Project G42-200 StarLiner

[Moach]

a fine idea! perhaps it could also house a backup electrical system for deflecting the wings.

i also had two good ideas when playing with my new base:
put a local light source in the top of the cargo bay, to illuminate your docking target (and possibly one inside the cockpit so you can see the controls on the dark side of the planet)
size the cargo bay to accomodate UGCO, whats the point having teh cargo bay if you cant put stuff in it. (you can then consume fuel from cargo to increase range)

ill keep on churning these ideas out... maybe i should write them all down

nice thinking!
the UCGO thing in had already planned :thumbup:

 

[Grover]

and UMMU goes without saying obviously

 

[Moach]

obviously

---------- Post added 03-24-11 at 11:52 AM ---------- Previous post was 03-23-11 at 03:28 PM ----------

right... upon lengthy reviewing and brain-mashing about the overall layout of the ship i've decided for a new large-ish revision of the concept...

nothing too extreme, but it took me a while to get the model right again (still isn't, but it's getting there)

the whole point was that the turbo-rockets should no longer be adjacent to the fuselage... they have been moved to the wings, just before the pivoting section, and i've given them SR-71-like inlet cones, which ended up looking quite cool :thumbup:


the ship now looks a lot better with the wings folded both up and down
and having a separate inlet for the turbo-casters makes the first engine transition, which used to be the worse a LOT more stable to perform :lol:

plus, the ramcasters are much simpler to build without that flow-director valve... now it's just open-close-ram-scram...

and we can get rid of the potentially heavy exhaust shields that protect the tail boom from the jet blast

i should have thought of that a lot sooner :hmm:

i'll show pics when i get it all sorted out... still some dents in the mesh and whatnot

---------- Post added at 12:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 AM ----------

there she is!

i found that this new shape has dramatically reduced the overall longitudinal cross-section...

and now i get to model the moving inlet spikes

those pods are also tilted a few degrees, as some AoA is expected during turbo-caster operations (early flight)

i'd show how it looks from behind as well... but i haven't really modelled that far yet :hmm:

 

[jangofett287]

ACE! That's looking great.:thumbup:

I know your probably planning on this allready, but be certain to adequately smooth the pods to the wings, no self respecting spaceman is going to want to fly this plane if they look like they were just bolted there as an after thought.

 

[Moach]

ACE! That's looking great.:thumbup:

I know your probably planning on this allready, but be certain to adequately smooth the pods to the wings, no self respecting spaceman is going to want to fly this plane if they look like they were just bolted there as an after thought.

ah yes, i most certainly will...

it's just that i've exhausted my limited amount of able time for today getting the fuselage blend right... tomorrow, or in the improbable event that i get some more able time today, i'll get into that :thumbup:

 

[jangofett287]

I can just picture it now...
<Pilot> Are you sure those things are meant to be there?
<Mechanic>Of course, its perfectly safe
*Mechanic slaps one of the turbo-rockets, it groans loudly, before it and the wing section after it just detach from the rest of the plane and drop to the ground with a loud clatter*
<Pilot>:blink:*pause*:facepalm:

 

[Grover]

ive had an idea for engine controls!

first, we define the engine stages:
1)Turbojet (with afterburner after 80% throttle)
2)RAM/SCRAM
2a) ramjet
2b)scramjet (RAMCASTER HIGH)
3)Jurbojet afterburner only (exhaust chamber is sealed just behind the jet engine and then its business as usual for spaceflight)
POSSIBILITY, though the '200 is bigger and may need to use its main rocket engines instead
4)OMS using smaller engines near the main exhaust

now: engines are toggled using a main switch, then a control panel for the RAM/SCRAM, and another for the JET/TurboRocket engine

the main switch is 3 way, as shown:

                        TurboRocket

   SCRAM/RAM            /\                 OMS
                              /  \

then the panel for RAM/SCRAM has a low/high setting, which can be toggled at any point, moving the diffuser and the RAM gates etc, but obviously only affects the engine when the first switch is in the left position

and the main engine panel has control to convert the jet engine into a rocket engine, again, this can be done in advance (as soon as you go into RAM stage) but only affects engine performance when the first switch is in the TOP Position

so on a normal flight, you would go from TOP (Taxi, initial ascent) to LEFT (Ram ascent) to TOP (orbit insertion) to RIGHT (orbital operations), whilst changing engine configurations on separate panels.

this gives the obvious control to revert through engine stages, so if you get a wierd day when you accidentally hit the atmosphere again, you can use the main engines again to get back into orbit, or if you land, you dont have to start a fresh scenario to launch again, just fill 'er up and light the engines again!

and i suppose its just as easy to put into the cofing, just define the engine parameters as something like

if ENGStatus=1 //Stage 1
   [define engine and exhaust info]
   else ENGStatus=2 //RAM/SCRAM
       if RAMStatus=1 ///RAM
            [RAM engine parematers]
       else RAMStatus=2 //SCRAM
            [SCRAM engine parameters]
   else ENGStatus=3 //Main engines in rocket mode
       [define engine parameters]
   else ENGStatus=4 //OMS
       [define OMS parameters]

of course, thats only a quick type with crude C++ knowledge, it may take a little more coding than that, or i may have it all wrong and it turns out that its not possible to do it this way

anyways, nice model! cant wait to put that into orbit!

 

[Moach]

ive had an idea for engine controls!

first, we define the engine stages:
1)Turbojet (with afterburner after 80% throttle)
2)RAM/SCRAM
2a) ramjet
2b)scramjet (RAMCASTER HIGH)
3)Jurbojet afterburner only (exhaust chamber is sealed just behind the jet engine and then its business as usual for spaceflight)
POSSIBILITY, though the '200 is bigger and may need to use its main rocket engines instead
4)OMS using smaller engines near the main exhaust

now: engines are toggled using a main switch, then a control panel for the RAM/SCRAM, and another for the JET/TurboRocket engine

the main switch is 3 way, as shown:

                        TurboRocket

   SCRAM/RAM            /\                 OMS
                              /  \

then the panel for RAM/SCRAM has a low/high setting, which can be toggled at any point, moving the diffuser and the RAM gates etc, but obviously only affects the engine when the first switch is in the left position

and the main engine panel has control to convert the jet engine into a rocket engine, again, this can be done in advance (as soon as you go into RAM stage) but only affects engine performance when the first switch is in the TOP Position

so on a normal flight, you would go from TOP (Taxi, initial ascent) to LEFT (Ram ascent) to TOP (orbit insertion) to RIGHT (orbital operations), whilst changing engine configurations on separate panels.

this gives the obvious control to revert through engine stages, so if you get a wierd day when you accidentally hit the atmosphere again, you can use the main engines again to get back into orbit, or if you land, you dont have to start a fresh scenario to launch again, just fill 'er up and light the engines again!

and i suppose its just as easy to put into the cofing, just define the engine parameters as something like

if ENGStatus=1 //Stage 1
   [define engine and exhaust info]
   else ENGStatus=2 //RAM/SCRAM
       if RAMStatus=1 ///RAM
            [RAM engine parematers]
       else RAMStatus=2 //SCRAM
            [SCRAM engine parameters]
   else ENGStatus=3 //Main engines in rocket mode
       [define engine parameters]
   else ENGStatus=4 //OMS
       [define OMS parameters]

of course, thats only a quick type with crude C++ knowledge, it may take a little more coding than that, or i may have it all wrong and it turns out that its not possible to do it this way

anyways, nice model! cant wait to put that into orbit!

cool! nice thinking!
although, i thinks it's best to use a "switch" block to set engine modes... too much stuff going on...

but yes, nice going on having the turbo-caster being controlled separately - for mode change - throttle authority is another lever :hmm:

but that's pretty much it... while in RAMCASTER flight, the turbo-rockets can already be set to burner-only and allowed to cool down... then when it's rocket-time, it's just a quick fire-them-up and on she goes

