Gman_builder

Lol yeah You can download my cars her and try them out for yourself 4 wheel drive car: https://kerbalx.com/Gman_builder/Gremlin-MK1 2 wheel drive car: https://kerbalx.com/Gman_builder/Stock-turboshaft-car To drive them you must engage the brakes BEFORE you stage. Otherwise you will have no traction.

For my main wheels I used fairing disks surrounded by small landing gear with the brakes on for traction. That worked exceptionally well.

front wheel steering? Or no steering at all?

Ya the problem with gears running at high speed in this game is that each tooth collides with the tooth in the other gear at very high velocities, so that limits what you can build them out of to structural panels and I-Beams. but even still, your at risk of breaking the gears. So I am hoping to achieve around 25 m/s out of a 2 wheel drive car, because it's impossible to steer a 4 wheel drive car. I would have to develop a stock steering system. So ya, 25 m/s isn't very fast so hopefully you wouldn't be breaking any parts and it's still fast enough to get where you need to go quickly enough. Then you could just have landing gear up front to do the steering which is what I had originally.

Hmm. ya I was thinking about it backwards. whoops. But still the best way to transfer power through a driveline with minimal lag and fuel consumption would be linking a single engine to a geared transmission similar to the one in my 4 wheel drive car. I am thinking about going back and changing some gear sizes to hopefully increase speed.

I'm saying you take a engine that doesn't produce enough power to lift a aircraft. And you UP-GEAR IT. So you have the efficiency of a engine with few blowers and the additional power from increasing the prop RPM through gearing. But whatever its just an idea. I think it's more applicable in cars and other land vehicles that are slow as fook right now like my turboshaft cars. My 2 wheel drive car managed about 15 m/s I think which was plenty for safe operating but my 4 wheel drive model with a similar powerplant did 4 m/s

Then you would have to have either LOTS of gears in the transmission for minimal torque on the engine, like real turboprop gearboxes, or produce an engine that has high torque while remaining in the design parameters that benefit from having a gearbox design instead of linking the engine directly to the prop.

I mean, you can take a engine that has a low operating speed, like 30ish rad/s. Then up-gear it so the prop spins at around 50 rad/s or higher,

If you check out some of @erasmusguy's older engines on KerbalX you'll see that he made some really smooth gear mesh's and very smoothly operating turboshafts. I would consult with him about the building of a transmission or a gearbox if he was active on this thread. https://kerbalx.com/erasmusguy/undefined I think up-gearing engines might be the most efficient method of either driving land based vehicles or possibly making realistic turboprops to fly aircraft. That way you could(theoretically) take a much smaller, less gas guzzling, lower part count, less glitchy engine and have it perform similarly to that of our massive 70+ blower engines. Possibly working in tandem as well for a twin engines design.

Hmm, interesting concept, but i'm not sure how one would go about building that.

well s h i t I can't think of a better way to reduce the torque on the turboshaft besides designing a geared transmission which is all but impossible.

I wonder if something like a power turbine could be utilized in KSP to drive cars and mechanical devices that don't fly.

Ya I understand, but I think part of the equation is the fact that props are specifically designed to have as little drag as possible in flight. That's why we increase the pitch on our props in KSP, to minimize drag. A prop is essentially a rotating wing. So when the aircraft is stationary, there is little pitch on the prop. This is because lift(thrust) is maximized and drag is minimized through the prop rotating directly into the airflow. No speed, equals no forward airflow. When you are at high speed, the leading edge of the prop is still pointing into the airflow, so there is little affect on the RPM of the engine. High speed equals high forward airflow. Given there may be more torque being utilized to keep the prop running, it is not like the torque on a car's engine either cruising or accelerating. I have to go feed someones cat so i'll be back in 20 minutes. I will explain my idea further.

Interesting, but what I am saying is this. My car, a 2012 Volkswagen Jetta weighs roughly 1500kg and runs on a straight 5 engine producing 170 horsepower at 5700 RPM and 177 lbs/ft of torque 4250 RPM. Similar to the Cessna's engine but the difference is this. Engine in the car is linked directly to the wheels through gears and axles, and the wheels also support the weight of the entire car(obviously) so the engine has to move the WHOLE WEIGHT of the vehicle. Whereas in a aircraft all the engine has to do is spin the propeller. Which weighs a small fraction of the weight of the entire aircraft. So this is how I measure it. Weight that has to be moved per engine: Aircraft engine: However much a prop weighs(100 pounds maybe) Car engine: Weight of entire car(I.E. 3019 pounds) So the car engine uses MORE TORQUE to move the vehicle. Especially during acceleration. I don't know how to factor in air resistance on a prop and how that affects engine torque and power output but I imagine it is very little especially at the slow speeds of a Cessna 172. I'll be here all week folks I like your car Alex....

Lol I'm in as well

Ya it is limited to the same 31.something rad/s and it can't be adjusted like stock can. So if you install FAR to try to built turboprops with it your basically back to square one with even more challenges.

Ya that's what I mean. In the same way the transition from KSP 0.90 to 1.0 made turboprops significantly harder and much more inefficient. The same way FAR would. FAR doesn't like big flat surfaces, like most turboprops have and the built in RPM limiter that cant be changed makes reaching high enough RPM and having little enough drag to fly extremely difficult. We would essentially have to completely change our designs.

That is why FAR style errordynamics could benefit KSP a lot. But that would essentially render all turboprops useless again. I think there is just to little support for this kind of craft ATM to really do anything magical with them. A lot of people don't get into turboprops because the bearing alone can be to much of a buggy challenge for some people. I guess the necessary knowledge to build them comes with a lot of experimentation and experience.

Ya that makes sense. But it's only 27 tons heavier than my latest plane and is over 100 m/s slower.... hmm seems slower than it should be

Why so slow? How much does it weigh?

Oh that makes sense. But seriously, it looks beautiful. What's the flight time and speeds?

h o l y s h I t How do you play with that much lag omfg let alone fly It to the north pole lol. That flight must have taken days IRL.

Part count must be horrendous

Well its not like a car. In a car the engine has to propel the entire vehicle via 4 tires. But a aircraft engine just has to spin the prop. Which weighs a lot less than the entire plane. Same goes for helicopters. In my 4 wheel drive turboshaft car I used a engine straight out of @erasmusguy's latest plane. That plane goes 70 something m/s and the car does 4 m/s. So I mean, torque is not really a factor in KSP turboprops.

Ya i see it. I don't know if that is a game feature of postFX but either way i think it is a cool effect.