kapteenipirk

Thanks . Sadly fairings can't be painted.

Haven't really had a good chance yet since large ships and submarines require so much thrust (the small sub has a dozen Wheesley's) (was thinking of adding some for decoration, but was afraid they would block the thrust of the rear engines). But, if and when i do some small torpedo boat's or gunboat's, i'll definitely have to give them a go.

Finally got some more time again to continue the navy project. With the addition of new stuff, i taught id bring back something i was supposed to release ages ago. K-class submarine "Barracuda" It's more or less based on a small British submarine, so should fit the bill nice enough. And here's something new as-well KTB-Spearfish

Yep, i have indeed. Example: I personally don't like em as much. The lack of engine-sounds being the number-one reason. Somehow i don't think that even the BG engines would have helped, since i had 4 TU-96 engines and 8 panthers on afterburners at one point, and even that wasn't enough. Even now it actually has 8 of the B-29 engines on it, and they can only get it going like 18 m/s on water. But, it's a good suggestion, and it did give me an idea. EDIT: My idea was that i should try and shed some weight and add a little more lift to the Shetland to try and get it to take-off from water without rocket-engines. I removed most of the structural fuselages from the roof and replaced them with wings instead. I also added a small second layer to the main wings and removed some of the fuel from the underside of the fuselage to try and add a bit of extra boyuancy. And voila, the thing takes-off with the help of only 4 Panther engines.

Yep, it is indeed NEBULA decals. Camouflage eh, i think we can arrange that. Some lovely little home fleet camouflage for our Spitfire.

Thanks . No matter how much i do this, it never gets any easier, but i guess that's what makes these so rewarding when it all works out...well, 90% anyways. The missing 10% being the fact that i unfortunately had to use shuttle engines to enable taking off from water, witch is never great. I tried to get the thing to take-off using conventional means, but when 8 panthers with afterburners wasn't enough, i decided it was time to change strategy. The shuttle engines have enough fuel for 3 take-offs from water, witch is pretty decent i suppose. I knew i had to build one of the two, the Sunderland or the Shetland, i decide to go for the more interesting and obscure option this time. And i have to say, i think i nailed the looks pretty well without using too many parts. It still has a bigger part-count than the Seafortress for instance, but it's really not that much (271 and 301). For this project, i want to have more or less standardized part-count ranges on all the different types of ships and aircraft, for instance: i've tried to keep the part-count on all my fighters under 100 and with my cruisers i've tried to keep the part-count at around 300-400.

Just completed what is propably my favorite ship in a long time. A fictional modernized version of the HMS Neptune, a British light-cruiser concept that never materialized. After i had tested the ship and was flying around in my Spitfire i noticed something quite amazing During the test i fired off a couple salvos at the KSC from about 18km away and somehow managed to hit and destroy the VAB . Things have finally calmed down and i can finally start thinking about releasing some stuff again. My plan is to brake down the giant naval aircraft pack into smaller packs, that will include all the aircraft of a specific nation, and a few ships of that nation as-well. I also plan on creating an entirely new post for this stuff, one where i can focus on WWII replica stuff (got something much much bigger in mind that needs LOTS of WWII navy stuff) and one where i can finally release the tutorial videos and stuff like that at the start of the project, not years after. As you can probably guess, the first pack will be the Royal Navy pack. I still have a couple more ships that need to be built (Battle class destroyer and some aircraft carrier), and 4 more naval aircraft. Next ill propably do a pack with some German stuff on it.

Its been a while, but it's slowly coming together. Latest progress includes: rudder, elevators and modified/improved paintjob.

Thanks for the info, was curious to know the age of the thing. I feel im gonna keep this one just as is. My Bachmann track could use some expanding tough, as running that big Greyhound steam engine on a tiny oval is a little ridiculous. It cost me 80.00 euros.

