[1.1.3] K.R.X Kerbal Rotor Expansion 0.31.1

[Eskandare]

Need More Rotors?

Apart from Firespitter and KAX, I felt there wasn't enough rotarywing parts. This mod is my attempt to answer that.

Introducing K.R.X. (Kerbal Rotor Expansion).  

DOWNLOAD From SpaceDock!

Videos:

Spoiler

 

V8jester's Video Showing off the Osprey Rotor!

 

 

Included in this release:

• Heron: coaxial rotor
• Sparrow: 3 blade rotor (left and right rotating versions)
• Osprey: 3 blade tilt-rotor style (left and right rotating versions)
• Seagull: 6 blade super heavy rotor
• Tail Rotors: 3 Blade, 6 Blade, and Fenestron

Issues:

• Some tuning and balancing is still needed.
• Co-axial rotor (Heron) has a problem with one of the rotor switch/prop-blur, a limitation of firespitter. I'm working on a fix.

Recommended Mods:

• Throttle Controlled Avionics: For single rotor use 'unbalanced thrust' on the main rotor and 'manual' on the tail rotor. For intermeshing, tandom, or quad, etc. configurations, use 'thrust'.

Change Log:

Version 0.31.1 Minor Update

-Fixed Crash Tolerance on Fenestron tail rotor
-Fixed Spelling Error on Osprey rotors
-Increased torque compansation in Osprey rotors


Version 0.31:

-Added Fenestron tail rotor 
-Corrected the direction of the Osprey rotors 
-Increased the thrust of the Osprey rotors


Version 0.30:

 Added 2 new tail rotors:
     -TR7 tail rotor to compliment the Sparrow main rotor.
     -TR24 tail rotor to compliment the Sea Gull main rotor.
 Added specially rigged gimbals to main rotors to emulate cyclic.
 Remodeled the Osprey rotors.


Version 0.25:

 Initial release.

 

 

Additional Credit:

• Snjo and RoverDude: for FireSpitter (*.dll Packaged with K.R.X.)

• Keptin: The sounds were made by Keptin (tweaked by me) and for much of the inspiration of this mod.

 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Eskandare
Update

[Deimos Rast]

mighty fine looking; any tails or just mains?

[DownHereInChile]

Awesome! Do they work well with FAR, or do they end up being overpowered?

[Beetlecat]

Outstanding!

Thank you.

[Qwarkk]

Nice work, this looks awesome. Time to manually recover pods!

[Eskandare]

5 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

mighty fine looking; any tails or just mains?

I'm currently making tail rotors in 6 blade and 3 blade, and also a 4 blade rotor and tail.

 

4 hours ago, DownHereInChile said:

Awesome! Do they work well with FAR, or do they end up being overpowered?

May be overpowered, I don't know yet. I'm planning a FAR patch in the future.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Eskandare

[martinezfg11]

You beat me to it. This is exactly the type of project I've been wanting to tackle.

[Atatra]

this looks incredible, made me so excited when it popped up on spacedock, need to get this installed as soon as possible!

do the osprey rotors have any kind of tilt function currently or planned, or are you recommending we use infernal robotics with them?

[Eskandare]

1 hour ago, Atatra said:

this looks incredible, made me so excited when it popped up on spacedock, need to get this installed as soon as possible!

do the osprey rotors have any kind of tilt function currently or planned, or are you recommending we use infernal robotics with them?

I recommend Infernal Robotics, the engine is just the stack engine part, intakes and nacelle sold separately.  : D

[evileye.x]

So no tilting/gimballing for pitch/yaw control? We have to rely on reaction wheel for that? 

[Eskandare]

4 hours ago, evileye.x said:

So no tilting/gimballing for pitch/yaw control? We have to rely on reaction wheel for that? 

I was going to put a gimbal in but wasn't sure on the behavior, I'll probably add that next update, and the rotor has a reaction wheel representing the nature of a rotor's gyroscopic rigidity in space. 

[StevieC]

are these rotors hingeless, or articulated? (articulated rotors have hinges to let each blade swing up and down which makes it unsafe to perform zero-G aerobatics if the rotor is articulated)

Edited July 1, 2016 by StevieC

[martinezfg11]

7 minutes ago, Eskandare said:

I was going to put a gimbal in but wasn't sure on the behavior, I'll probably add that next update, and the rotor has a reaction wheel representing the nature of a rotor's gyroscopic rigidity in space. 

I'm not sure if gimbaling would produce accurate rotor behaviour, I would think that the thrust vector should move along the rotor disk depending on "cyclic" input. Then again this may not be possible without a custom plugin. I'm not sure how firespitter makes rotors behave, because I know that cyclic position is shown in rotors.

