the 80's. I would say that making a large-ish car flyable takes a minimum of about 25 parts (mine took nine wing bits, six RCS tanks and a smattering of linear RCS ports), which won't break the bank but is definitely a fair partcount. Best of luck, and be sure to post pictures if you're able to make it fly!

Agreed! It's amazing, nice work upsilon.

Thanks! I should build more flying cars. They take a lot of work but the result, both aesthetically and with the sheer 'gee-whiz' factor, is worth it.

this is an amazing design. here have some rep!

Thanks Natonator200! I appreciate the support :)

This thead is "just in time" for 2015... and the arrival of Marty McFly.

H'm, didn't think about it that way! I can assure you that if I continue making flying cars, one of the next models will be a DeLorean :D

-Upsilon

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Coga19000

Coga19000

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Amazing! That´s what I´ll use as Minmus rover!

Be advised that everything that can fly around for 15 minutes on Kerbin is more than capable of getting an escape velocity on Minmus. Hell, even most of the things who don't -I once got an engine cra... structural failure at a Minmus lander that had a TWR of 0.75 on Kerbin even with the engine on. And I got it back on Kerbin on RC bloody S.

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  • 4 weeks later...
BagelRabbit

BagelRabbit

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Work on the Skymobile Mk2 has Started.

Unfortunately, the Skymobile mk1 was unstable, had a low lift-to-weight ratio, was painfully slow and was an absolutely awful rover...

...so I'm trying to improve upon the concept now. Maybe this one will be good enough for a release.

Oh, and I have fallen head-over-heels in love with the Shielded Solar Panels... perhaps you've noticed.

Pictures!

a0kV8CS.jpg

99Ofycm.jpg

This one still needs *lots* of tweaking, but I like it more than the first one, so far.

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BagelRabbit

BagelRabbit

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love it!

/tenchars

Thanks! It actually takes a lot of work to get these to function properly, and I'm still ironing out some bugs, but I'm glad you like what I have so far!

:squee: They're so ADORABLE~!

It's funny. I didn't originally want these to be adorable little cars, but they just turned out that way. I like low-mass cars, they're easier to get into the air with fewer parts. Maybe that's what makes these things so adorable...

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BagelRabbit

BagelRabbit

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So, I guess that I should include this video. It was a bit of a side project for me, that just happened to turn into a flying car. (That idea seems to be on my mind more and more nowadays.)

I think that this is the Smallest Flying Car Ever Built with Stock Parts. It's a long and painful-to-recite distinction, but I'll take it!

Work on some other flying cars will resume soon. Let me know if you want the .craft file for anything I've released so far... sorry for not providing them earlier. :blush:

-Upsilon

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  • 1 month later...
BagelRabbit

BagelRabbit

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Hello everyone! Sorry for the slight necro.

At any rate: I've given the OP a much-needed revision. Now, it comes with pictures of all four flying-car models that I've built!

I'm also currently working on the Mk4 version of the Skymobile, which will hopefully be not only a rover and a VTOL but also a plane that's capable of water landings and boating.

Here's an image of the craft so far (I'll likely update this as I further tweak the craft):

gZpMl9C.jpg

It's not too aesthetically nice compared to some of the other flying cars on this thread, but that can be fixed...

...and here's a nice image of the flying car that I mentioned in the previous post.

iQjaIjK.jpg

The .craft file for this guy is kinda-available, but I'm not sure how many people want it, so be sure to speak up if you would like the thing.

Anyways, I'm back in business, and I look forward to building more flying automobiles in the near future.

-Upsilon

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