Feels good to be back posting in this thread, especially now. So, as you may have read from my recent post's, i moved in to a place of my own. And with that place of my own comes finally... A proper layout that is not only on a table, but is also inside. Witch makes me super-happy. Unfortunately the layout is a little small and then there's the thick crust of street-dust the buildings collected while in the balcony, but that doesn't really matter too much. And now for a total total surprise. Today we had a sort of field-trip from our school to the Habitare design exhibition in Helsinki, and there i made a discovery i never taught id make. In this exhibition that was basically all about interior design, there was a small antiques section, and in this antiques section i found this. A lovely piece of model-railroading history, a really really old Märklin train-set. I don't know the exact age of this thing, but stuff like "Made in West Germany", the metal track-bed, all metal train-cars and a single large ski type pickup system should give you a better idea. Despite it being decades old, the train runs absolutely perfectly, its missing running lights (not a standard feature back then) and its very noisy, but that's to be expected. Here are some closeups of the train. Not the prettiest, or most impressive, or well detailed or anything like that, but man, there's just a certain history/charm about this one that makes me love it more than i probably should. Because of the age of this thing, im already planning on 3D-printing a display case for this so that i can keep it in good clean condition for years to come, just need to experiment a bit with the clear filament i got and see that just how clear it actually is. In the simulator side of things, one "train-simulator" that ive found surprisingly fun is Garrysmod. Using mods like Sligwolfs train stuff and the CBH trains stuff, and using the proper maps like, the Sunset gulch, you can have quite a bit of fun. Here are a few consists ive built in Garrysmod.

KHB-20 Vulcan Still way too busy to build anything in a real capacity, but still felt i had to squeeze at-least something out. So, presenting the mighty tin triangle...well, not so mighty as it turns out as unfortunately the overall performance of this aircraft is pretty poor. Even with 4 "goliath" and 8 "whiplash" engines, the top speed is only about 100m/s and the service ceiling is under 2000m, oh and it also loses altitude when turning. So, some work needs to be done before release.

Had another small gap to build something and decided it was time to continue the huge naval-aircraft pack once again. This time with the naval version of the Halifax bomber. With the addition of the naval-aircraft pack, im also trying to get some more ships out again for the KNS project. Here's an early look at one of the new ships. It's a fictional modernized version of the WWII British battle-cruiser HMS Renown. The modernization follows the same style as the Iowa-class battleships:, new mast's, CIWS's, missiles, new radars...that sort of stuff. Unfortunately due to all the move/school related stuff that has to be done, it may take a while before i get any of this stuff uploaded here, so enjoy these small tastings for now.

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get any new stuff out, but something really exiting happened to me, that's eaten pretty much every inch of my time these past 3-4 weeks. After what was nearly a year long search, i got a place at a school here in Ikaalinen. It's all about 3D-printing/modelling (one of my primary hobbies), so should be really fun . The other exiting part, is the fact that for the first time, i got to move into a place of my own, witch is something ive wanted for a long time now. But, even in the midts of all the chaos and red tape, i was able to put something together that you might enjoy. The next entry in my long line of Tornado aircraft. I have been trying to keep the tradition of Building/updating them after every major update, but it's been really difficult coming up with a design that feels exactly right, and one that doesn't feel like a repeat of an earlier model (Tornado's 5-7 where basically the same base design with some improvements in each succesing model). I did have one that would have fit that bill (Tornado-8), but unfortunately something in it broke due to an update, witch caused it to go insane and explode on the runway. 9 just didn't feel right and 10 wasn't really a Tornado craft at all. But this, the all new and original Tornado-F, should fit the bill just nicely. I mean, how can you say no to a variable swept wing supersonic VTOL interceptor . I still need to do some more tweaking and testing to get it just right. The VTOL bit is the one giving me the most troubles. So, be on the lookout for that.

Air transport wing redo As promised, here is the Skyfall and all the transport aircraft without all the Airplane+ engines/cockpits. Instead they now all have the same stock engine with a six-bladed fixed-pitch propeller on it. I also included the old Russian jet's in there as-well. So that's 9 more craft's for you to have fun with while i work on the Russian fleet. Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7mc94quxofgg6xz/KDI stuff III.zip?dl=0

Some more jets KF-17 Desert Fox A low altitude ground-attack aircraft with 30mm cannons and rockets. KF-21 Desert Wolf High altitude high-speed interceptor cousin of the Desert Fox, armed with a 20mm cannon and 4 short-range missiles. KF-15 Desert Fury A rather small and rather old fighter that's now used as a bomber. Has a couple 50.cal's and 4 unguided bombs. I was supposed to start another paper-model project today, but since i had such little time left, i decided to instead give you the some older Russian jets to start a GLA (C&C Generals) style middle-eastern faction if you you ever feel the need for one. If not, you can always put them under "Russian emergency reserves", or something along those lines.

