[Stock Helicopters & Turboprops] Non DLC Will Always Be More Fun!

[The_Rocketeer]

6 hours ago, Bubbadevlin said:

Sadly, thats exactly the same conclusion I have came to. Although it did seem to me that if I kept the rotor bearing below like 20 rad/s it tended to function better. (although that might just be because the craft was moving slower)

Yes, lower speeds do seem to be much less troublesome. I also have had some success with moving vehicles - as I said, I have got airborne, but have since realised that most of the torque effort was probably coming from reaction wheels. Even so, the engine didn't explode!

[Bubbadevlin]

16 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Yes, lower speeds do seem to be much less troublesome. I also have had some success with moving vehicles - as I said, I have got airborne, but have since realised that most of the torque effort was probably coming from reaction wheels. Even so, the engine didn't explode!

Yea, i did manage to get airborne on full leg power, however i was only moving like 25m/s (and as I sped up, and the rotor spinned faster b/c less drag, the legs broke) 

[The_Rocketeer]

10 hours ago, Bubbadevlin said:

Yea, i did manage to get airborne on full leg power, however i was only moving like 25m/s (and as I sped up, and the rotor spinned faster b/c less drag, the legs broke) 

The relationship between rotation speed and explosion doesn't seem to be linear though - I have managed to hit the 50 rad limit a few times on mobile craft without anything exploding. I actually think you were nearer the mark the first time, when you talked about the smoothness of your bearing - my impression is that overstress happens if the turbine is rattling around inside its bearing.

[Daeridanii]

Okay, I'm back.

Helicopters seem to have gone out of style a bit, but I just built my first one that works reasonably and decided to come out of hiding.

It looks awful, and it's a bit of a struggle to fly, but it's a lot of fun.

[klond]

3 hours ago, Daeridanii said:

Helicopters seem to have gone out of style a bit

 Majorjim and I were messing around with little ones in the electric prop thread.  I'm learning about gyroscopic procession effects.

 I think some peeps are focused on the Dakar race challenge in the fanworks forum right now.

Edited December 23, 2016 by klond

[Gman_builder]

All my turboprop aircraft have stopped working in 1.2.2 except the very first one i made. Back in 1.0.5.

Its ironic really.

Top speed is way up to 76 m/s from 43 back in the olden days. Its been just over a year since i built this thing.

[Ernos]

@Azimech I remember posting on a topic in the past about a turboprop that i was having issues with, I got it revised without that mod part. It has been months and i forget what mod it was. Here is the link, it needs the infinite fuel, i am still unable to figure out its issue. https://www.dropbox.com/s/1dyfp3jx2ctgonn/Turboprop 2.craft?dl=0

[Azimech]

On 23-12-2016 at 11:44 PM, klond said:

 Majorjim and I were messing around with little ones in the electric prop thread.  I'm learning about gyroscopic procession effects.

 I think some peeps are focused on the Dakar race challenge in the fanworks forum right now.

Correct :-)

5 hours ago, Munar pilot said:

@Azimech I remember posting on a topic in the past about a turboprop that i was having issues with, I got it revised without that mod part. It has been months and i forget what mod it was. Here is the link, it needs the infinite fuel, i am still unable to figure out its issue. https://www.dropbox.com/s/1dyfp3jx2ctgonn/Turboprop 2.craft?dl=0

I'll take a look.

On 23-12-2016 at 8:11 PM, Daeridanii said:

Okay, I'm back.

Helicopters seem to have gone out of style a bit, but I just built my first one that works reasonably and decided to come out of hiding.

It looks awful, and it's a bit of a struggle to fly, but it's a lot of fun.

 

Nice! Keep 'em coming!

On 24-12-2016 at 10:12 AM, Gman_builder said:

All my turboprop aircraft have stopped working in 1.2.2 except the very first one i made. Back in 1.0.5.

Its ironic really.

Top speed is way up to 76 m/s from 43 back in the olden days. Its been just over a year since i built this thing.

I've seen you updating them on KerbalX. What exactly seems to be the problem?

[Gman_builder]

On 12/28/2016 at 7:16 AM, Azimech said:

 

I've seen you updating them on KerbalX. What exactly seems to be the problem?

I got the other ones working except for the 2.5 meter turboshaft. The Gremlin Mk3 is no longer the fastest plane in my arsenal. It can barely get to 105 m/s down from 240 from 1.1.3. The Bee Gee now reaches a staggering 150 m/s. From 100 in 1.1. Purely because of a slight modification to the driveshaft that increased max RPM from 22 to 30 rad/s. Plus proper prop pitch management. The Gremlin Mk2 needed no modification. Still reaches over 200 m/s. top speed is around 217 m/s from 230 from before. 