 

[Grover]

thats the idea. but even if you use a seperate throttle control in the VC for RAM/SCRAM, keep it assigned to "Main engine" so the joystick controls still work: hence defining only one engine then defining which engine of the 4 to choose from with a series of If and Else functions.

for VC animation, changing mesh groups to animate will be a little trickier, youll have to use an if and else function to decide either which group(s) to rotate (if the two throttles rotate over the same axis) of define an entirely different animation set for the different ENGStatus values

but lets leave the coding for now, i have an idea for the mesh part:
when youve done it, if you send me a 3DS version of it, i can make it more effieicient, removing faces that wont be seen and the such (ive seen some addons, the TX most notably which have very inefficient meshes, many faces drawn and some of them are inside the vessel and NEVER get seen at all.

its only an offer, just say the word and ill get to it (once youve finished the mesh that is)

thanks

 

[Moach]

thanks dude! - always nice to see enthusiasm!

i've devised a nice layout of the throttle unit console which i think plays well with all that's been suggested as well as some orbiter-defined particularities :hmm:


i''l have it drawn up in a bit, hang on


as for the throttle authority switching, i'll just stick to what i had been doing with the '100, which is a dummy engine with no power... orbiter assings throttle from the stick to it, then i read that throttle and relay it over to whatever engine we're actually controlling :thumbup:

works very well

 

[Grover]

having a dummy engine is bad for automated MFDs, id avoid it altogether

 

[Moach]

i might be able to figure out a way to swap the main engine by rebuilding the thrustergroups...
but it might not be too realistic in some cases, like the turbo-jets... those take some time to ramp up to throttle, which orbiter does not fully support...

ah well, i'll think of something...

at the very least, i'll make sure the OMS has "main engine" authority, since most autopilot MFD's are about maneuvering in orbit...

 

[Grover]

nice one, but it should be possibly to use the main engine for all configurations, im sure someone on the forum will know how

 

[Moach]

i'm pretty sure there is a way... but in some modes, particularly the turbo-jet one, i would choose not to... as not having the characteristic turbine rev-up delay is a big pooh-pooh IMO...

as for the others, i don't see why not... although i find it quite unlikely that any general-purpose guidance MFD will know how to handle the RAMCASTERs properly :hmm:

but for rocket and OMS, sure thing... i'll just sing those as "main" when they receive throttle authority :thumbup: - that if they're ON, of course... can't have engines blasting without at least a fuel pump running

 

[Hlynkacg]

Why am I imagining a massive Semi-truck style gear shift lever in the center console with each "gear" corisponding to an engine mode.

:lol:

 

[edsupagood]

:hesaid:
Ha, good one! lol :rofl:

 

[Dambuster]

Looks amazing! Just one thing: would it be possible to perhaps downsize the pods on the wings a little bit? It may just be me and my love of anything that even vaguely resembles Concorde, but I thought the original design was pretty neat!

Also, I was thinking...if you stuck some sufficiently powerful motors in those wings of yours, it might make for some interesting ornithopter experiments

 

[Izack]

It may just be me and my love of anything that even vaguely resembles Concorde, but I thought the original design was pretty neat!

Agreed there. I liked the original design better. Very sleek.

 

[edsupagood]

Yes the original looked a bit more like a space plane.

 

[Moach]

if you guys like the original design better, how about this, we switch the SR-71-style engine pods with concorde-style underwing engines

this way we don't break up the delta wing and still keep the engines from having to share a single intake :hmm:

good timing, i must say, at this point it's very easy for me to pull off that change... any further modeling and it would be a bit of a handful

let's see how that looks

---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:18 AM ----------

ok, there it is! :thumbup:

i think i agree as well - more concorde-like = more awesome :lol:


now i'm wondering if it would not be even better to have a 4 engine setup as well... then the pods would have a lower cross section...

and 4 engines add a lot of sefety to the design - with two, if one quits right after takeoff, we'd be in for one scary ride... with 4, not so much