K.S.S Dreadnought "Can you feel the Soviet might!!" (Dreadnought from Red alert 3) The flagship of the Russian fleet is finally here, the K.S.S Dreadnought, a large missile armed battle-cruiser based on the Russian Kirov class. I think this may be one of my favorite ship builds ever, definitely my favorite from all the ones in this project. At a little under 700 parts, it's a little more part hungry than the Fissouri on whose hull this built (rear was reshaped). Armaments should be pretty comparable to the Fissouri: same amount of CIWS's and cruise-missiles, 4 Jernas systems (8 missiles per system) and a couple Millenium cannons instead of 6 Abrams turrets and a Patriot system (16 missiles per system). That makes the Dreadnought a little more adept at AA compared to the Fissouri. List of Russian ships to come: Sovermenniy class Kievari class Kara class Tarantul class Mirka class Krivak class Kapusta class Shershen class The list might change, but i doubt it.

Thanks

It's been years, but it was finally time to bring back and redo one of my first craft i showed here on the forums. My Replica of the Boeing 2707 Clipper, Americas best bet for a supersonic commercial airliner, witch unfortunately didn't make it. SST-2707 Cloud Cutter While i was again scrolling trough the list of all the stuff i wanted to make using Braking Grounds, i suddenly got reminded of a design i made years ago that i could try and recreate a little more authentically. Ive always found the Boeing-2707 to be a better looking and more interesting design when compared to the mighty Concorde and the not so safe TU-144. The 200 version to be exact, as the 2707 went trough a lot of design changes before it was cancelled. The 100 and 200 versions are the most interesting to me as they included the variable geometry wings, aka swing wings, while the later version had more traditional delta-wings as the swing-wing mechanism was far too complicated and heavy. As mentioned above, the Boeing 2707 sadly didn't make it even tough it was clearly given a lot of time, care and attention, and a hefty government funding to boot. But when you look at the characteristics and the demands they had to meet, it's not that surprising the project fell flat. First of, the aircraft would have had a top speed of around mach 3, and would carry around 250-300 passengers at those speeds (mach 2 on the concorde and 128-144 passengers). And then there's the SIZE of the thing, 93.27 m (2707-200), that's more than the AN-225 (only 84 m). A wingspan of 54.97 m when fully spread ain't half bad either. Also there where all the sonic booms to consider, witch turned the people of the town (using speakers) they where tested on, quite mad. But man, it would have probably been the aircraft of the century if it ever got made, and would have made even the Concorde look weak in comparison. Or at-least that's how i think. Some reference pictures This time with the help of BG i would have the chance to create something truly spectacular and create a pair of working swing-wings on an aircraft that is 74m in length (the KSP version). Unfortunately, like in the real 2707 project, my swing-wings didn't work out so well. I truly gave it my all and threw a whole bunch of different design changes and improvements in a hope to get them working, but i feel like they are simply too big to ever really work, no matter how well you design them (well, with the help of some mods you could propably do it). The best i was able to do as far as standing still goes, was to get the wing tips slightly off the ground. That's not too bad right... Forget the rapid disassembly, but when Jeb and Val are both terrified, you know somethings wrong. Basically, when i hit about 100m/s, the plane had an identity crisis and started flapping it's wings around, witch doesn't really work. The wings where connected to a freely rotating servo that would be the swiveling point. for the movement, i had two sets of freely rotating servos and pistons connected to the back of the wing root, and the wing-tip. The servos/pistons inside the fuselage where also heavily reinforced. But it just wasn't enough. Oh, and i also created counterweights on sticks on the swiveling point to try and help get the wing-tips a little further off the ground. At one point i also played around with offset plates, that would act as a sort of guide-rail/channel connecting the wings together. It was a pretty silly idea, but if the wing panels didn't want to get away from each-other so hard and create a messed up wing segment, it may have helped a little better, as the the slot's did sorta work. Same vessel interaction wasn't on at that point anymore, but i think you get what i was going for. After those experiments i gave up and removed the mechanisms and strutted up the wings to make the aircraft something that actually works. I guess i can really only blame myself for making the aircraft so huge. So, a bit of a set-back, but i personally don't really care as it still looks and flies like it should, the wings are just fixed now. If you want to pose them you can easily rotate the wings in the hangar by just rotating the servo they are attached to. There's no need to do anything extra, as i have strutted the thing in a way that it works when the wings are folded in and when they are folded out. As you no doubt guessed by now, i added a working folding nose in it as-well. Unfortunately the servo can only keep it pointing forward up to a certain speed, after that the faster you go, the more it starts to droop. It won't come off or anything like that, it will just point towards Kerbin. This time around i was able to reach the supersonic speeds i was missing last time around. I went with the MK-3 fuselage system for this one as i wanted to make the aircraft usable as a commercial airliner. I even added some lander-can doors for loading and unloading of passengers. NOTE: When flying at top speeds, be careful when you change attitude even a bit, as the aircraft tends to catastrophically brake apart if it loses control at those speeds. More picks of the aircraft And for nostalgia sakes, here are some picks of ye old design Technical specs: Top speed: fastest i was able to go was 860 m/s at a little over 12000m Stall speed: 36.2 m/s with wings folded out Length: 74.9m with nose folded down Wingspan: 43.4m with wings folded out Height: 11.4m Mass: 247.8 tons Parts: 356 You can operate the nose from the Translate up and down axis group. Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcljdy6qxr2nab1/SST-2707 Cloud Cutter.craft?dl=0 And there it is for you, a large SST for all your high speed passenger transport needs. I hope you enjoy it