[Eskandare]

Well... because it is KSP, they'll behave like rigid rotor masts, as apposed to the articulated rotor mast.

Just now, martinezfg11 said:

I'm not sure if gimbaling would produce accurate rotor behaviour, I would think that the thrust vector should move along the rotor disk depending on "cyclic" input. Then again this may not be possible without a custom plugin. I'm not sure how firespitter makes rotors behave, because I know that cyclic position is shown in rotors.

Some components of firespitter are "broken" so unfortunenly that won't be happening soon. I figure putting a 2 to 4 degree gimbal will be as close as we can get right now.

[Kottabos]

Just posted a spotlight of this mod on my channel, and I gotta say I really love the work you've done here.  great models, animation, sound design and on top of all that I can actually fly with these parts unlike other helicopter parts I've tried lol.  I can't wait to see how this mod moves forward.

 

 

[StevieC]

13 minutes ago, Eskandare said:

Well... because it is KSP, they'll behave like rigid rotor masts, as apposed to the articulated rotor mast.

Good. I actually prefer rigid-rotors (even though calling them 'rigid' is a misnomer, they're properly called hingeless, since they rely on allowing the blades themselves to flex in order to serve the same function that the led/lag and flapping hinges fulfill on an articulated rotor-head) because they allow a rotorcraft to reach higher airspeeds and are more responsive to control-inputs.

[drhay53]

awesome! always wanted more rotors in KAX.

[BigNose]

Ohhh interesting, going to follow this for sure!

[theonegalen]

Oh this is what you've been working on!

Between AirplanePlus and this mod, the venerable KAX and her NRE spam may not be needed at all anymore.

Edited July 1, 2016 by theonegalen

[maranble14]

Now we just need an implementation to allow crafts to hover.

[Geschosskopf]

Oh cool.  I'll have to give these a try with Throttle-Controlled Avionics (which is the only way I can fly helicopters  )

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

@Eskandare

 

Have you taken a look at the 'experimental' tweakable rotors that come with Firespitter at all?

 

I've been considering using them as a base template to create a rotor mod of my own centered around rotors powered by separate turbine engines instead of building the 'engine' into them.

What makes it more interesting is that the rotors utilize some kind of alternate 'power' production and consumption module that actually affects their RPMs.  If I can split that out and make turbines, it would make helicopters more interesting to build.

 

[StevieC]

Surprised nobody is challenging/disputing my claim that hingeless rotors are superior to articulated, as making that claim on other fora has sometimes accidentally triggered flame-wars.

Here's part of why I assert that hingeless rotors are superior.

 

Edited July 2, 2016 by StevieC

[colmo]

12 hours ago, maranble14 said:

Now we just need an implementation to allow crafts to hover.

I thought Firespitter still had this capability, and so any rotor using it also could?

@Eskandare, thank you for providing these toys for the most Kerbal of all aircraft.

Here's a chopper I flew to KSC2 back in 0.15 - the Heron is the spiritual successor of the Damned Aerospace coaxial rotor:

[Eskandare]

4 hours ago, StevieC said:

Surprised nobody is challenging/disputing my claim that hingeless rotors are superior to articulated, as making that claim on other fora has sometimes accidentally triggered flame-wars.

Here's part of why I assert that hingeless rotors are superior.

 

The only problem with rigid rotor masts is that once the blades slightly damaged or times out in accordance with the maintenance manual, the whole rotor head must be replaced, as it is one single piece this can be very expensive. Otherwise, they are great. As I understand, it doesn't have lead or lag like the fully articulated, instead it flexes. 

16 hours ago, StevieC said:

Good. I actually prefer rigid-rotors (even though calling them 'rigid' is a misnomer, they're properly called hingeless, since they rely on allowing the blades themselves to flex in order to serve the same function that the led/lag and flapping hinges fulfill on an articulated rotor-head) because they allow a rotorcraft to reach higher airspeeds and are more responsive to control-inputs.

Teetering hinge, fully articulated, semi rigid, and rigid are the terms used in the industry. I'm a certificated airframe and power plant mechanic with specialization in rotary wing.

15 minutes ago, colmo said:

I thought Firespitter still had this capability, and so any rotor using it also could?

@Eskandare, thank you for providing these toys for the most Kerbal of all aircraft.

Here's a chopper I flew to KSC2 back in 0.15 - the Heron is the spiritual successor of the Damned Aerospace coaxial rotor:

That it is. I miss that rotor. I had to make my own.