EpicSpaceTroll139

I've been thinking... If a KOS code can be created to adjust blade pitch to maintain a certain rpm... Could a much more advanced code be created to individually actuate surfaces on a helicopter rotor? As a substitute for the eternally breaking swashplate? Or do the surfaces simply move too slowly for them to travel any significant distance as the rotor whips around? Disclaimer: This is only a theoretical thing. I am not asking anyone to do this. If anyone is going to hurt his/her brain doing this, I'll do it!

NICE!!! That reminds me, I've finally got a traditional heli with a reliable tailrotor!

The first crane looks like it can do the Hulk Smash! These look awesome though!

Stratolaunch mothership?

I've been working more on that swashplate thing. I made mine a bit different, and had the blade linkages riding directly on the bottom swashplate. It worked moderately well... and then it threw the blades Despite the engines being off, the remaining parts are still (5 minutes later) spinning at insane speed (they revved up like a rocket as soon as the blades were gone). I suspect it has something to do with a lot of them being physicsless or the like.

I'm guessing it's a Boeing 777, but I'm not sure.

The reason I mentioned the part count wasn't because I was worried about performance problems when rebuilding it larger, but rather because of the complexity of the build. It took me something like three weeks to a month to build the thing and get it working, and then another two weeks or so to get it working again in 1.1 (when the gear changed size, started clipping through the ground, and everything from the wings to tail started exploding off). I don't want to make my brain hurt rebuilding it larger and having to go through all the trouble of getting it to work again. Let alone doing it on all of them.

To make a long story short, when I started, I never dreamed I would be making a series of planes. I just started trying to build a big passenger plane, with 2 mk3 fuselages side by side. I ended up thinking "hey, this is kinda starting to look like an A-380!" So I went to Wikipedia and used data to make my plane into an A-380 replica. The fuselage size ended up resulting in a 5/6ths scale plane. When I decided to make more replicas I wanted them to have accurate relative sizes, but I didn't feel like rebuilding the 430 something part A-380 I have thought at times about making full scale, but I've got like 1...2... *counting* 12? At least 12 replicas I would have to redo. Besides, Kerbin is 1/10th real scale, I don't see why their planes would be full size... that's my excuse.

I've finally gotten back to working on my 5/6ths scale plane replicas after a long while of working on turboprops (I'm still doing those, just taking time to do other stuff). Right now I'm working on a MD-88 replica. I obviously need to add the wings, tailplane, vertical stabilizer, and gear, and doodads.

Not really, because the "main rotor torque" is actually coming directly from the panther blowers. The torque from the "main rotor" therefore increases/decreases at the rate it takes the panthers to spool up, which is reasonably quick. The tail rotor however has to wait for the the Juno to spool up (which itself seems to spool up at roughly the same relative rate as the panther), and also for the tail rotor to spin up. The tail rotor takes a long time to spin up. Thankfully, the large number of reaction wheels on the heli seem to take up the slack pretty well, but to be honest, it flew better when it had a Juno acting directly to counter the torque. That's not to mention that I didn't have to worry about it spontaneously exploding.

Here's the craft file for the Heli MkII 18-6. Be aware that the tail rotor likes to blow out. https://kerbalx.com/EpicSpaceTroll139/Heli-MKll-18-6

I managed to adapt @Pds314's Parakeet's engine to give an actual tail rotor to a helicopter!It even uses exactly the same fuel as before (it used to use a juno as a tailjet). It does come with the cost of the risk of a tailrotor strike, more parts, and slightly more weight tho. (Craft file coming soon)

Here's a picture of the thing: https://imgur.com/a/LB9Iu I seem to have knocked something out of whack; it doesn't shake like a washing machine as much but it also only goes 60m/s now. I'm thinking with tweaking I could get it to match or exceed the old 75m/s. Anyways, you can try it out here: https://kerbalx.com/EpicSpaceTroll139/Electric-Speedster-Mk7

@AzimechI don't remember about RPM but somewhere I have a light plane that went 75m/s in stock aero powered by RTGs and reaction wheels. Takeoff was a bit tricky and in flight she shook like an off-balance washing machine, but hey! No fuel required!

