FAR Fighter Challenge BD Armoury AI: 2!!

[E805BzRo]

@EzBro: by spoiler do you mean pitch control?

In effect it is the same as pitch control, but I think if you activate the spoiler function it will pitch only at low speed. You could get the same using DD to dampen with normal pitch control at high Q, I guess. It is confusing. You can use pitch, the AoA slider, and the spoiler slider for the same goals. Especially with DD I think the boarder between what sliders achieve are blurred. Testing is not easy as the rest of the plane must be adapted to changed amounts of pitch authority - and then you compare apples with pears.

I built another test plane (K-202) purely for understanding more about the general question if front-facing control surfaces are better used for pitch authority (like canards) or for AoA, or if there is an advantage of using two for this and two for that. That plane doesn't like those surfaces to be used as spoilers (stalls until you dampen everything using DD, then it doesn't corner well anymore), but it achieves superb slow cornering performance with AoA. With the K-201 10, which looks almost identical, it was the other way round .

In fact, with AoA K-202 beats K-201 10 and Hummingbird all the time .

[DoctorDavinci]

So the purpose of a spoiler is to create drag and not to control your pitch, yaw or roll, however, you can utilize them to do this. Thing is you need to keep your drag points creating equal pressure difference in relation to your CoL which is best done from behind your CoM

IMO best practice would be to keep any and all spoilers behind your CoM and apply them symmetrically

[Van Disaster]

Yes - the F-4 used spoilers for roll ( partially ) which is pushing the limits of what I'd call a spoiler, but I guess it also solves some yaw coupling issues ( and apparently caused a ton of roll control problems too ), but generally spoilers are braking devices - they spoil the airflow - whereas primary control surfaces are meant to provide a turning moment ( of course assymetric spoilers do that too ) with as little drag as possible, by changing the effective camber.

So from what I've read about 1.0.5 the basic jet is going to be a high bypass turbofan and the other engines are getting redone: my vote is to close entries now ( unless I - given nobody else is running fights - can plough through the queue and any new ones in time ) and restart the contest from scratch after 1.0.5. This will save any confusion & I've no problems with keeping a 1.0.4 install to finish things off. Thoughts?

Edit: yep, we need to restart. Reran the Hummingbird/Midge fight in 1.0.5, and it's *completely* different - not least because bits fall off the Midge & the Hummingbird is more like a Swallow ( and not set up to go that fast at all ). There are fairly large bugs when a plane explodes too. I'll run EzBro's submitted plane in 1.0.4 tomorrow, and then we should rethink.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Van Disaster

[Doke]

I feel like some of the references to 'spoilers' here are actually to leading-edge flaps. IIRC, the former pitch up and create drag; the latter are supposed to pitch down and reduce drag at high AoA. FYI, I plan for my Skua-successer (Projekt Y-5, currently unnamed) to use LEVCONS like the PAK-FA. Part canard, part leading edge flap, all awesome.

Speaking of which, I'm off to play with the new afterburner engines. How do people feel about using these in battles at some point in the future?

[E805BzRo]

Re-starting with 1.05 after the K-201 10 fight is certainly fine with me - how couldn't it, with giving me the chance to be the last champion of the 1.04 era and all!

EDIT: I would very much appreciate if we could also include Doke's submission if it comes rather soon still in the 1.04 series - his Skua was the first thing I tested my planes against and I hated it (in a good way).

Edited November 9, 2015 by E805BzRo

[Van Disaster]

I use leading edge devices to delay stall onset - not sure they have a proper name other than "drooping leading edges". As for stuff, if it's stock & not a rocket I'd be fine other mods we were going to discuss but it might be good to see what the new stuff does first.

[Hodo]

I use leading edge devices to delay stall onset - not sure they have a proper name other than "drooping leading edges". As for stuff, if it's stock & not a rocket I'd be fine other mods we were going to discuss but it might be good to see what the new stuff does first.

They are slats, the F/A-18C uses them, along with the F-16C and even the Bf-109E-G models.

[Van Disaster]

They are slats, the F/A-18C uses them, along with the F-16C and even the Bf-109E-G models.

I always took slats as bits of the leading edge which lifted off the wing so there's a gap ( the actual slat ).

Hummingbird vs CANUKWorks Midge

Seems we could have a submarine tournament if we could get BDA to stay underwater

Edited November 9, 2015 by Van Disaster

[Doke]

Re-starting with 1.05 after the K-201 10 fight is certainly fine with me - how couldn't it, with giving me the chance to be the last champion of the 1.04 era and all!

EDIT: I would very much appreciate if we could also include Doke's submission if it comes rather soon still in the 1.04 series - his Skua was the first thing I tested my planes against and I hated it (in a good way).

That's kind, but I'm already on to 1.05 and the Y-5 is stuck in development hell.

This final generation of 1.04 designs is probably too good for me to beat, anyway. These new turnfighters are frankly terrifying. I was hoping to enter a souped-up Skua, but there was a lingering issue with poor control authority under certain conditions I was never able to solve (except perhaps with canards, which opens up a whole other can of worms).

[Hodo]

I always took slats as bits of the leading edge which lifted off the wing so there's a gap ( the actual slat ).

