Halsfury

Haha, Halsfury & Lazarus Aerospace Corp. will be the challenge entry name when this is finished Looking forward to seeing what you do with the back end of it

You're welcome, send back notes on how it flies, maybe there's more room for improvement - - - Updated - - - Also thanks to everyone for participating in this challenge, I didn't know that so many people played in FAR, or would be interested

I just finished tweaking this F-18 built by Darth Lazarus for FAR

Here you go http://www./download/r26blird449f97f/FAR_FA-18_Super_Hornet.craft

Also here it is in flight, look at the G meter It has a low tolerance for stalls under 200m/s but true to a 4th generation fighter it is liable to spin in a friendly, recoverable way I didn't get a screenshot but it went right up to mach 4.2 at 10km, then it exploded, not just into bits, but violently and into dust particles EDIT: Also I changed the elevons to reflect your original choice, no loss in ability was recorded

@ Darth This is how I finally found an aesthetically pleasing solution, it does make the wingtips more pointed so lower speed turns can result in wingtip drops. It's been area ruled to .89m^2 wave drag area and has a pretty nice flying character overall

Also Darth I fixed your YF-17, I'll post the link sometime today It was really those little wing sections which have weird qualities, either they flex or they are aerodynamically ugly in some other way but after redesigning the wing without them the roll authority is great, the aircraft snaps from side to side in turns and it can accelerate to mach 4 at 10km - - - Updated - - - Wow there's a military contracts mod? I know that the F-35 is a compromise, and in the past similar design philosophies have produced great planes but in our current conditions it probably won't be as useful as intended, that being said it probably won't be so deficient as to cost anyone their lives EDIT: I do love the futuristic F-35B though, VTOL's are amazing feats

You run KSP on a macbook air? I'm using a 2012 macbook pro and I'm concerned about heat generation Thanks for the help with the wings and you're welcome in regards to the challenge. I got the idea at first because of the F-35 and just how bad and compromised it is. At first I wanted the challenge to be something along the lines of build a better aircraft than Boeing can. But then I increased the difficulty by insisting that you build a real 5th gen fighter

Also what's the best 1.0.4 compatible procedural wings mod? I'm looking for a simple extrusion based wing, not one with basically an editable config in a GUI

@ Darth Lazarus: I found out some problems with your aircraft, one of which is that wing sections D an E are defective in terms of rigidity, in stock KSP any kind of control surface attached to them invariably ends up with virtually no authority. If I were you I'd go with procedural wings, the stock ones just don't like to conform to the shape you want EDIT: @Crisk, I'm sorry but in relation to your X-32 you need to calculate your own score with relevant proof shots, I don't want to have to download all your mod dependancies and test your aircraft when you probably have a better computer for it.

Reduce your complexity and build something smaller to start, I've never experienced this porpoising you mention but it might be related to some of these problems. Is your aircraft flexing? if so it is assured to fail, smaller airframes are naturally more resilient, so maybe a downsize is in order Another thing is if you area rule a craft and then try to make it fly you will make a horrible mess, try instead to build an aircraft which flies well subsonically, and then tweak it so that it can go supersonic. Also you might not have enough pitch authority, try a bigger canard for the elevator, Also post an image of your aircraft so that people can see the structure and try to help out

I think your problem is that the wing proceeds from a very weak link, it just needs the same parts configured differently EDIT: In fact, I just did, all that was needed was taking the type E wing connectors out and building using a type C wing connector as the first part on each side and heavily clipping it into the aircraft. The wing shape is the same but building from a more solid and more organized base helps a lot. Also the roll speed is just bad due to the wing flex and the smallness of those ailerons, key in the elevators so that they can roll as well and it will help

Ok I posted your entry under BD armoury Also darth, did you fix the wing flex? I found that I had trouble with that as I worked on your hornet. Another thing... After all that talk of a new design class, I thought of what could be done in terms of the rules. Basically in a slight modification of the challenge unarmed aircraft how about making a second generation strategic reconnaissance role. like the SR-71 I'm thinking cruise at 20km at mach 3 and top speed at mach 4 minimum. New exotic engines could be used for this class, since it doesn't actually have to go into combat.

Which one do you mean, I thought I put your score up on the main page, the P 13 shrike. I thought you weren't making another entry so it just became fodder for the general conversation, my mistake, which post was it again? - - - Updated - - - How about how long does it take to arrive in the same flight position at a given altitude, say that you must fly by the SPH tower and time how long until you fly by it again? That's an easy turn time calculation

While we were on the discussion about various forms of aerodynamic oscillation and snaking I thought I might share this short clip of some of the nastier side of flutter

Yeah I see your problem with wave drag, you just need more volume behind the cockpit and behind the wings, I downloaded it so I'll try to work it out EDIT: You used a mod for the F-18 which I don't have, what was it?

