[Stock Helicopters & Turboprops] Non DLC Will Always Be More Fun!

[Azimech]

2 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Hmmm.... thats odd. And may also explain why a working helicopter stopped....

It did? Can you show me the craft file? In which version was it built?

[qzgy]

11 minutes ago, Azimech said:

It did? Can you show me the craft file? In which version was it built?

Actually no... I have some issue I think in the design maybe? All I know is that it used to work but now it doesn't. It seems like its not producing enough lift or something like that. But the blades are spinning at 25 rads (1.3.0)

Here's the download anyways though. I know it should work. The blades should go at 20-something rad/s, even in 1.3.1 (not tested though, built in 1.3.0).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vhm57w5t0eibsjt/ASDFcopter2.craft?dl=0

Edit: Scratch that completely, seems to be working quite alright. Might not though in 1.3.1....

Edited November 15, 2017 by qzgy

[Azimech]

31 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Actually no... I have some issue I think in the design maybe? All I know is that it used to work but now it doesn't. It seems like its not producing enough lift or something like that. But the blades are spinning at 25 rads (1.3.0)

Here's the download anyways though. I know it should work. The blades should go at 20-something rad/s, even in 1.3.1 (not tested though, built in 1.3.0).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vhm57w5t0eibsjt/ASDFcopter2.craft?dl=0

Curious. It flies fine over here (and what a beautiful helicopter!)

However I did notice one of the rear blowers cutting out prematurely due to fuel starvation, after ~7 minutes of flight.

Your helicopter surely inspires me to continue the work on my Apache :-)

I love the skin job as well but even naked it's a very elegant helicopter!

Edited November 15, 2017 by Azimech

[qzgy]

19 hours ago, Azimech said:

-snip-

Thank you very much! I actually took a number of styling cues from your Apache, funnily enough.

And to the remark about it not working - Yeah, I did figure out it does work in 1.3.0. But I guess it also works for you in 1.3.1? That's weird, considering it a similar mechanism didn't for you earlier, as in that gif. I might try downloading it and see if it persists.

[Gman_builder]

Was wondering why my new RCS ball copter wasnt making any power and i guess you guys are having a similar issue. Is there any way to solve the 7 rad/s limit without removed the balls? This didn't seem to be happening before.

[qzgy]

Just now, Gman_builder said:

Was wondering why my new RCS ball copter wasnt making any power and i guess you guys are having a similar issue. Is there any way to solve the 7 rad/s limit without removed the balls? This didn't seem to be happening before.

I'm still running 1.3.0 and I haven't had any rad issues. I was making a craft the other day with the RCS ball bearing and it spinning at around 30 Rad/s according to VOID

[Gman_builder]

3 minutes ago, qzgy said:

I'm still running 1.3.0 and I haven't had any rad issues. I was making a craft the other day with the RCS ball bearing and it spinning at around 30 Rad/s according to VOID

I'm in 1.3.1. I was building stuff a few weeks ago in 1.3.1 and it was working fine. There must have been a micro-patch recently. My non-rcs-ball turbos seem to be working fine, have to look into it more later.

[_Rade]

Earlier today I did a little experiment to see what would happen if you edit the elevons to behave the same way as the massless parts. Predictably the elevons where no longer affected by centrifugal force, but unfortunately they would no longer produce any lift or drag.

In the screenshot you can see the rotor with the edited elevons spinning at almost 50rad/s, and the rotor blades re not spreading out at all, but they aren't producing any lift.

I was wondering is there any chance we could get the Squad to actually modify the elevons. So they could behave as the massless parts, where they don't spread out when spinning, but at the same time are able to produce lift and drag. Ideally this would be the option you could toggle in the VAB, since it would only useful when building propellers and rotors.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

@_Rade You could probably get them to stop stretching away from the hub by editing their mass to be much lower instead of making them physics-less.

[_Rade]

I knew the massless parts are not affected so that's what I tested first.

If only there was some way to convince the Squad to make modified version of the elevons. This would let us build much better stock propeller planes and helicopters.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Been working on this thing:

It might be a bit heavier than just an antitorque jet, but it looks cool. I probably won't finish it until next week since I need to study for final exams.

[SuperHappySquid]

On 08/12/2017 at 2:09 AM, _Rade said:

I knew the massless parts are not affected so that's what I tested first.

If only there was some way to convince the Squad to make modified version of the elevons. This would let us build much better stock propeller planes and helicopters.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but doesn't the fact that the control surfaces spread out work in our favour? Admittedly though, it doesn't look that nice.

[_Rade]

@SuperHappySquid You're right, but in this case I would prefer if the control surfaces didn't spread out. It would be much easier to build the propellers, since you would no longer have to worry if the blades are gonna hit something when the propeller is running at full speed.

