Project Here goes nothing: The Delta-StarLiner G42

[Izack]

I'm not arguing! Whatever you do, it'll turn out awesome!
Actually your idea of an in-game configurator sounds very attractive. I'm just itching to fly this thing! :thumbup:

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Hi Moach,

I'll ask my question again, since it seemed to be overlooked in my previous post... or I have missed your reply somewhow. Anyway, what are the current dimensions of this ship? I'm working on a new Ascension and would hate for it not to fit. Currently the base is being designed to accommodate the XR5, so I'm guessing your bird will fit too, but it would be nice to know for sure.

Cheers.

 

[Moach]

uh... i dont have exact measurements yet... i started modelling from the stock DG, so it´s all been on a comparison basis up to this point...

i´m not sure about the exact dimentions of the DG either... but i used the "Martin" inside it´s cockpit to get a "human size" reference... when i get back home i´ll measure it up in detail - but mind that dimensions may change during development, since i´m pretty much making this up as i go along


and yeah, it is MY ship... i can do whatever i want with it... it just so happens that i wanna do a variable-configuration ship, for Earth and around missions

BTW: i just thought it would be neat to have the upper inlet doors double as the retro-thruster doors - imagine a dual pivot motion, if it pivots down from the front edge, the inlet opens, and if it pivots up from the rear edge, the retros mounted below the front edge extend - cool huh?

 

[Moach]

Alright, we´re making good progress here... DLL seems ok, now with working thrusters, RCS and a couple of test animations...

i was wondering, though... about the position of the bank thrusters... the wingtips have too shallow a profile to house perpendicularly mounted thrusters... so i was wondering if placing them closer to root would have any impact on their effectiveness...

it seems logical(ish) that the further i place them from the CG, the less effort it would take to cause a roll.... but thinking energy-wise, the amount of energy being released is the same, so won´t the smaller motion radius of root-mounted thrusters compensate for the higher torque of tip-mounted ones?


it got me thinking....

 

[jedidia]

give me a lever big enough and I will lift the world out of its hinges...

thrusters further from the center ARE more effective to induce a rolling motion. however, manouverability isn't really the priority one concern in an SSTO, so the placement of the rcs thrusters will be subordinated to other engineering concerns.

 

[vonneuman]

The one form the first post is the coollest version. Go with that one. Great ship:thumbup:

 

[Moach]

Ok... time to show where we´re standing....


here it is - with some new details:



some moving parts are now working, the bay doors and nose cone can now be operated - the upper inlets open and close (according to throttle, for now, until i get some proper systems going)




this shot came out kinda dark, but you can see some of the RCS jets firing:



and here are the new engines going at it - "full blast and top down" - as Van Halen would say




perhaps i should do something about those exhaust textures... these default ones are clipping through the model.... any ideas on how to fix that?


now, for some technical *cough*sci-fi*cough* details....

the engines you see working there are the turborockets i spoke of earlier - in space, the inlets stay closed and internal oxidizer is used... the upper inlets are open on the first "stage" of flight to allow external o2 to flow in...

for those who would argue as to the placement of those inlets - see this -

now imagine the cross-breed of a rocket and that (kinda like a sabre engine, but not quite) - these will operate up to mach 1.5~2.0 (and FL600)

by then, the magic starts - we´re not at scram-worthy speed yet, but ram-jets could already kick in at this point - do we need another set of engines?

no!

