Flying Cars in 1.0? You Betcha!

[BagelRabbit]

Hello everyone! It's UpsilonAerospace.

~~~

As you may remember, I had a good run back in 0.90 making flying cars. As soon as 1.0 dropped, though, I thought that those days were over. Suddenly, aerodynamics were vaguely realistic! And flying cars... well, they just aren't realistic. Right?

Wrong.

Pandoras Kitten provided the first hint to me that vehicles could, indeed, fly in 1.0. Even though her (his?) recently-created beautiful VW bus couldn't take off on its own, it nonetheless showed some potential:

As a side bonus I believe the Bus is airworthy. Most of the body is built with airfoils for weight saving, and jump tests exhibited a peculiar ability to stabilise itself in mid air.

...and if an automobile that wasn't built to fly could be airworthy... well, that was certainly worth investigating.

After some time, I got a modestly successful flying car up into the air. I'm not going to post the .craft file yet (tweaks must still be made) but if you have any comments or recommendations, I'd love to hear them!

~~~

The Skymobile Mk5

Ushering in a new era of flying cars!

Images:

The Skymobile on the ground. This particular version seats two, though unless you have a mod to remove the kerbals' helmets, seating is rather cozy...

...and it's off! The Skymobile takes off at somewhere around 45 m/s. Once in the air, it can exceed 60 m/s (but it's draggy for obvious reasons, and the two "Puff" monopropellant engines don't provide the craft with enough power to reach unsafe speeds).

Flying out over the ocean. The Skymobile only has enough fuel for a two minutes or so of sustained flight, which is something I'm planning on improving in the future.

...and headed back to base post-landing. Jeb and Val had a blast flying this thing!

~~~

So that's the Skymobile so far. I'll post progress updates, whether I continue to try to iron out this thing's flaws (high CoM, low flight time) or perhaps create a new-and-improved Skymobile! This was more of a "I'm still here, and I'm still creating flying cars" announcement than anything...

Thanks for stopping by!

-Upsilon

[EdusacconBR]

Awesome xD

[Majorjim!]

Glad to see it back dude, and as cute as ever!

I do however think the fact these things still work is common knowledge now right? Squad made the atmosphere a bit more 'soupy' in 1.0.4 We have openly discussed it and I among others have made some tiny flying craft that use only one small Elevon 4. this for example flys on kerbin:

But I'm being massively pedantic.. I will test this bad boy later.

2 *Reads OP* Oh, never mind. I will return, though!

Whoops.. me too.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Majorjim

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

2 minutes! I'll get that up to 10 with a jet! Where's the craft file! *Reads OP* Oh, never mind. I will return, though!

[BagelRabbit]

Awesome xD

Thank you very much, EdusacconBR!

Glad to see it back dude, and as cute as ever!

I do however think the fact these things still work is common knowledge now right? Squad made the atmosphere a bit more 'soupy' in 1.0.4 We have openly discussed it and I among others have made some tiny flying craft that use only one small Elevon 4. this for example flys on kerbin:

http://i58.tinypic.com/23h6q1k.png

But I'm being massively pedantic.. I will test this bad boy later.

Don't worry about being "pedantic" or anything. I really do value your input.

I think the reason I missed out on the discussions you were talking about was because I wasn't on the Forum much at around the release of 1.0.4, and I haven't been on the Spacecraft Exchange at all in maybe a month and a half. I still think this may be the first true "flying car" released post 1.0 though. Let me know if I'm wrong

2 minutes! I'll get that up to 10 with a jet! Where's the craft file! *Reads OP* Oh, never mind. I will return, though!

To give you a sense of why I haven't released the .craft file yet, here are a couple of the problems this thing still has:

>Brakes aren't working after I tweaked the thing's brake torque and made it front-wheel-steering only. (I think this is a known bug, and I'm wondering how to fix it.)

>The CoM is high enough that turns at over 10 m/s or so lead to flips that I cannot recover from. I'm actually currently trying to lower everything that has significant mass.

>The thing disintegrates completely when landed with a vertical velocity of more than about 5 m/s. I would like that to be a little higher.

>And, as always, it needs a little more juice to stay in the air for longer.

I'm also working on some other stuff at the moment, such as this pretty little guy and also college. So don't expect the .craft file to be out soon, unfortunately...

-Upsilon

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

[...]

To give you a sense of why I haven't released the .craft file yet, here are a couple of the problems this thing still has:

>Brakes aren't working after I tweaked the thing's brake torque and made it front-wheel-steering only. (I think this is a known bug, and I'm wondering how to fix it.)

>The CoM is high enough that turns at over 10 m/s or so lead to flips that I cannot recover from. I'm actually currently trying to lower everything that has significant mass.

>The thing disintegrates completely when landed with a vertical velocity of more than about 5 m/s. I would like that to be a little higher.

>And, as always, it needs a little more juice to stay in the air for longer.

I'm also working on some other stuff at the moment, such as this pretty little guy and also college. So don't expect the .craft file to be out soon, unfortunately...

-Upsilon

No rush! That VTOL looks nice.

[Majorjim!]

Thank you very much, EdusacconBR!

Don't worry about being "pedantic" or anything. I really do value your input.

I think the reason I missed out on the discussions you were talking about was because I wasn't on the Forum much at around the release of 1.0.4, and I haven't been on the Spacecraft Exchange at all in maybe a month and a half. I still think this may be the first true "flying car" released post 1.0 though. Let me know if I'm wrong

Ok, cheers dude. I think you are right, I haven't seen one released!

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

When that .625 meter jet comes out, I will make a flying car pack.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

You have competition...

[AlexanderTeaH]

Oh, look, a flying car, wait, WHAT.

[Jett_Quasar]

Someone built a train locomotive engine that worked as an SSTO (I can't find the thread but I'll keep looking). Can any of these cars get to orbit?

JR

[Clouds]

The Skymobile only has enough fuel for a two minutes or so of sustained flight, which is something I'm planning on improving in the future.

Oh, that's easy. Just open up the Cheat Debug Sci-Fi Role Play Menu...

Cute car!

[ghostbuzzer7]

Hype Hype Hype. Can't wait for another video on a flying car again Cant believe I didn't see this post before, does the car have built in suspension to land safely?