3DCrimson Skies style 1940's fighter.

Gibbage

I havent posted here for a bit since I was busy on a full time job, but now I have some free time! I have always LOVED Crimson Skies and wish Microsoft did a proper sequal. Im starting to make some assets for maybe a Crimson Skies 2 fake poster or concept work. Maybe even a desktop wallpaper. I wanted some feedback on some of my concepts if you please.



The base concept is from a Spitfire book and the design of having the engine in front, and cockpit hooked up to the tain via twin booms is actually a 1939 british concept! The engine is an inverted liquid cooled V-16 with the radiator port in the nose of the engine coweling, driving a contra-rotating prop.



Armorment varies like any game, but the concept is to have 2 MG guns between the booms and engine, and a big cannon build into the booms with ammo stored in the wings or down the boom in a helix.



If you havent noticed, the engine is build very low, and there is NO room for landing gear. This is because they wont be landing on the ground, but under a giant carrier blimp via a trapeese and hooks deployed from the TOP of the aircraft. The two big round objects under are drop tanks



Its hard to make out, but the radiator exhaust is below the prop hub. For such an odd config, the pilot has amazing sight lines and is able to pull load very easy with the engine in this position vs aircraft like the P-51 or Spitfire with a long nose.

The timeline for this is sometime around mid 1940's and before the jet era. Engines have gotten about as big and powerfull as they will get, so the only thing to do now is streamline designs to better suit the available power.

Right now im not happy with the rudder and gondola shape/config and will be playing with it today a bit. Your looking at about 2 days work, so things will change quite a bit. Any comments and suggestions are very much welcome!

LockeFP

Well, coming from the standpoint of an actual pilot, you couldn't get me into that thing. Mainly because the rear-mounted cockpit would put such harsh g-loads on you when pulling maneuvers that you would black out fairly quickly. The farther the pilot sits from the center of gravity, the worse the immediate effect of the g-forces will be when you begin a maneuver. Of course, that effect quickly dies down once you are committed to the maneuver, but you still end up exerting too much stress on the pilot. That's why nearly every prop-driven fighter aircraft has had the pilot near the center of the aircraft. There are a few notable exceptions, but having the pilot near the nose is more preferable than near the tail. However, since it's a game-concept, everything I just typed is just a nuisance!

Going just style-wise, you're pretty darn close to what I expect from CS. If I remember correctly, the P-21 Devastator from the game had an arrestor cable assembly that rose out of the fuselage directly in front of the pilot with a pair of sturdy clamps on it. You might consider that as something to utilize as the hook system for this aircraft.

Capt Dave

Ah, crimson skies, the most fun aviation game i've ever played.

Gibbage

I myself am an armchair pilot with thousands of hours in a sim, and can totally agree with the pilot being away from the COG causing problems. Also, it will throw off your inner-ear in that when you pull up, you will feel yourself LOWERING. I hate sitting in the back of an MD-80 on takeoff. That sinking feeling sucks! I also will never ever fly in an MD-80 again after seeing the body flex/sag 3 feet on the taxiway... Those things need to go!!!

The thing is, this aircraft is a huge departure for me, in designing something impratical. A lot of sci-fi is like that, in that it looks more cool then practical. About 95% of the stuff I have seen in sci-fi flicks would never fly! So this im using my emagination more then my common sense, or at least trying too.

stephan_ska

Anyway it's a great design. I love it !
Wayting for further touches !!

Cheers, S.

Melak

Heh, Crimson Skies, now that was fun

This would fit right in!

Gibbage

I changed up the tail/cockpit section quite a bit. I wasent happy with how it was shaping up.

InvertedVantage

Interesting looking. Your biggest problem is that your CG is too far aft - if you averaged it between the rough center of mass of the two major structural elements (the engine and the cockpit), your CG would lie somewhere near the tip of the airscrew's spinner.
You want to balance your aircraft in such a manner so as to counteract the wing's lifting moment enough so that your aircraft will not be unstable (as in it is prone to flipping itself over backwards above a certain speed).

I did this sketching method for designing aircraft;

http://twitlink.ws/jpelovitz_airtut

LockeFP

The basic idea is that the CG of the aircraft should be 2/3 the chord of the wing (which is the width of the wing) from the trailing edge. You seem to be fairly close, but that's only a guess. There's no way to really know since the actual weight of all the components is up to you.

As far as the design goes, you're doing well, but I prefer the first cockpit setup to this one. The first had a more sound connection to the main tail assembly. The point of connection with the current image seems too flimsy: there aren't any major structural supports in that part of the tail, so you would have weak points that could cause potential damage in high-g maneuvers.

Gibbage

I know all about the CG and the center of lift, datum, chord, and all that. The thing is, a lot of Sci-Fi vehicles dont follow standard rules, hence the fiction section added to science. I have been modeling for 15 years now, and this is my attempt to add fiction to it.

Here is one of my previous models.



So im trying to work outside the box on this one. Go for something that looks cool, but may not really work in reality.

With that said, I went onto detailing the model. Adding gun blisters, flaps, ailerons, and so on.





I should be getting onto texturing it rather soon after I make a cockpit shell.

Lizzy777

Gibbage wrote: »

So im trying to work outside the box on this one. Go for something that looks cool, but may not really work in reality.

That's Crimson Skies design in a nutshell!

Gibbage

For the cockpit, my idea is that this aircraft is not made for a government military, but is someones private aircraft, a PIRATES private aircraft. Why not deck it out? So I want to have leather trimmings and oak accents, similar to this.

Major Diarrhia

The one thing that stands out to me as a problem is how the cockpit nacelle is in line with the prop wash. That will cancel engine thrust out, which is pretty bad. If you can lower the prop, it should fix the problem. But, it isn't that big a deal, it's a great looking ship.

Gibbage

Just an update. I got a lot of work done on the "office". Things are coming togeather rather well! I hope to start texture on it this week.

psCargile

The thing is, a lot of Sci-Fi vehicles dont follow standard rules . . .

So im trying to work outside the box on this one. Go for something that looks cool, but may not really work in reality.

Why perpetrate the same errors when you have the knowledge and skill to advance science fiction?

Armondikov

It's a very rule-of-cool design, but I have to add that the cockpit is definitely crying out for some sort of separation mechanism. Pull the ejection handle, the cockpit slides back, a secondary hidden propeller deploys and it continues to buzz away on its own.