the answer is the revolutionary RAMCASTER (RAM-Combustor-with-Adapative-Sonic-Thrust-Efficiency-Range) engine

a true marvel of made-up engeneering :tiphat: the concept is that at low mach numbers, the RAMCASTER functions as a ram-jet, maintaining efficiency up to mach 5~6 - at that point - a couple of clever relay valves switch up and the engine assumes a scram-jet configuration, allowing it to proceed to around mach 20

then the turborocket engines go into play again, this time on internal oxidizer to cover the remaining delta-v for orbit

now... if you still think i´m full of it - check this out -


usage of external tanks and disposable JATO rockets allows ascents with heavy payloads and trips to the moon

small vertically mounted thrusters allow lunar operations (not yet installed)

all this is possible due to the use of highly advanced, nano-engineered materials on most of the craft´s components - which would be unusably heavy if built with todays materials - even the windows are made of translucent ceramics (yes, that really does exist) which allow them to withstand the abuse of scram flight


the cockpit is also coming along nicely, but i haven´t exported it yet, so i don´t have pictures


well, that´s it so far.... i´ll let ya know when i have more :thumbup:

 

[jedidia]

AW-SOME!!

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Very nice, I'm sure the smiles upon your work!

 

[docabn]

very impressive! :thumbup:
I cannot wait to fly that thing.

 

[Ashaman42]

Looking very good.

How will you deal with the oxidizer tank, change the isp of the fuel or have a second tank (either another propellant resource or a separately coded 'tank' like the O2 in the dgiv/xr series)?

 

[n122vu]

The one form the first post is the coollest version. Go with that one. Great ship:thumbup:

I'll second that.

Either way, this ship looks awesome. I can't wait to fly her.

 

[Moach]

yeah... i had thought of using a tiny "main" tank as a sort of "carburator", and simulate fuel flow through it... should work, i guess...

but maybe changing the ISP would have be a more versatile approach... dunno, i haven´t gotten that far yet...

 

[Fabri91]

This really looks great! Can't wait to try it out!

 

[Moach]

Ok... here´s the VC...



i finally got the hud and mfd's showing properly... the hud is doing well, i even got some extra flight data showing in there...
the MFD´s are working and all... but no buttons yet... for some reason i can't seem to get my textures to appear... (i wanted to get them to at least show up before i try using GDI functions on them)

i´ve saved them in .dds format (DXT1 binary alpha) and yet, the planes where they should appear turn up untextured -- i´ve double checked the .msh file, and the texture entry is there, pointing at the correct file and folder... what could it be now?...


oh well... at least the rest of it is working...


that third MFD really does look like it could come in handy.... i´ve always thought that 2 was a not quite sufficient at times... specially when on reentries and other "dense" maneuvers... so my ship has a third...
the extra info on the HUD should help a bit too...


it´s gonna be most fun when i get to the part when i get to make up the systems and how they play out during flight... she's gonna be a tricky one to fly (specially on launch with the ramcasters and air-breathing rockets)

hydraulics, eletric systems, cabin atmosphere and other cool stuff should be simulated as well... and catastrophic failure is always an option :thumbup:



but first things first... any thoughts on why the textures aren´t showing up?

cheerz

---------- Post added at 12:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:16 AM ----------

alright... got the textures showing now... not sure what i did, but its working now...

i re-save the dds textures using paint.net (the poor man's photoshop) and it seems to be working... which is funny, considering it wasn't when i saved it using photoshop itself


oh well... if it works, it works...
let's see if i can get some redraw going later today... still got some real-life work ahead of me, before i can sit down with my ship again...

 

[Hielor]

alright... got the textures showing now... not sure what i did, but its working now...

i re-save the dds textures using paint.net (the poor man's photoshop) and it seems to be working... which is funny, considering it wasn't when i saved it using photoshop itself


oh well... if it works, it works...
let's see if i can get some redraw going later today... still got some real-life work ahead of me, before i can sit down with my ship again...

Sounds like photoshop's .dds save is wonky. Try putting them through dxtex (a version of which ships with Orbiter, in the utils directory).

 

[Mogeley]

I saw that someone already mentioned this, but I thought I'd add to the comments on the top air intakes. Typically engines are not put on top of the wing for several reasons:

1) reduces lift
2) Engines run better without turbulent air from the body of the aircraft. Even F-16's have the air intake a few inches from the body of the plane.
3) Engines on the bottom and high AOA has much better airflow. In a stall situation on the top of the wing. The air the engine gets can be like sitting still on the ground. So there's a potential for flameouts (I didn't see what kind of air breathing engines you are using).

