Biplane experiment: Taking advantage of reverse thrust (Now with more craft to show)

[Yellowburn10]

Ok, so I've been thinking about the wheesly's new thrust reverser option to see what other things I could do with it. After some thinking, I had the idea that if I put the engine in the front of a plane and used the reversed thrust to fly it, could I make a legit plane?

To test it, I made this biplane:




Yeah, not exactly designed for looks, but It'll get the job done. Now obviously with the engine in the front there might be some... issues with sight:



But I digress. Anyways, with the pilots loaded it's time to fly.




And wouldn't you know it, It flies like a dream! The handling is a bit slow but overall not a bad plane. Takeoff speed is something around 30-45 m/s, and top speed is just over 145 m/s. So, not the fastest thing around, but sure is fun to fly!





Disclaimer: The concept for a plane with a front-facing engine was not stolen from anyone. I figured this out independently from any source.


I feel this reverse thrust option can open a new door to front-facing engines designs, particularly with plane replicas that have front propeller engines.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Yellowburn10

[Yellowburn10]

OK, so I've had some time to tinker more with this fun little concept, and I've came up with some more designs. Now that we know that a plane can fly with reversed thrust, let's go a little farther. I've designed this new plane here, sort of a WWII esc. war bird I call the Thunderdog mk2:

 

 

Even with the reversed thrusted wheesly, this new one can top out a speeds of over 200 m/s! And some pretty good handling to boot.

 

 

 

But then I thought, how can I take this even further? After some thought I decided I'd try to make an actual replica using reversed wheeslys. It took some time and effort, but now I can present my latest creation. Ladies and gents, The P-38 Lightning!

 

 

 

I must say I'm quite proud of myself with this one. Thanks to those dual engines this baby can also reach over 200 m/s at top speed. I also tried to add as many estheticizes as possible on the craft, including some "Guns" on the front.

 

 

If you would like to try any of these planes out, I'll have a craft download up as soon as I can. Take care!

 

 

Edit: Here's the P-38 download: http://kerbalx.com/Yellowburn10/P-38-Lightning.craft

Edited December 5, 2015 by Yellowburn10

[gag09]

I really like that p38.

Edited December 5, 2015 by gag09

[pTrevTrevs]

Good job with those wings, I may have to steal them...

Once my computer gets fixed, I'm going to make a reverse thrust aircraft, maybe an F6F or an Fw-190.

I tried this with a seaplane of mine, but it crashed in the ocean...

[YargJay9991]

This is very interesting. Well done! BTW if you don't like the jet exhaust effects, there's a setting in the... uh... settings, that turns it off. I think it's called Exhaust FX or something.

Love the P-38!

Happy Flying

YargJay9991

 

[Yellowburn10]

15 hours ago, YargJay9991 said:

This is very interesting. Well done! BTW if you don't like the jet exhaust effects, there's a setting in the... uh... settings, that turns it off. I think it's called Exhaust FX or something.

Love the P-38!

Happy Flying

YargJay9991

 

I did think that the exhaust would be a problem, but it seems that once you get up to flying speed, the speed of the aircraft is enough to overpass the exhaust, as seen in some of the pictures.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Yellowburn10

[Planetfall]

Those planes look really good! 

[timandy1]

Those planes look awesome, good job. I especially like how you did the cockpit on the first plane, it looks amazing. Here's my plane from a while ago: 

She doesn't fly that well, but it was my first try, and I ended up flying her to a large island north of KSC. 

Edited December 7, 2015 by timandy1

[Raptor9]

This thread is genius.