Lots of moving parts powered by a turboshaft motor which has a connecting rod to create reciprocating motion. It would probably require gears to get more power and less speed from a light motor. I've thought of building one at some point, but right now I'm also too lazy

@Azimechis that a person made of monopropellant tanks in that upgraded Chakora?

Yes, that is, if I can get the baby kraken out of my upper swashplate. I'm realizing now that it is neither going to be compact nor low in part count.

Anyways, because I couldn't stay focused on making the ugly duckling engines work better, I've been working on making a compact swashplate mechanism. So far I've got this:... annnnd imgur isn't working so here's the link: http://imgur.com/a/KTNCq. Obviously it's not finished yet. It's only got the bottom part of the swashplate. But at least it works with the cockpit/control point pointed forward instead of up. So it uses pitch and roll controls. Also an action group can be used to perform collective... Problem is the collective will be binary... it's either full up or some certain lower value... how are we going to work with that?

...uh...but it doesn't move sideways... It tilts... It tilts in whatever direction and goes up and down. I don't see the problem. From most helicopter hub mechanisms I've seen (well, diagrams and pictures), this is how it works on almost all helicopters. Imagine placing a paper plate on top of 4 pincels (for the sake of simplicity imagine the plate can't rotate around, only tilt). You could raise the front pencil and lower the back one or Vice Versa to tilt the plate forward or backward. You could raise the left pencil and lower the right or Vice Versa to tilt it right or left. You could raise or lower all of them to move the plate up or down. Or you could do any combination of these movements to move the plate up and down and tilt it in any direction. It's that simple. You could even theoretically do this with only 3 rods connecting to the bottom plate.

With 4 linkages to the swashplate it can perform both cyclic and collective control.

Actually the engine doesn't stay at full throttle, but rather changes to maintain a target rpm. Climbing takes greater blade pitch -> more blade drag -> more power than hovering, however the the rotor rpm remains the same. If the engine always was at maximum throttle, the rotor would probably rip itself apart when a heli tried to descend as there wouldn't be much pitch --> drag on the rotor and it would be getting all that power, which would make it spin faster and faster. This is why there is a throttle on helicopters in real life (some helicopters do it automatically though.) Also referring to the last previous post: with 4 linkages you don't need a second swashplate, you can just shove the single one up with all 4 linkages at once to perform collective inputs P.S. I like your car but this is only here bcc mobile won't let me get rid of it. V

I've been working on some radicalish designs. Mainly this thing that kind of looks like the ugly baby of a propfan and a ducted fan. I'm hoping to upgrade my giant-ring-turbine concept to go much faster eventually, but right now I guess I should focus on non-explosiveness. Apparently some of my pictures haven't come up, and they're out of order, but I can get at least 45m/s out of this (running it at half throttle, at high throttle above this speed it seems to have a habit of throwing something out of whack resulting in one or the other prop busting, and consequentially spinning out of control. Right now it's getting only 37 or so rad/s, but if I can figure out the expansion/wiggle issues with it, I think it is capable of at least 50 to 60 rad/s.

Still, what's the point of having a runway bumpier than the surrounding area? It doesn't even make sense... Anyways sorry this is off topic

Sure planes can take off from dirt runways, and yes taildraggers work great for that. It's just the 1st tier runway might as well be made of concrete. Without soft body physics, it simply does not behave like it's made of dirt. It's just bumpy and has a texture to make it look like dirt. It's completely silly to have a runway that is less flat than the surrounding grass. I'd buy it if the dirt was flat and everything had more friction, but it's just ridiculous for the runway to be harder to land on than the outside area. It's pointless to compare it to real life. Also, when did I say anything about bigger planes?

Found your problem. The 1st tier runway will wreck planes with better than basic gear. It's the real problem here, with its bumps that appear to made of loose dirt, but actually are hard as rock and will break many a plane. The gear here are simply a victim. Taxi your planes off the dirt runway to the silky smooth grass, and they will probably takeoff and land just fine.