I've been working on an autopilot and part of the autopilot is atmospheric hypersonic flight between 2 base locations. There's a couple things I was surprised by:
1) How long a hypersonic aircraft can glide at 50,000 m (almost half the earth for some spacecraft)
2) How hard it is to stop a hypersonic aircraft.

The ship looks nice. Is there a lot of drag on from the large surface area of the wings?

 

[Moach]

aha, the inlets are back...
yes, i did realize the upper wing is not a very great location for airbreather inlets... that´s why those are NOT the main inlets... those are the bypass flood scoops, which is a part of the whole ramcaster assembly, you can see where they vent off in the "sleeve" around the thrusters, this also helps in cooling the engines...

when in external-source mode, the main engines share the lower inlet... special gates and valves scoop the air away from the ram-compressor and onto the turbo-rocket engines, this goes on up to mach 1.5...

then, the gates switch into ramjet config, redirecting the flow to use the lower exhauts as well, same goes when it reaches scram-speed...

of course, at that point, the flood scoops are long closed, since at high mach numbers, incoming air does more for heating than for cooling...

then the lower ram doors also close and the starliner rockets up out of this earth...


all transitions are made as swiftly as possible, this is the nature of the RAMCASTER-D setup... initial designs proposed a continuosly variable engine, but this soon proved to yield an engine that's consistently less efficient at any speed...
so the starliner engineering team adopted a new discrete-configuration engine concept, the "D" model... by switching the valves quickly, the whole engine can have a simpler, sturdier, ad far more efficient design...
the upper flood scoops fill up specific parts of the manifold structure with lower-pressure air (compared to what's flowing in from below), which is cleverly used to smooth out the airflow for the turbo-compressor and the mid-sonic RAMCASTER...

not only an acronym, the name RAMCASTER also speaks in terms more symbolic... in programming, to "cast" is to reinterpret a value in a different way, or to impose a different treatment of a resource.
what about that as a sales pitch?


the large wing area should indeed cause a lot of drag... conventionally, that is...

dunno if you´ve seen it, but a special suit has been developed that allow athletes to swim faster by reducing surface friction... the suit has such a fiber pattern that imitates the skin of a shark, reducing water drag.

now, that same principle could be applied on the external coating of the wings, so the reduced friction allows for a larger wing, which in turn, allows more lift, less fuel usage and more bang for your buck! :thumbup:

or so the StarLiner's manufacturers would claim...


more on that later...


any name suggestions for the private company that produces the G42?

 

[Zachstar]

Hypersonic craft that don't have active engines for braking are unlikely for travel use. That is star trek stuff. And 99.999 of folks do not need to be at a location THAT fast.

Basically what you are saying tho is that you have a future engine that is able to gain the maximum amount of bang for buck from JP fuel?

 

[Andy44]

dunno if you´ve seen it, but a special suit has been developed that allow athletes to swim faster by reducing surface friction... the suit has such a fiber pattern that imitates the skin of a shark, reducing water drag.

Back in the day there were experiments with surfaces that had tiny holes in them with sucked air in and blew it out through an exhaust port, possibley through the engine. This eliminated turbulence from the boundary layer of air next to the airplane's skin, greatly reducing drag and allowing the aircraft to remain controllable in what would normally be stall/spin conditions.

It worked, but the complex skin with all its microscopic air channels was a maintenence headache, as you could never keep dirt particles out of it, nor clean it properly, so the idea got shelved. If you remember the old TV show "Wings" that Discovery Channel used to show in the 90s, there was a whole episode on it.

I don't know how well such a thing would work at hypersonic speeds, nor do I know how much mass it adds to the structure. On top of that, you need to integrate this with whatever thermal protective system you're using, tiles, shingles, etc.