Hummingbird vs CANUKWorks Midge

Seems we could have a submarine tournament if we could get BDA to stay underwater

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5703/22893385392_d21262c941_z.jpg

Yeah the F/A-18C has some great videos on Youtube where you can see how they work and when they kick in. On my last fighter I submitted I use a simple version of that setup. I have the dynamic pressure to adjust the deflection angles based on the air pressure. If there is low pressure, it will use more deflection on the pitch angles for the leading edge slats. And I really limited those slats control angle input to around 2-3deg at most. I had messed with them before in my RO install back last year. I had a very successful twin engine delta wing design that used slats for landing and take off to keep the speeds low. It could take off at 70m/s and land at 45m/s.

You can see the settings in this old picture.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Hodo

[Van Disaster]

I looked it up - what I'm ( we're ) using would be called Droops - perhaps the US term - slats are definitely tiny biplane devices which I think speed up the airflow over the leading edge or perhaps just constrain any vortex generation, rather than what we do which is change the effective AoA of the wing. Now I have to go and find out exactly how slats work.... I suspect close-coupled canards also function as a type of slat.

The AI does not get on with the new vectored thrust engine, as I suspected. Was amusing watching it hold a plane literally stationary, but that's no good in combat

But never mind the afterburning engine, what about this

Edited November 10, 2015 by Van Disaster

[Doke]

Reminds me of one of those hypersonic ramjet prototypes from the '50s. Just needs a much longer nose.

[Hodo]

I looked it up - what I'm ( we're ) using would be called Droops - perhaps the US term - slats are definitely tiny biplane devices which I think speed up the airflow over the leading edge or perhaps just constrain any vortex generation, rather than what we do which is change the effective AoA of the wing. Now I have to go and find out exactly how slats work.... I suspect close-coupled canards also function as a type of slat.

In WWII the Bf-109 slats did just that, they were "spring" loaded so as air pressure dropped on the leading edge of the wing they would auto deploy to provide a gap between the wing edge and increase air flow speed over the top of the wing.

[Van Disaster]

Yeap, which will discourage flow separation. The Bf-109 had a strangely high wing loading... close coupled canards generate a vortex - leading edge extensions do too - which sticks to the following wing surface, which means it's deliberately in vortex lift rather than normal ( laminar? ) flow.

Final fights have been run. Was hoping for some ultra dramatic finishes, and at least one *nearly* happened, but not quite. Still it's 13 mins of video and it's going to take forever to upload...

Edited November 11, 2015 by Van Disaster

[Van Disaster]

Here's the last fight:

And this might amuse you - it got a third-party usage hit on some random guy's jet engine video, so now I have to go through the entire dispute procedure. Please ignore any ads that get inserted in the meantime....

[E805BzRo]

Grats Van Disaster!

[Van Disaster]

It was a pretty close thing! there were some lucky ( for my craft ) collisions which is why most of the fights started with the Hummingbird, quite evenly matched those two - much depended on the first move of the fight. Which tbh I'm not too happy with, but until the AI improves it's all part of what we're working with.

I'm going to pick the most rugged of the recent craft & start raising the speed limit to see what happens - I suspect they'll still end up in slow turn fights but who knows.

FAR's new wing code is apparently reasonably close; I'd suggest we can run some informal fights to try stuff out but perhaps wait for that to appear before anything formal.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Van Disaster

[Hodo]

It was a pretty close thing! there were some lucky ( for my craft ) collisions which is why most of the fights started with the Hummingbird, quite evenly matched those two - much depended on the first move of the fight. Which tbh I'm not too happy with, but until the AI improves it's all part of what we're working with.

I'm going to pick the most rugged of the recent craft & start raising the speed limit to see what happens - I suspect they'll still end up in slow turn fights but who knows.

FAR's new wing code is apparently reasonably close; I'd suggest we can run some informal fights to try stuff out but perhaps wait for that to appear before anything formal.

If you take my first entry, the F-119C/A and increase the speed it will still work the same way if not slightly better. Especially if you increase the minimum speed.

[TrainEngie]

So Season 1.0.4 is over?

[E805BzRo]

Yes.

I guess everybody is starting new careers in 1.05... I am.

Cheers,

EzBro

[Guest]

I finally got a working fighter, scoring a few kills against the hummingbird.

https://www./?334bg42xgzkii4j

Edited November 15, 2015 by RevanCorana

[ostrich]

Is this fighter ok it works in far and bdarmory AI flies it well but it has no radome because it has no missiles just guns.
[URL]http://kerbalx.com/ostrich/Mini-fighter.craft[/URL]

EDIT: If you do use it just set the max speed to 250 m/s. Edited November 16, 2015 by ostrich

[Van Disaster]

[quote name='TrainEngie']So Season 1.0.4 is over?[/QUOTE]

There was no movement in the queue or any noise about new entries, and I was the only one running fights... so I drew a line given how much 1.0.5 changed everything. This isn't some contest with a formal prize though, if you've got something hot post a vid :)

@RevanCorona: is that in 1.0.4 or 1.0.5? the Hummingbird isn't terribly good with the new engines, far too much power ( breaks up occasionally also ).

@Ostrich: radome is a requirement because without it planes tend not to find one another.

[Guest]

It is for 1.05

You should try it out IMO its really good but then again I havent made as many as most of you.

[ostrich]

[quote name='Van Disaster']
@Ostrich: radome is a requirement because without it planes tend not to find one another.[/QUOTE]
Ok that's fine I have another plane im working any way.