Taught it would be a little rude not to make some craft related to the Apollo 11 project. K.S.S Hornet I was in the process of building some new ships for the KNS post when i realized that there was a pretty vital element of the Apollo 11 mission that i could replicate, the U.S.S Hornet CV-12, the modernized WWII Essex class aircraft-carrier that recovered the Apollo 11 crew and their capsule. The crew was picked up from the capsule by a Sea King helicopter and then brought to the carrier where they would be greeted by president Nixon and brought into a special quarantine habitation module to avoid contamination. The capsule was then later lifted onto one of the carriers aircraft-elevators by the carriers own crane. From there the crew was brought into the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston. The Hornet also recovered the crew of Apollo 12, as-well an unmanned test capsule. PSA for shipbuilders As you may be able to see from the pick, i decided to go with a non tweackscaled hull this time...why you may ask, after the Grand Carrier ive built two huge carriers using tweackscaled hulls, one based on the Lexington CV-2, and one being a custom design, they both detonated either underway, or when i entered their physics range in another craft. Picks of those ill-fated carriers So, i think you can see why i went with a stock hull this time. Remember kids, if you don't want unplanned rapid disassembly of you aircraft-carriers, don't use tweackscale on the hull of the ship. Now that we have that PSA out of the way, let's get back to today's build. While the hull may be non tweackscaled, pretty much everything above it uses it quite heavily, cause as per usual, i wanted to make it more usable by lowering the part count and also making it more durable. With the power of the new DLC servos and rotors and stuff, i was able to remove Infernal Robotics from the calculation all together. Unfortunately the BG DLC doesn't have gantry rails in it, so i had to ditch working aircraft-elevators. In this case BG is simply used to animate the dummy radars. I could have mady made some servo powered rudders, but those would have probably stuck out a little too much and would have hit something on the ground, and since they don't self center, keeping the ship steady would have been nigh impossible as they would never really be truly straight. Another thing i kinda wanted to try but dropped, was propeller-pods. Basically engines mounted on servos, witch would eliminate the need for rudders and bow-thrusters. I feel they would have had the same problem as rudders, but even worse this time. Then there's also the limited axis-groups, witch i would rather like to save for stuff like: fore and aft main battery guns, torpedo-armaments, recovery crane...etc. The overall design/build is pretty standard stuff you've gotten to see before, so there's not much to say. Other than the fact that to make this compatible with the KNS stuff, i didn't go all out on the details. I did put some extra details as i saw that the part-count was looking nice and low, but nothing crazy. More picks of the carrier The Hornet was the main focus here, and there's a lot of other projects i want to get done, so that's why the replicas of the Tracker and Sea King are a little thrown together. It didn't feel worth it to create proper replicas of them, but it also felt wrong leaving them out. I feel like overall the tracker is pretty fine, but the Sea King could use some more work, mainly in the cockpit area, as the more Huey style cockpit just feels way out of place, but, there wasn't really a good alternative, minus going completely custom, so that's what where going with. Technical specs: Armaments: 4x Goalkeeper MK3 Top speed: 28 m/s Length: 167.2m Width: 30.4m Height: 33.3m Mass: 1,535.263 tons Parts: 580 The radars are operated by just accessing the rotors menu and sliding the output higher. Mods used: BD-armory and tweackscale for the carrier, and Airplane+ for the aircraft. Also both DLC's. Download link (all 3 crafts): https://www.dropbox.com/s/04a6w77vg8ydqjv/Apollo 11 recovery pack.zip?dl=0 And there it is for you, my contribution to the Apollo 11 50th celebration. I hope you enjoy it

