Project G42-200 StarLiner

[deltawing777]

Very sleek looking aircraft. I was wondering will it have any front canards (front wings) such as the Ef2000 seen here: http://www.rcinthebox.com/images/upload/Image/EF2000-D8.jpg

 

[Moach]

Very sleek looking aircraft. I was wondering will it have any front canards (front wings) such as the Ef2000 seen here: http://www.rcinthebox.com/images/upload/Image/EF2000-D8.jpg

it does have front canards - just read a few pages back :thumbup:
they are retracted just under the cabin floor, since at high mach numbers, they don't much good and just might get blown off :lol:

but they're there... not modelled yet, tho


edit::

note on the 4-engine thing... not sure how that would happen... there doesn't seem to be much room in there... but i found that if i reshape the pods a bit, the twin setup fits quite nicely in there, and doesn't look like it'd be underpowered

 

[deltawing777]

it does have front canards - just read a few pages back :thumbup:
they are retracted just under the cabin floor, since at high mach numbers, they don't much good and just might get blown off :lol:

but they're there... not modelled yet, tho


edit::

note on the 4-engine thing... not sure how that would happen... there doesn't seem to be much room in there... but i found that if i reshape the pods a bit, the twin setup fits quite nicely in there, and doesn't look like it'd be underpowered

Very nice +10 for eyecandy! :thumbup: :10sign:

 

[Moach]

Very nice +10 for eyecandy! :thumbup:

as a general rule-of-thumb in aircraft engineering, what looks right, usually flies right :thumbup: so that's always a good thing! :lol:

and, it's easier to get political and media attention if you got a craft that's eye-catching as a Concorde, thus, easier to get funding for missions and development


looking nice is not as trivial as it may seem :hmm:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

That's shaping up to be a good looking bird!

 

[Moach]

shaping up is quite right... and quite a lengthy process that is...

i can model quite fast (i got some nice UI tweaks going)... but that highly depends on how much do i know what i wanna model :lol:

now i'm thinking that the engines are better suited close to the fuselage... not like before, but the engine pods could just as well be blended adjacent to the ramcaster bulge, and the intakes would be placed alongside, like those on an F-18, to some extent....

this both clears up the wings and removes that unsightly bulge i had when using the shared inlets approach...

the new turbo-rocket exhausts would be positioned under the tail - like those on an F-4 jet (which i always thought looks really cool) :hmm:

 

[Hlynkacg]

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...

I agree, more Concorde = more awsome.

However, I'm a little concerned about how well those underwing pods will handle re-entry.

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

If the spacecraft is designed for a power-off re-entry losing an engine would not be an emergancy. The Pilot can simply shutdown the other engine/s, jettison remaining fuel, and intercept the appropriate phase of the re-entry profile.

Also, from a modeling/engineering view, if you keep the engines on the wings (vice alongside the fuselage) the pods can serve double-duty housing the wing-fold machinery and hiding the joint.

The "not an emergancy" assumes that there is an appropriate airfield down-range. Intercepting the glide profile in the middle of the Atlantic would likely end with the crew going for a swim. :sos:

Water-wings might be a good investment as far as safety equipment is concerned.

 

[Moach]

I agree, more Concorde = more awsome.

That said, I'm a little concerned about how well those underwing pods will handle re-entry.

looking at them i was concerned as well...
so i'm not thinking of having them blended with the lower fuselage, like i said in two posts above

 

[Hlynkacg]

Well if you blend them into the wings abit you could use them to hide the wing fold mechanism


--I----- (wing, I=fold joint)
\_0_/ (engine pod)

---------- Post added at 05:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:26 PM ----------

Personally I'd say channel the F4 in a seperate design.

 

[Moach]

(...)
Also, from a modeling/engineering view, if you keep the engines on the wings (vice alongside the fuselage) the pods can serve double-duty housing the wing-fold machinery and hiding the joint. (...)

yes, i remember that was one of the key reasons for the existance of the wing pods... that folding apparatus has gotta be housed somewhere

another concept that came to mind was that with properly shaped pods, there could be conpression lift being generated between them and the fuselage...

but then again, not sure how desireable that would be on reentry, which is why we have folding wings to begin with... :blink:


the reason i wanted to put them back with the fueslage is mostly because i still cannot conceive a way to wing-mount an adequately-sized engine in a way that doesn't disrupt either the waverider or the delta aspect of the wing....


guess i got some more thinking to do

 

[Hlynkacg]

What about blending the pods into the top of the wing?

If you do move the engines back to the fuselage, just shrink the pods accordingly.

