totm june 2018 Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread

[klond]

On 7/3/2018 at 11:07 PM, Servo said:

 Don't suppose we can talk you into a teaser .gif?

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

I think I'm something like 85% done with my Saturn V

Not seen in this picture, the S-IC is probably about 50% complete. Once it and the LES are integrated, I've figured out I can actually "paint" the rocket using secondary clipped grey/black fairings. Hopefully that will come out good.

I have a minor problem though. One of the antennas on the LM sticks into the fairing a bit. Not sure what to do about that, because if I fold it it goes the wrong way.  

Edited July 6, 2018 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[qzgy]

8 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Snippity snip snip

Oooh looking really good. What's the part count like? Probably not as bad as if you were using radiators but I am fine still pretty high. 

About your antenna problem - can you like maybe clip it in a tad further? Or like slightly reposition the LM so that it doesnt clip? Would help to have images of the troubled section. 

Keep it up though looks really beautiful (and unnecessarily impractical but eh looks trump use here) 

[Kronus_Aerospace]

@EpicSpaceTroll139Looking nice! I once tried to make a Saturn V out of fairings in a similar fashion. I had never worked with fairings before then so I ended up rage quitting due to their finicky nature. 

Are you planning on doing the paint job?

Would definitely add a lot of mass and or part count, but you can't overlook the style points. :-)

 

Edited July 6, 2018 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Servo]

4 hours ago, klond said:

 Don't suppose we can talk you into a teaser .gif?

 

Ask and ye shall receive. I fixed the problem of it not redocking, though you can see a more vexing problem at the end of the video. The rear ports clip into each other and won't get unstuck.

In other news, I built my first SSTO in absolutely ages, and got it to orbit on the first second try, with dV to spare! It's a half-scale pseudo-replica of the X-30 NASP SSTO for ... no particular reason...

Its extremely forgiving to fly (I reached LKO with 680 ms/ to spare, and I'm definitely not a good pilot yet) and handles much better than would be expected in atmosphere. Its basically impossible to stall, and has some of the most absurd low-speed handling and short landing capabilities I've seen on any of my craft. It glides just fine at 45m/s and has excellent control all the way through the atmosphere and to KSC. I barely fell short of a deadstick landing (it would have landed on the first hill outside of KSC) from orbit, but I'll get better with practice. As you can see here, it landed in about 3 body lengths, after dropping out of the sky at 35m/s on final approach. Wonderful craft to fly, and makes me want to do more with SSTOs in the future.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

9 hours ago, qzgy said:

Oooh looking really good. What's the part count like? Probably not as bad as if you were using radiators but I am fine still pretty high. 

About your antenna problem - can you like maybe clip it in a tad further? Or like slightly reposition the LM so that it doesnt clip? Would help to have images of the troubled section. 

Keep it up though looks really beautiful (and unnecessarily impractical but eh looks trump use here) 

Yah I can easily imagine the part count being 3k at this point if I had used radiators for the shell instead of fairings. I'm debating using fairings on the S-IC/S-II interstage and the S-IC midsection. They would really help give that neat corrugation effect, but it would boost part count by 130 or so.  

 

Anyways, this is the problem with the LM:

I might be able to move the LM over a bit. Not sure how tight the fit is.

On a different note, I just realized I forgot some of the helium tanks and cable tunnels on the S-IVB... aurgh.

@Kronus_Aerospace I am indeed planning to paint it. I expect the "painting" to require 14 parts. Possibly 18 if I go for fancy S-IC outer engine fairings

[qzgy]

7 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Anyways, this is the problem with the LM:

Oh. That looks like the deployable relay antenna ubdeployed (I sorta assume) . Why not just deploy it then (into the LM) and then undeploy it when on the surface or once it's out of the fairings? That would be a solution.... Probably. Right? 

 

As for the corrugation... Why can't you make a custom fairing texture for it? It should be possible in 1.4 I guess... . Not in 1.3 though. 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

8 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Oh. That looks like the deployable relay antenna ubdeployed (I sorta assume) . Why not just deploy it then (into the LM) and then undeploy it when on the surface or once it's out of the fairings? That would be a solution.... Probably. Right? 

 

As for the corrugation... Why can't you make a custom fairing texture for it? It should be possible in 1.4 I guess... . Not in 1.3 though. 

Maybe that will work. The question is whether the game will register the antenna as being shielded or unshielded, because if it's unshielded it will get ripped off during launch.

I'll look into the custom fairing texture stuff. I kind of want people to be able to get the look without downloading a new texture, but that might be the only way to do it without making it unflyably laggy.

[HB Stratos]

Building the Northrop Tacit Blue

Will be a 1:1 Replica.

What do you guys think?

[HB Stratos]

Progress coming along nicely

The cocpit was way harder to build than I thought

 

[qzgy]

38 minutes ago, HB Stratos said:

Progress coming along nicely

It is.... 