KTP-615 Raven If my mind wasn't already flooded with ideas, when the original BG parts came out, it is now with the new propeller and helicopter engines, as personally i've always preferred the look and sound propeller planes over modern jets. So, you can probably guess i was pretty darn exited to give ago at creating a proper all stock propeller driven aircraft. And what better choice than one of my top 3 favorite custom builds of all time, the Raven, my fictional protected-cargo-plane concept. The idea for this type of aircraft began when i was looking at some picks of the Bristol Bombay... ...And the Handley Page Sparrow... ...and decided i wanted to create something in that style. I wanted to make the aircraft truly custom by giving it a more unique function. Instead of having it be just another transport plane ready to be shot to bit's, why not give it RAF heavy-bomber style defensive armament's to help stay alive a little longer, i mean...why not. The new version has a lot of the design features of the older version, as i wanted to basically just create a cleaner version of the original with better detailing. The only real difference is the fact that for this version, i took my favorite features from the original and Monty Kerman's personal transport. The underbelly gondola for instance is a feature that was in the original, but not in Monty Kermans transport, instead it was replaced with a Lancaster style radar-pod in the underbelly. The Lancaster MG-turrets where in Monty Kerman's transport and not in the original, instead it had an earlier style "pointy" twin MG-turret at the top, and a "gun-tunnel" under the tail with a singular MG in it. So, like Monty Kerman's transport, this would also be in a KW2 configuration. The thing i most wanted to "remaster" was the cockpit. I wanted the color and shape to be a little more unified and smooth, and windows that look a little more natural/fitting. The top-turret has also changed as the old all grey one just felt a little off, the shape of all lifting surfaces look a little better, the engines have better detail, and the overall color/paint-job of the aircraft is much better overall. More pick of the aircraft Unfortunately, while the looks have improved, the same can't be said for the flight characteristics. The aircraft does still control pretty much the same, but the engines are under-powered for an aircraft of this size (hence why it has two jet-engines fitted in the under-wing racks), and the propeller engines don't produce the same drag, so the stopping distance is quite a bit bigger. Also, takeoff only happens when the runway ends as the angle at witch the aircraft sits on the runway is quite low. So, unlike last time, this version can't land on the island runway...unless maby you put the engines on reverse thrust. Basically you need to prepare yourself for some slow low altitude flying where you need to keep your hands on control at all times, as for some reason the aircraft's nose dips down constantly, even with SAS on. I could have probably gotten more thrust if i had put like 6-bladed propellers instead, but i to wanted to make the engines/propellers look more period correct. Then again, i feel like that makes the plane even more authentic, as planes like the Bristol Bombay aren't very speedy (309 km/h). Technical specs: Top speed: 100-110 m/s. (speed may vary between version). Stall speed: 33 m/s. Armaments: 7x dummy MG's in 3 turrets Length: 36.5m Wingspan: 44.8m Height: 13.6m Mass: 110 tons Parts: 556 Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tglui05wq77es1o/KTP- 615 Raven.craft?dl=0 For comparison And there it is for you once again, my idea of a proper cargo-plane. I hope you enjoy it .

Ahh, warms my heart to see my design go into some good use .