Edited December 9, 2017 by _Rade

[SuperHappySquid]

@_Rade Perhaps. As much as it looks messy though, I still like the extra potential for speed it offers. :¬) 

Have you tried using rigid attachment on propeller blades? For me it seems to reduce the spreading massively.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

I myself never have seen the supposed advantage of expanding props, and especially turbine blades. People say that that the expansion of the turbine blades provides better torque at higher rpm. But why not just have a non-expanding turbine of the larger size which provides that good torque at lower rpm?

Similar on the props, though I can understand it more on props, because usually the lower rpm will probably occur at low speeds, which includes takeoff/landing when you might want a smaller prop for clearance.

Edited December 9, 2017 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[_Rade]

@SuperHappySquid I've tried it and it considerably reduces the max speed of the propeller, that's probably the reason why the blades don't spread as much. I don't remember exact numbers but propeller that could spin at 48rad/s when stationary would only spin at about 42-43rad/s with the enabled rigid attachment on the blades.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Interesting. I was aware that autostruts on rotors decreased performance, but I was not aware the same applied with rigid attachment. I will have to look into that. I might be able to improve the performance of some of my helis.

[_Rade]

I didn't notice any decreased performance because of the autostruts, and I usually autostrut everything on the rotor. This is for the electric engines, I don't really build the turboprops so I don't know if there is any difference there.

For rigid attachment performance is only reduced if it is applied to the blades, on other parts there doesn't seem to be any difference in performance.

[Azimech]

On the topic of editing elevons: I have a theory that placing the CoM outside the part and exactly in the center of the shaft, might totally remove the expanding effect at high rpm.

At the same time, editing the CoL to be further from the shaft might increase lift.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Azimech

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

2 hours ago, Azimech said:

On the topic of editing elevons: I have a theory that placing the CoM outside the part and exactly in the center of the shaft, might totally remove the expanding effect at high rpm.

Seems like this could result in problems if the blades wiggle a bit though, because unless the attachment point is at the COM, a wobble off the regular axis is going to cause them to try to flip around so the COM is on the outside. While the joints might be strong enough to prevent divergence, if the more than one blade ends up with the COM shifted in a given direction, you could get some violent rattling. 

Also there's the more annoying problem that this affects crafts globally, not just a particular plane. So now you might have contracting propellers (!) on one plane, normal ones on another, and oddly behaving ailerons on yet another.

Edited December 10, 2017 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[Azimech]

3 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Seems like this could result in problems if the blades wiggle a bit though, because unless the attachment point is at the COM, a wobble off the regular axis is going to cause them to try to flip around so the COM is on the outside. While the joints might be strong enough to prevent divergence, if the more than one blade ends up with the COM shifted in a given direction, you could get some violent rattling. 

Also there's the more annoying problem that this affects crafts globally, not just a particular plane. So now you might have contracting propellers (!) on one plane, normal ones on another, and oddly behaving ailerons on yet another.

True, I would only recommend this if Squad were planning to add a stock propeller blade.

There's something else. The RCS ball doesn't expand from a shaft while it has PhysicsSignificance = 1. I've compared multiple part configurations but I can't really pinpoint what makes the difference.

[_Rade]

1 hour ago, Azimech said:

There's something else. The RCS ball doesn't expand from a shaft while it has PhysicsSignificance = 1. I've compared multiple part configurations but I can't really pinpoint what makes the difference.

PhysicsSignificance = 1 in the part .cfg file means that part is massless, and from what I can tell none of the massless parts will expand. In the screenshot I've posted in the previous post I've added PhysicsSignificance = 1 line to the .cfg file of the elevons. Elevons stopped expanding after that, but they also stopped producing any lift or drag.

[Azimech]

55 minutes ago, _Rade said:

PhysicsSignificance = 1 in the part .cfg file means that part is massless, and from what I can tell none of the massless parts will expand. In the screenshot I've posted in the previous post I've added PhysicsSignificance = 1 line to the .cfg file of the elevons. Elevons stopped expanding after that, but they also stopped producing any lift or drag.

Yes, I observed what you wrote earlier, that's the reason I wrote it. The RCS ball is not massless, yet it doesn't expand from the shaft. Mass doesn't explain it, the RCS ball is 30kg, which is a lot heavier than for example the Atmospheric Fluid Spectro-Variometer, which also doesn't expand (5kg).

So what exactly is the factor that keeps stuff fixed?

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Perhaps of note here is that in one of the updates, the way "physics-less" parts work changed. I forget which. A physicless part can add mass and drag to a craft now, it just gets applied to the closest parent part in the tree that has physics. So if you add a 0.005t RCS thruster with physics setting of 1 to a 0.5t tank, the tank will now weigh 0.505t, and be slightly draggier.

It gets weird when you attach an RCS thruster to an RCS thruster to a stack separator and detach it. You now get a craft that acts as if all the mass is in one RCS thruster. I noticed this when making linkages in my attempts to make a working rotor head.

Edited December 10, 2017 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[_Rade]

@Azimech

From what I understand, the way this works for in game physics calculations, is that the mass of the "massless" parts is added to the part they are attached to. This was most likely done in order to improve game performance, especially in situations when you have bunch of small parts attached to the vehicle.