Stock Helicopter

[AlexL]

In the spirit of all things Kerbal, I challenge you to build a working helicopter using only stock parts. (By helicopter I mean vertical take off with no (partially) vertically pointing engines)

My attempt (produced with some assistance from Mirosta) can only travel up, and offers no transport in any direction. Good luck improving on/developing your own choppers

[AeroPelican]

How is this possible with no vertically pointing engines? Can we use rcs?

[Nicok]

How is this possible with no vertically pointing engines? Can we use rcs?

Tilt parts with WASDQE. Regards.

[AlexL]

Tilt parts with WASDQE. Regards.

If you hold shift while rotating it spins it 5 degrees rather than 90.

[SteevyT]

I have made a helicopter. Although it seems to throw an engine off and lose four tanks of fuel on take off. Here is what is left, flies fairly stable at 111m until you throttle down to land (with big explosions, but the command pod survived when I did). I made it with two standard jet engines, one gets thrown off and it flies on one.

I put more struts on it and this time both engines stayed on it. I flew up to 500m, got bored and decoupled the command pod to parachute down. The rest of it is still flying around 5 minutes later. One of the jets flew off and it seems to have stabilized around 200m.

[Bluejayek]

I managed a stock helicopter as well. I tried to add RCS to control its direction without realizing how stupid an idea that was. It is extremely robust, and will continue flying when it has lost 1/4 of its wings and 2 of its engines.

If uou spin it up too far, the engines WILL break off.

IUt would be cool if they added a part that could rotate on the axis so you could have a real helicopter rotor.

[AlexL]

Some nice designs guys

Had a brainwave after seeing Bluejayek\'s ship and thought 'what if its tilted at take off?'

So I\'m trying to perfect some sort of angled launch platform to mount the helicopter on, currently its just spiralling back on itself, but I\'ll post again if I get a breakthrough.

[Bluejayek]

Some nice designs guys

Had a brainwave after seeing Bluejayek\'s ship and thought 'what if its tilted at take off?'

So I\'m trying to perfect some sort of angled launch platform to mount the helicopter on, currently its just spiralling back on itself, but I\'ll post again if I get a breakthrough.

No offense, but that ship looks like you grabbed a bunk of parts, spread some glue out randomyl, and tossed the parts into a bin, then tried to fly what came out.

As per tilted, I tried rising to 500 m or so, tilting, and then restarting engines, but the ship just corrected back to vertical.

[AlexL]

No offense, but that ship looks like you grabbed a bunk of parts, spread some glue out randomyl, and tossed the parts into a bin, then tried to fly what came out.

As per tilted, I tried rising to 500 m or so, tilting, and then restarting engines, but the ship just corrected back to vertical.

Some taken, but yes, that was a poor attempt at a stand. My aim is a stand with a helicopter attached to the top at an angle with a decoupler that separates as the engines ignite. Mine don\'t seem to be auto-vertical-ing, but always turn round and glide back to where they start >

[Bluejayek]

Some taken, but yes, that was a poor attempt at a stand. My aim is a stand with a helicopter attached to the top at an angle with a decoupler that separates as the engines ignite. Mine don\'t seem to be auto-vertical-ing, but always turn round and glide back to where they start >

Could be different from takeoff. And looking back at your picture, it looks a lot more sensible the second time I look at it. You probably need wheels on the stand though.

I tried wheels, found they didn\'t work well, and so just used the capsule inverted as the point of a top.

[ElectroxSoldier]

You can make a sort of helicopter with the magic turbine glitch. I remember seeing a video in another thread on the forum. All he needed was a rocket engine to just lift him off the ground, then he started spinning his craft and turned his rocket engine down to null, and the craft accelerated dramatically.

Personally, I failed trying that, even though I tried to recreate the spitting image of his own one.

I\'ll try to find that video

[AeroPelican]

Tilt parts with WASDQE. Regards.

I know that, I meant the part when he says...

no (partially) vertically pointing engines

[Nao]

A little tip for those who would like to make a steer-able heli, if you assign steering surfaces to blades (wings) remember to shift your controls 90deg in direction of your rotor rotation.

I made one test heli with 4 clockwise rotating blades - 8 stock straight wing long each with a control surface at each end. Hovered nicely at 6 RPM (one rotation per 10s) but required constant corrections to stay vertical.

Control scheme i used:

Pitch up D

Pitch down A

Yaw left W

Yaw right S

(of course as with trying to turn rotating rockets in certain direction you need to constantly change (rotate) your input as the ship rotates)

Roll (Q,E) allowed for ascent/descent control with constant rotor RPM.

The whole thing was too wobbly to try flying more than around 1m/s in desired direction but its possible. Also with such low RPM I\'m sure landings are possible.

I suck at building and don\'t use mods, but ill try to make something more usable tomorrow.

Hope that helps anybody.

[Bluejayek]

I know that, I meant the part when he says...

If you put horizontally pointing engines on tiled wings the wings produce lift as you rotate. Hence, you will take off verticlaly despite no thrust in that direction.

It is clear that it is lift producing this and not the verticalness of the engines as you will keep climbing when the engines shut down until the rotation slows too far.

Nao: That wouldn\'t work with the design I had... Forget 6RPM, mine was going at closer to 6RPS. Probably higher just before the engines flew off.

[Nao]

My current design, requires only slight power for starting up and then it can hover at zero power with a altitude loss of like 1m per minute.

it goes around 5-6 RPM with 15-20 RPM being max.

I\'m yet to conquer the fact that more than 15 deg yaw is unrecoverable.

Probably it has something to do with the fact yaw induces forward speed witch makes opposite blades have different lift, witch spiral the thing out of control.

As far as faster rotating ships go , if stability is not a problem , it could probably use periodic burn engine (horizontal thrust) or something that yaw\'s the ship violently into right direction (like control surfaces at the edges of wings).

[Vostok]

My current design, requires only slight power for starting up and then it can hover at zero power with a altitude loss of like 1m per minute.

it goes around 5-6 RPM with 15-20 RPM being max.

I\'m yet to conquer the fact that more than 15 deg yaw is unrecoverable.

Probably it has something to do with the fact yaw induces forward speed witch makes opposite blades have different lift, witch spiral the thing out of control.

As far as faster rotating ships go , if stability is not a problem , it could probably use periodic burn engine (horizontal thrust) or something that yaw\'s the ship violently into right direction (like control surfaces at the edges of wings).

To counter that, try angling the tips of the blades up a bit, it means that they provide more lift when it tilts, and it will auto stabilise.