Edited January 1, 2017 by Gman_builder

[Gman_builder]

I took this old girl out for a spin and was pleasantly surprised by her performance even having been built a solid 4 game versions ago. I set a nice cruise at 8000 meters which is a new personal record for me and a solid 170 m/s. Nice and efficient even without drop tanks and whatnot. This turboprop has a higher ceiling than some of my conventional aircraft. very cool.

 

[_Rade]

Back at the KerbalX @Gman_builder mentioned I should post this here.

Stock fighter plane powered by the electric fairing propeller engines. These engines use 1.25m fairing as the engine housing, instead of the structural fuselage typically used to make the stock propeller engines.

Because the fairing occludes all of engine parts from the drag you can build planes that can fly much faster. Also stayputnik probe core seems to be perfect fit for the fairing collider, therefore rotor can spin really fast with almost no friction. In fact on the early versions I had trouble with the engine disintegrating from overspeed if I tried to fly the plane at higher altitude. Latter I've managed to fix this by adding the I-beam as the root part for the rotor, and then autostruting everything on the rotor to the root part.

I've already posted several other airplanes which use these engines on the topic about the stock electric propellers.

Ik-5 is powered by two of these engines, each engine uses 20 small reaction wheels. Thanks to the low drag it can reach speed of 192 m/s at low altitude. Few other planes I've made can fly at 200 m/s or slightly faster, and the fastest one is able to get to 240 m/s.

[klond]

4 hours ago, _Rade said:

@Gman_builder mentioned I should post this here.

 Get this electric garbage out-a-here!  JK  electric is fun and your planes are fast as hell.  I haven't had success yet with fairing-bearings (that's a fun word combo).  But now I'm gonna stomp out your post with my new stock coaxial.

 I think it flies well since the worst of the gyroscopic? forces cancel each other out.  Jacked up the spring strength on the legs for rough landings.  Tiny tank = short flight time.

 Oh, I tried searching for the old Jimmy-bearing coax and couldn't find it.  Anyone find a link for me please?  Wanna see if this one's lighter.

KerbalX

Edited January 24, 2017 by klond

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

@klond I suppose you are referring to my old Coax Mk1? If so that thing is definitely lighter. Yours is only 41% the mass of mine. It looks more compact too. Great job! I will have fun trying it out!

[klond]

9 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

@klond I suppose you are referring to my old Coax Mk1? If so that thing is definitely lighter. Yours is only 41% the mass of mine. It looks more compact too. Great job! I will have fun trying it out!

 Yeah that's it!  I was picturing it in my head during the build having seen it months ago.  Knowing it was possible kept me going.  Cheers.

Edited January 24, 2017 by klond

[Azimech]

I'm away for a while and people post electric stuff. Geez.

 

Well ... not me. Almost two years after the very first turboshaft helicopter, I'm busy with these heavy transports. They're functional, fast, easy to fly, have a reasonable range and a lot of lifting power. Soon on KerbalX.

 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

@klond Also: you're right that coaxial or otherwise counter-rotating rotors help by cancelling out each other's gyroscopic effects. At significant forward speeds they can also help by cancelling out the assymetric lift that results from advancing rotor blades having a higher airspeed (rotational speed + heli airspeed) and thus getting more lift than the retreating blades which have a lower airspeed (rotational speed - heli airspeed).

Edited January 24, 2017 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[Gman_builder]

@Azimech Jees dude where the heck have you been?

We don't hear at all from you in a month then BOOM giant helicopters

[Azimech]

39 minutes ago, Gman_builder said:

@Azimech Jees dude where the heck have you been?

We don't hear at all from you in a month then BOOM giant helicopters

Yeah I was busy with drag racing and such. After uploading these big ones I'll continue with that. I just suddenly had a creative vibe in a different direction. When that happens, I drop everything and do a 180.

[Gman_builder]

1 hour ago, Azimech said:

Yeah I was busy with drag racing and such. After uploading these big ones I'll continue with that. I just suddenly had a creative vibe in a different direction. When that happens, I drop everything and do a 180.

We can tell......

Anyway. 

GET TO dA cHoPPAHHH!!!!!!

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Presenting the lightest turboshaft helicopter to date! The Sub-ton Turbocopter!