So many interesting things just happened and I left this page alone for only a day! I should get to work on another fighter Also Darth Lazarus, that's a really cool F-18. If the Area ruling gives you trouble try using the long tail connector parts to cut down on the fuselage where the wings are. Clip them into each other with 1 running back and another running forwards - - - Updated - - - If you want more deflection on the control surfaces, there's a point where the surfaces will cause flow separation and will act like a large brake, it's a trial and error thing mostly, just scale up the values until you find the limit, if you go past the limit, you'll know it by the fact that upward pitch will stop working and it will crash

Yeah, it's true but sometimes something which people find weird or doesn't conform with their perception of being aerodynamically sound or very pretty eventually enters popular culture such that we assume that we need it aerodynamically when we don't, or that it's more attractive. For example 70 years ago the aerodynamic wisdom of the time said rounded leading edge with a with a tapered trailing edge. The popular culture got influenced by these aerodynamic advancements and cars went from . This: to this: you might say that this makes sense since cars were going faster, but since then cars have still taken their cues from bleeding edge aerodynamics, even though it's just for looks. for instance cars don't need area ruling and people in the 50's thought area ruling looked weird and ugly But today this design feature makes it into sports cars, (yes it's a concept but I know you've seen this waisted look on a less exaggerated scale) This is of course totally useless on a car which won't even reach 200mph on city streets, and it might even have a negative subsonic drag impact but it's a bit of a modern design meme

That's a wicked looking ship, but where are the control surfaces? are you just using canards front and back?

You must have a lighter craft then. Too bad the AI doesn't know to save up energy and perform boom and zoom attacks cause the F-32 sure has the mass for it. is the XF 150 stock with BD or are any other mods used?

Thanks Hodo, but I'm not 100% convinced. Landing gears are my design weak point generally and the fact that the landing gear makes for a higher takeoff speed than landing speed is ideal for stability on landing I might increase the size of the pylon though to help with the takeoff issue, I know it looks ugly but it works and doesn't melt at mach 4 Also did you detach the drop tanks before fighting it? they completely disintegrate when ejected at high speeds mind you

I finally completed my own challenge to a satisfying level! Here are the relevant pics of the F-32 in action Super cruise with full payload (the design really tops out at slightly less than this in cruise with all that stuff hanging off the wings, this shot was taken before it normalized at mach 1.22) -On board are 2 drop tanks with 212.5 litres of fuel total for 4.25 points -9 weapons with air to air and air to ground ability (18 points) 2 sidewinders, 2 sparrows, 4 mavericks and a 20mm auto cannon. Then I ditched all that stuff and went full throttle to mach 4 (40 points) And turning back home I reached a super cruise of mach 2.15 (11.5 points) As to supermanuver, TWR and, landing they have all been proved before and I did in fact land after taking these measurements. All together 88.75 points. EDIT: Also a mini challenge: download BD armoury and try to beat it in a heads up dogfight, don't worry it can fly itself with the built in probe core so no kerbals will die if you beat it http://www./download/sp4dvat4yhf7c9g/F-32_Hurricane_II_Multirole.craft Don't change the AI settings, it flies best as is, might want to increase the max speed for high altitude fighting. EDIT 2: I'd also like it if you would post your fighter jets so I can face off against them - - - Updated - - - Thought after the storm of controversy I might go back and check some entries, you did make 1 slight error, TWR is only worth 1 point not 5 thus 75 points is the correct score EDIT: might I suggest throttling up to get to a higher speed before attempting the super cruise part of the challenge, often the engine will output a good deal more thrust at higher mach so it is worth it to throttle to full all the way to just shy of mach 2, the thrust will be greater so a higher super cruise speed will likely be sustainable, though you will have to wait for the thrust to drag ratio to even out.

Second that, I could see the throttle settings on the nav ball when the limit was not set. Also I'll add your score gamer And I think it ought to be explicit that I will examine all entries, and for all other purposes the honesty of the submitter will be assumed.

I just pushed my craft to mach 4 but heating threatened to kill it, I'm ready to post my final score with BD armoury soon Now I have 88.25 points

This was from a while ago but if you built the Blitzableiter and still want me to measure the specs for it I will Also nice work cinocal , that's super manoeuvrability for all intents and purposes so long as you can recover easily