2 Easy to fly VTOL craft.

[Scarecrow88]

Hummingbird and Grasshopper

I don't very often venture in to trying to build aircraft capable of VTOL flight, but I've had a lot of fun with these two, and both are quite simple to fly, so I thought I would share them.

Hummingbird : a fast nimble bird, capable of maintaining flight at the hover.

This craft can launch either conventionally or vertically, and land either way too. For vertical take off, a touch more than 1/3 throttle is enough to become airbourne.

Action group keys:

1 to toggle the vertical lift engine

2 to toggle the horizontal flight engine

Grasshopper : A slender insect capable of flight, but usually restricted to short jumps.

1/3 throttle is enough to hover, so plenty of power in reserve. Movement is controlled by the attitude of the aircraft, with smooth turns benefitting from coordinated use of the roll and yaw controls.

Hummingbird craft file

Grasshopper craft file

Edited August 16, 2014 by Scarecrow88

[Jett_Quasar]

Awesome designs, the Grasshopper is going on my download list.

JR

[Pondafarr]

Snagged my copies, thanks!

[brobel]

Grasshopper is looks so nice. 2 thumbs up

[Scarecrow88]

Thanks for the kind comments guys. I also have a twin engine version of the Hummingbird (i.e. 2 engines for normal flight) which is a little bit faster if anyone is interested. I had to move things slightly to maintain the CoM due to the greater mass and positioning of the 2 engines compared to the single engine version, but the changes were very small so as not to look like a completely different design.

Hummingbird II craft file

Edited August 17, 2014 by Scarecrow88

[Justin Kerbice]

ooohhh Amazing use of this ugly SAS module ! Squad may have never imagines such a use for it !

[Rune]

You can do a nice trick with I-Beams, vertical snap (form Editor Extensions), and a lot of care with the symmetry to simulate a bigass ducted fan:

...which actually looks a lot like your grasshopper. Great minds, right?

Rune. Mine's in the skunkworks, BTW.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Rune

[Scarecrow88]

I have very few mods, but managed to attach the engines and SAS 'ducts' to the I-beams by way of one of the small rectangular girders. The Editor Extension mod does sound like a useful tool however. I have also considered the mod that allows you to choose alternative roots, as trying to attach something in places that doesn't have a root by default is just about impossible.

[Voculus]

I love those ducted engine designs! Very clever, and most pleasing to the eye!

[KerrMü]

You can do a nice trick with I-Beams, vertical snap (form Editor Extensions), and a lot of care with the symmetry to simulate a bigass ducted fan:

Jep, had the same idea, but without editor extensions.

Cool designs guys

[The14th]

Loving these! Nice design (and the others in the tread too!)

[Rune]

Jep, had the same idea, but without editor extensions.

http://i.imgur.com/hNWqqe8.png

Cool designs guys

That works because the RAPIERS have surface attachment, right? So you couldn't use that with the lighter and more efficient jets. Also, because otherwise I have no idea how you did it. Anyhow, I remember that VTOL of yours, most awesome indeed sir.

Rune. It's where I got the idea from, actually, so credit goes where credit is due.

[KerrMü]

Dear Sir,

it was a lot easyer to be honest. I just surface-attached the I-beams directly to the SAS-module (a bit wierd, cause the surface is invisible there) with 8x-symmetry and rotated them til it looked nice. Made a subassembly of it, et voilà.

The only reason I used the rapiers for that craft is, that they were new and shiny back then, and I thought they looked a bit cooler on that particular design. (and if I remember correctly, I hoped, they wouldn´t react so sluggish on throttle input... nope)

THX for the flowers

Edited August 17, 2014 by KerrMü

[Rune]

Dear Sir,

it was a lot easyer to be honest. I just surface-attached the I-beams directly to the SAS-module (a bit wierd, cause the surface is invisible there) with 8x-symmetry and rotated them til it looked nice. Made a subassembly of it, et voilà.

The only reason I used the rapiers for that craft is, that they were new and shiny back then, and I thought they looked a bit cooler on that particular design. (and if I remember correctly, I hoped, they wouldn´t react so sluggish on throttle input... nope)

THX for the flowers

Oh, to the top of the SAS module. *facepalm* Seems so obvious now, my way is much more complicated, though it needs less rotation of the part I think. Yup, no need for any Ed extensions indeed, just part clipping on.

Rune. When you have a hammer (Ed Extensions), every problem starts to look like nails.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Rune

[HafCoJoe]

Very cool!

[Sudsierharp0700]

plz reupload them cause this pisses me off when i find a good enough ship its no longer available or the mods are not available aswell

[Vanamonde]

Before you get too mad, Sudsierharp0700, keep in mind that this thread is a year old, and there may not be an update forthcoming.