Weighing in at just 948kg, and based off of @klond's Tiny Coaxial Turbocopter,* this heli is ready to be taken wherever you want to fly. Flight time is about 5 minutes, however an engineer suggested another fuel tank could give it a greater endurance. But then it wouldn't be < 1 ton would it?

But here's the best part! It fits in a 1 long + 1 short Mk2 spaceplane cargo bay!

 

^this picture is of an earlier version, and will be updated soonish

*Released with Klond's permission.

Edited January 26, 2017 by EpicSpaceTroll139
Made it even smaller

[_Rade]

On 24.1.2017. at 3:17 AM, klond said:

 Get this electric garbage out-a-here!  JK  electric is fun and your planes are fast as hell.  I haven't had success yet with fairing-bearings (that's a fun word combo).  But now I'm gonna stomp out your post with my new stock coaxial.

I've tried building the turboprops before but my laptop really couldn't handle all the particle effects from the engines, so I decided to stick to the trusty SAS wheels for now.

Anyway I've tried to modify your heli in order to turn it in to something similar to the Kaman K-MAX in order to be able to run both rotors with only one engine. But I've must have messed up something with the bearing, because I couldn't get the rotors to spin fast enough for the heli to lift off.

Here is a picture. Maybe you'll be able to get it working. Let me know if you want the craft file.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

3 hours ago, _Rade said:

I've tried building the turboprops before but my laptop really couldn't handle all the particle effects from the engines, so I decided to stick to the trusty SAS wheels for now.

Anyway I've tried to modify your heli in order to turn it in to something similar to the Kaman K-MAX in order to be able to run both rotors with only one engine. But I've must have messed up something with the bearing, because I couldn't get the rotors to spin fast enough for the heli to lift off.

<snip>

Haha great minds think alike! I made a very similar thing to that also based of Klond's tiny coaxial heli. It can fly, but usually within about 30 seconds of taking off, the synchronization gears (or something, I can't really tell) snags and either one or both rotors get ejected. I think my problem has to do with a vibration caused the power pulsing as each turbine in turn gets a bit of thrust from the engine. I'm thinking that it *might* be a better idea to have the gears separate and have the engine blowing on a turbine on just one of the shafts.

Though now that I've made the tiny single rotor monoblower, the only benefit of this would be to null out the torque and thus make handling a little easier.

Edited January 25, 2017 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[Azimech]

33 minutes ago, _Rade said:

I've tried building the turboprops before but my laptop really couldn't handle all the particle effects from the engines, so I decided to stick to the trusty SAS wheels for now.

 

Here's how you disable it:

[_Rade]

I had one version where the rotors would spin reliably but just not fast enough to liftoff, but I forgot to save that version. While trying to adjust it, in order for the rotors to spin faster, I've only managed to make it worse and now rotors pop from the bearing as soon as the engine reaches full power.

@Azimech I'll try it out. There is few things I wanted to build with turboprops, but I really couldn't deal with the low fps.

Edited January 25, 2017 by _Rade

[Castille7]

On 1/23/2017 at 8:17 PM, klond said:

 Get this electric garbage out-a-here!  JK  electric is fun and your planes are fast as hell.  I haven't had success yet with fairing-bearings (that's a fun word combo).  But now I'm gonna stomp out your post with my new stock coaxial.

 I think it flies well since the worst of the gyroscopic? forces cancel each other out.  Jacked up the spring strength on the legs for rough landings.  Tiny tank = short flight time.

 Oh, I tried searching for the old Jimmy-bearing coax and couldn't find it.  Anyone find a link for me please?  Wanna see if this one's lighter.

KerbalX

I would like to shine a little limelight on this awesome Aircraft!

@klond I found your incredible Tiny Coaxial Turbocopter on Kerbalx and had a blast flying it. I made an attempt to reach the Airbase Island and came up short, I decided to try adding more fuel and nearly reached the Island, I then added two additional fuel tanks and was amazed that the craft was still lifting the weight, it was a long journey because Time Warp can not be use nor can you use quick save. The pictures below show the fuel tanks that were added and the landings made. It looks so tough with the added tanks, they look like floats but take my word for it they have almost zero help for flotation. I really can't say enough about how fun the craft is when flying, it's very steady and graceful to fly......Thumbs up!

Added Two Fuel Tanks

Nearly made it to the Island

Looks awesome with the additional Fuel Tanks

Successful landing with enough fuel to spare for a possible landing on the Helipad