Thanks

What an FPSO ship is, and the history of the Petrojarl Cidade De Rio Das Ostras. This is copied mostly word for word from the "history of the real ship" segment in the models instructions. (thankfully it was in English this time, tough somewhat broken. JSC is a Polish company, so a lot of the descriptions/history of the real ship, bit's are in Polish only). Technical data: Length: 182,97m Width: 32,2m Draught:12,9m Capacity: 45574 DWT Propulsion: Diesel engine Man B&W K7SZ70 / 125BL Production: 15,000 barrels a day Storage: 200,000 barrels Crew: up to 60 DNV class: Ship-shaped Oil Production and Storage Unit. On 30, November 2006 a contract for a conversion of tanker Che Guevara into FPSO Petrojarl Cidade De Rio Das Ostras was signed in Gidansk. The contract was signed by representatives of Canadian-Norwegian ship's owner Teekay Petrojarl AS and by representatives of Remontova shipyard in Gidansk. FPSO what is that? FPSO is an abbreviation from Floating Production Storage Offloading. The easiest description of the function is a floating oil processing plant. Here are some explanations of the tasks. Floating means the units of this class float on the water. Due to the hull construction there are two different types of FPSO - ship-like shaped and platforms. The first ones are often old tankers like e.G. Petrojarl with some new infrastructure added on the deck. Newly built FPSO's are not shaped like a typical ship, usually their hulls are just classic "boxes" with sharp corners. Production. This is the whole secret of this class. An FPSO is the heart of an oil-field's production infrastructure. All oil-wells are connected directly by means of valves and pipes to the ship, or to a special buoy fastened on a certain level under the water. Also The buoy the FPSO connects to enables the unit to turn according to weather conditions so that the output conduits are not extensively loaded while pumping the oil. On the deck the gas, water and sometimes pollutants like paraffin of hydrogen sulfide are separated from oil. The basic process is warming up the unprocessed oil and evaporating the components. Storage. After cleaning the oil goes into the tanks. That's why the tankers are adapted for this task. Gas can also be stored in the tanks, but it is also burnt due to it's small amounts. Gas may also be pumped trough special wells back into the deposit, to increase the pressure in the deposit and to make the output easier. Water distilled from the oil goes back into the sea or like the gas is pumped back into the deposit. Offloading. As the produced oil is filling the tanks it is also pumped into tankers transporting it to the refineries on land. Offloading goes on trough a soft oil pipeline stored on a characteristic reel stern or bow of the FPSO. The pipeline is unreeled and connected to the tanker while offloading. Shuttle tankers, as the units that receive the oil are called, are equipped with special couplings that enable quick and safe connection to the pipeline. Reliability in first place Like every other enterprise, the income is the most important factor in the industry. The higher the production, the bigger the income. As every well has it's own limited flow (the oil cannot be sucked into the pipe faster tan it can be filtered in the bed), the output cannot be increased continuously, that's why the production continuity is the most important here. To keep it constant, all devices on an FPSO are tripled, in a normal work mode two are used, while the third is a backup one, it is cleaned and maintained. In an extreme case of two of the three sets failing, the one still allows for a slightly lowered production. The hulls of FPSO's are built in a special way so that they don't have to undergo overhauls as often. Precious old tankers Due to an increase in accident's with single skin tankers, a lot of companies had to withdraw them. You would think a that they would have then been scrapped, but you'd be wrong. A lot of these old single-skin tankers got converted to FPSO ships, as floating refineries spend most of there time in oil-fields are not under as heavy safety-rules and don't need double skin. That's why some of the biggest shipyards around the world converted the old tankers into refineries with kilometers of pipes and thousands of valves. Che Guevara changed into Petrojarl Cidade De Rio Das Ostras One of such tankers is the Che Guevara built in 1981 at A.G. Weser, Bremen Germany. The ship came to Remontowa shipyard in Gdansk mid December 2006. Here where installed: the refinery equipment, oil offloading devices, connections and couplings for the wells' pipes, anchor system consisting of 12 anchors and all accessories, two 30-tonne cranes, large helipad. The operating center for all deck systems is also completely new. Lot's of work was given to renovations and rebuilding of the accommodation part. After the conversions, the ship left the shipyard on 19. December 1007. On 12. February 2008 she was officially baptized and Petrojarl Cidade De Rio Das Ostras. First part of the untypically long name comes from the owner's name, the rest is