Having built a tacit blue before for the xjet of the day, I can definitely say the cockpit was the hardest part as well as the tail. Everything else was fairly easy because of the boxy shape 

[HB Stratos]

She flies (like a brick)

[Vanamonde]

8 hours ago, HB Stratos said:

She flies (like a brick)
 

But no one will see it coming. 

[qzgy]

9 hours ago, HB Stratos said:

She flies (like a brick)

Seems about right for the shape.

[Kronus_Aerospace]

I've begun work on my A380 replica (even though I still haven't finished 3 other large projects ). And might I say this thing is giving me WAY more trouble than I was expecting, the main fuselage of my 747-8 replica took me about an hour and a half, yet after 3 hours of work I've only completed half of my A380's main fuselage.

Obviously I will be adding parts on the seams to smoothen it out, but for now I want to get the general shape using just the fairings. I haven't even started on the tail and the craft already has 5 fairings, so by the time it's complete it will be the most complex airliner that I've built so far. 

That's all the work I can do for today, after hours of tediously tweaking those fairings I'm quite frankly exhausted.

If you have any SPECIFIC recommendations I'd love to hear them.

Edited July 8, 2018 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Gman_builder]

PSA: Radial Ramp air intakes give Junos turbo mode.

Spoiler

 

 

[HB Stratos]

@Kronus_Aerospace you can open the craftfile and the you have to find your fairing (f3 for search on windows), then you can enter the exact radius of the fairing leaving no gaps.

Also you can make Fairings start and stop in midair (even behind the base)

I would recomend to make a new craft with only a fairing and build a simple one, then open the file and try around with the settings until you got how it works (if you need help you can contact me via discord HB Stratos#0800 or if that won't work Flieger31#0800)

Good luck with your plane!

[Kronus_Aerospace]

5 hours ago, HB Stratos said:

@Kronus_Aerospace you can open the craftfile and the you have to find your fairing (f3 for search on windows), then you can enter the exact radius of the fairing leaving no gaps.

Also you can make Fairings start and stop in midair (even behind the base)

The fairing editing sounds nice for precision, but honestly that's not a problem for me. I have developed plenty of ways of consistently building fairings to a high degree of precision.

While I appreciate your suggestion I build my craft using only the tools available in the stock SPH. I don't mind if people use modded tools or file editing, I just personally don't.

Thanks for your suggestion!

Edited July 8, 2018 by Kronus_Aerospace

[HB Stratos]

Screenshot time!

Northrop engineer John Cashen was quoted in 1996 as having said, "You're talking about an aircraft that at the time was arguably the most unstable aircraft man had ever flown."

[EvenFlow]

<< MISSION UPDATE >>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wnAnuixq9I

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by EvenFlow

[EvenFlow]

So I've decided to try out my new fueltank-cockpit thingy on my Tomcat since it looks nice on the Eagle and I wanted to know your thoughts on it.

Performance is improved and it overall looks a bit smoother. I think I might actually update it with it after adding in the front oval glass panel thingy and some details. Yay or nay?

[qzgy]

1 hour ago, EvenFlow said:

So I've decided to try out my new fueltank-cockpit thingy on my Tomcat since it looks nice on the Eagle and I wanted to know your thoughts on it.

Performance is improved and it overall looks a bit smoother. I think I might actually update it with it after adding in the front oval glass panel thingy and some details. Yay or nay? 

I would say... Yay. It does look very smooth. Like it. Although not sure what the original is.

How do you plan to do the oval thingy? KSP doesn't lend itself to ellipses.....

[EvenFlow]

7 hours ago, qzgy said:

I would say... Yay. It does look very smooth. Like it. Although not sure what the original is.

How do you plan to do the oval thingy? KSP doesn't lend itself to ellipses.....

Vernier engines tilted to the side work very well for the oval shape of that particular glass pane! The original looks something like that: 



The problem is - Stock cockpits are rather flat and short. They look very awkward when placed on replicas. When viewed from the back my Tomcat's cockpit seems rather small and flat:

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Progress on my A380 has been coming along steadily, far from quickly, but steadily.

A lot of work has been done on the fuselage. It took some trial and error, but I'm liking the results.

I also decided to use the wonderful @EvenFlow's technique of using a fairing for wing edges on all of the lifting surfaces on the aircraft. So far I've only completed the tail, which turned out a little rough in all honesty. It also ended up having about 140 parts along, which somewhat concerns me for the wings.

In spite of that I've fallen in love with this technique it gives this craft a sense of realism that I've never been able to accomplish before.

And you can't argue with that front view!

Even though the final part count will be more than I'd like, I'm still pretty excited to see what the finished product will be.

Edited July 14, 2018 by Kronus_Aerospace

[prgmTrouble]

3 hours ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

I also decided to use the wonderful @EvenFlow's technique of using a fairing for wing edges on all of the lifting surfaces on the aircraft. So far I've only completed the tail, which turned out a little rough in all honesty. It also ended up having about 140 parts along, which somewhat concerns me for the wings.

Hey @EvenFlow, you should totally post your idea on the Open Source Construction Techniques for Craft Aesthetics Thread! (If you have not already, of course!)

Edited July 14, 2018 by prgmTrouble