 

[Grover]

woah! this thread just exploded in the 5 hours since i last saw it.

and yes Moach: 4 engines is a bad idea, for 4 very good reasons
1)theres no room
2)theres no need
3)the winds can only carry so much weight
4)they arent very aerodynamic objects, especially during RAM/SCRAM phase

just stick with two, the last model picture was looking good, just knock some canards on there, work in some detail, and its at a reasonable level already (but you can always take it further )

also, ive decided on how to explain the engine stages for a documentation, when we get near to a finished product, ill write something up for ya

laters

 

[Moach]

woah! this thread just exploded in the 5 hours since i last saw it.

and yes Moach: 4 engines is a bad idea, for 4 very good reasons
1)theres no room
2)theres no need
3)the winds can only carry so much weight
4)they arent very aerodynamic objects, especially during RAM/SCRAM phase

just stick with two, the last model picture was looking good, just knock some canards on there, work in some detail, and its at a reasonable level already (but you can always take it further )

also, ive decided on how to explain the engine stages for a documentation, when we get near to a finished product, ill write something up for ya

laters

you make a good point - i'm well set on 2 engines now... well, it is 4 if you count the ramcasters... but that's another thing :lol:

i'm now considering possible ways to shape the turbo-mode inlets on the pods under the wings... their design is not so critical if we could perhaps lower the ramcaster-lo engage speed to something between mach 1 and 2... acccording to wikipedia, thats actually plausible...

i'm just not sure if it would be reallistically efficient enough to justify such a design decision - but if so, being able to use a less strict geometry on those underwing intakes would be quite appreciated :thumbup:

 

[Grover]

well, as soon as you hit mach 1, you more or less redefine aerodynamics, except for the simple forces of drag. im no aerodynamic expert, but at mach 1, you are going damn fast, POSSIBLY fast enough for RAMs, better to leave it at 2-3 i think

and at the end of the day, the geometry of the engine pods isnt a HUGE thing, you could probably get away with using a flat surface if you can do a good texture on top of it

but youre the modeller, its entirely your decision, if you want to go further and add geometry detail, nobody here can stop you (Except HarvesteR who could probably so that )

but its looking like a sweet model at the moment, and i dont imagine it getting worse, THE ONLY WAY IS UP (and outta the atmosphere )

 

[Moach]

well, as soon as you hit mach 1, you more or less redefine aerodynamics, except for the simple forces of drag. im no aerodynamic expert, but at mach 1, you are going damn fast, POSSIBLY fast enough for RAMs, better to leave it at 2-3 i think

and at the end of the day, the geometry of the engine pods isnt a HUGE thing, you could probably get away with using a flat surface if you can do a good texture on top of it

but youre the modeller, its entirely your decision, if you want to go further and add geometry detail, nobody here can stop you (Except HarvesteR who could probably so that )

but its looking like a sweet model at the moment, and i dont imagine it getting worse, THE ONLY WAY IS UP (and outta the atmosphere )

well i mostly meant geometry as in the shape of the intakes and how that relates to the airflow into the engines... as for polygon count, there's a number of other parts of that model that are far more mouse-breaking to deal with :lol:


but i guess those inlets don't need to be THAT specialized... they're open mostly during subsonic flight time...
they'll be supersonic for only a couple of minutes, tops... so they can maybe afford to give a bit into other needs, like reentry survival and stuff

 

[Grover]

yea, survival is a good idea...

 

[Moach]

alright - i figured it out!

look at it now:

i've decided for an underwing inlet and blended pods - look at it from below:

the intakes are based on the[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diverterless_supersonic_inlet"] DSI[/ame] concept - as used in the intakes of the Lockheed-Martin F35 JSF

it's quite an interesting concept, but most importantly, it gave me a coherent way to make an open/close inlet that could be considered quite realistic IMHO....

in the pic above, you see them open - as they would be at early flight...
when these engines give way to the RAMCASTERs, those gray "bumps" swing down and seal off the front of the pods, in a way that blends the streamlined profile of the pods to the wings :thumbup:

it works! and now we have our engines all set!

 

[Grover]

so the canards are next i presume? its looking pretty fine, and not too far away from the original plan (despite the big fat engines on the wings).

which reminds me, i asked a while back, but you might have missed it:
what program are you using for your blueprints? it looks very professional

thanks

 

[edsupagood]

Looks very good! :thumbup:

Grover, he said he uses Adobe Illustrator for the blueprints.

 

[Moach]

Looks very good! :thumbup:

Grover, he said he uses Adobe Illustrator for the blueprints.

actually, i use Adobe Flash :thumbup:
it doesn't have as many advanced drawing tools as illustrator, but the basic ones are sooooo much more convenient


and yep, i think the canards should be next up on the line...


and i was thinking about that cockpit yesterday... about the general cockpit layout... i found that it could actually make more sense if the pilot has the right seat, and flight engineer on the left...

why? - well, the pilot has his right hand (assimung stick on right hand) a lot more busy than the left, which is why it makes sense that other controls like airbrakes, gear lever, canards open/close and stuff should be on that side...

but if the pilot has the left seat, putting those controls there means the engineer cannot access them... and conversely, putting them in the center console would force the pilot to unhand the stick in order to operate them...

so it's either stick on left (airbus style) or, we put the pilot on the right, making the console-placed controls accessible to both the pilot and engineer :hmm:

whadda you think makes more sense? - is there some rule about the pilot taking the left seat, or is that just a general convention?