a name of a Brazilian town 130 km north-east from Rio De Janeiro. This is the typical way of naming the ships by Brazilian company Petrobras (Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.), one of the biggest oil producers in the world that charters this ship. FPSO - laboratory Petrojarl Cidade De Rio Das Ostras is a rather untypical FPSO, because it was designed for extra-heavy oil production tests on smaller deposits and not for commercial production from one large deposit. High prices of oil force companies to start the production in smaller more difficult deposits that are known since long time and wait for their turn. Old Che Gueavara will be anchored in Siri reservoir on Badejo oilfield in Campos Basin in the Atlantic Ocean at the Brazilian coast by the town Rio Das Ostras. The ship will be installed at a water depth of 95 m and 80 kilometers off the coast. Petrojarl Cidade De Rio Das Ostras will first be a lab for production size in Siri Deposit with estimated resources of 15 million barrels. This reservoir has been known to hold oil since 10975, but it wasn't used due to very high density (12,8o API = 0,98 kg/l at 16oC) and viscosity (300 cP = 0,3 Pa*s) of the oil. Drilling 2 km deep well (longest of this type in Brazil) and installing a special pump enabled starting of production. Purifying process of such an oil demands extremely high temperatures - even up to 140oC. This is the first case of extra-heavy oil production on waters around Brazil and one of the very few in the world. More than a new production system, the FPSO Cidade De Rio Das Ostras will be a lab for the development of offshore extra-heavy oil-fields such as Marlim Leste, Albacora Leste, Papa-Terra, and Maromba, all in Campos Basin. The Campos Basin is the largest undersea oil reservoir in Brazil. The resources are estimated for 11 billion barrels (1750000000 m3) And there it is for you bunch of info about the ship in question, FPSO's, and other related stuff. Paper version Im pretty sure you already guessed, but this is indeed the giant papermodel project i mentioned in the WIP thread. I have to say im quite amazed at myself for being able to get this project done, in one go no-less...well, there where some brakes here and there, but as you can see, they weren't exactly long. I was searching around for images of completed JSC models to see what some of the secondary models that you don't see in the cover are, when i happened to come across some images of this model. As soon as i saw those images, i knew i had to give a go at making one myself. I was a bit worried from the start that i might be in over my head, but i was hopeful the fact that this is a type of ship i have never done before, the fact that it doesn't have the repetitive building of warship armaments, and the fact that i can't remember the last time i was this exited to get started with a model build would help me push trough and get the model done in the next couple weeks instead of next couple years. To further motivate myself, i removed the screens, keyboard and mouse from my PC and turned the computer desk into a work-bench in an effort to remove any distractions that would cause progress to slow down and eventually become a few month pause. And it definitely helped a lot. The model was originally in 1:400 scale. I decided to scale it up as i taught it would be more fun to build and would be a little more doable in general, as the model has LOTS of small parts. As i mentioned in the WIP thread, this model has about 1600 parts that i had to scale up in paint and then move/arrange into 60 A4 sheets, and that's not including the instructions that where an additional 9 pages. The page/part count is an all time record for me, as-well as the time spent on it. It still ain't the biggest in size tough, that honor goes to the giant airship model that i showed some time ago. More shot's of the model All in all im quite proud of the final result. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at one of my crazier paper-model projects . PS: Yes i know, i'll try and get back to the TU-16 build at some point. Unfortunately my motivation for making aircraft models versus ship models is quite low right now, so it'll take some time.

Next on the experimentation pipeline was the creation of a cargo-helicopter that i can operate from the deck of a research ship im planning. It works, but still needs some tweaking.

Had plans to recreate my 6-engined "Raven" transport-aircraft, but taught it would be a better idea to test the engines first before i spend all day building a new aircraft. And what could be a better test bed than one of my bigger and heavier fighters. The Firbird MK II has a few extra added details as-well as one of the new engines with a 6-bladed propeller. I gotta say, with the right settings, that new engine has some serious power. The Firebird is able to reach 140-150m/s and can fly for about 30min with full power. The original Firebird has 2 Airplane + "Kraken" engines (50 KN each) and is able to fly at 150-160m/s. The range is about 70-80min at full power. So, not too bad, if you ask me.