All I want to say that is much, much less hazardous, and without it onboard, you will NEVER achieve decent delta-V, period. If you want a little more scientific details, I advise you to read this site through:
quite right, i was suggesting a fusion reactor but some fission systems could still be used as main engines fairly safely if they were closed cycle. the thorium fuelled reactors currently being proposed would in all likelyhood be unable to undergo catastrophic meltdown as each fission produces only 1 neutron so a constant neutron source is needed to sustain the fission. that "project rho" is a site i am familiar with and it's pretty damned good.
I'll just drop this little update into the engineering symposium.
i notice the tail fins are back. it's looking good, just don't add tail planes(as in horizontal stabilizers) they would ruin the appearance. what are your plans for the nose, there are many good options but i think that unless you base it on the sukhoi su 15(which would require a change to the cockpit position as well) then using the nose of the YAK 141 might be best.
Hey Everybody.
Happy Holidays! And yes I am back from the dead with a few WIPs. Other interests and the usual burnout have kept me from working on VIA but I'm going to get back into it part time.
First up is a revisit of the last one I was working that got very frustrating. This is going to be rethought as the commonwealth Puma strike fighter.
Next up is the redesign of the MiG-231 which is supposed to be a soviet copy of the corsair. Tried to get a WWII soviet vibe going.
It's good to be back and Happy New Year to you all!
Welcome back bbzwbbzw, hope you're having a good holiday season. Don't burn yourself out though, remember your health and mental well-being is more important than a sci-fi project.
Personally I'm liking the new Puma, is it a two seater now? "Corsairski" Lol
Hey Tombo, Merry belated Christmas. I'll take it easier this time; another thing was that I was getting terrible eyestrain looking at a monitor for too long, to the point where it was painful. Going to limit the amount of time I spend modeling so hopefully that wont happen.
And yep, Puma is a 2 seater.
Oh, been working on this on and off for a few months, not much progress yet
the puma is the one you were working on last time you posted here? nice detail work on it but it would look better if you'd kept the tail fins and left the cockpit canopy curvy as opposed to the "flat sheets of glass" shape you now have. your corsiarski is overall excellent, well shaped and somehow "obviously russian". short of some texturing and a more detailed afterburner i don't think anything more need be added or removed. the latest craft looks like it could be some form of missile ship, the hatches along the top of the forward section would be ideal for missile tubes. the hangar like boxes along the bottom for fighters perhaps? i assume the middle bit is a spin section but clearly not complete, that bit will look better when deployed. as a final thought add some aerials and other sticking out greebles to the forward section. good to see you back!
@Spacefighter: That WiP is, I believe, a rebooting of the Intrepid-class carrier. The top "hatches" are fighter hangers whilst the larger ones on the sides are for large support craft. An idea of the size of the thing can be gained by the tiny missile launcher just forward of the side hangers.
Here is another thing I am working on. The bare metal fighter I was working on wasn't doing it for me; the mesh was really messy and I didn't like the way the wings joined the body. Also wasn't that crazy about the cockpit. So I redid the fuselage and wings from the ground up
When you told that you were inspired by WWII designs, I, somehow, expected the "half bubble" canopy, like front one on Mi-24 or on MiG-15. I mean - rear and sides are bubble, but front is flat armored glass. Current design looks like crossbreed of X and Y-wing from Star Wars. That`s not a bad thing - just my expression from the design. BTW, can you post a rear view of the last fighter craft?
Happy new year to you too!
For the Soviet one I was trying to go for an Il-2, MiG-3 mosh up. As for the Puma, I might revisit the forward fuselage and ditch the flat panel cockpit, since it is British I could go with a Harrier sort of hunchback look.
Here is the rear view;
And here is the Corsairski in a 2 tone grey scheme;
nice rear view their, shows of some pretty cool engines. infact i think it looks better from their than from the front. corsairski, even more awesome than last time. but have you considered a more complex afterburner shape on it, the current ones seem too plain.
Firstly - welcome and nice to see a fellow Sketchup user out there doing the magic. Fantastic work and designs, I love them all, I am very interested in how you manage to achieve the UV mapping, painting or post production for these ships, they look aw sum and I am so envious that you can do this loll, please share one day if time and circumstance permits.
Thanks stoli for the kind words. I don't UV map or anything like that, just use sketchup with about 6 plugins and a renderer called raylectron. I do the weathering and twiddly bits in photoshop. The markings, numbers and camo are done natively in sketchup by making a flat star (in the case of this soviet fighter), push / pulling it through the model, and intersecting it. The model itself is of course a group so I can play around with the placement of the 'decal' without screwing up the geometry.
EDIT: Forgot to say that your work is excellent too and very inspiring!
Here is a WIP of the weathering, I'd say about a quarter done;
Thanks for the quick response much appreciated. I understand the making of a group and pulling it through to create numbers etc, that's cool, its the Photoshop that kills me loll. If I could paint onto the actual model and add weathering then I would be a very happy man but I'm guessing you are modifying an actual completed rendered image ?. Thanks for the feedback on my work, I love Sketchup, its the only program I understand how to use and is fun. This particular ship you have attached is my favorite, I love the way she tapers back and the cockpit setting is wonderful,color scheme is bang on for my taste, should look a treat when completed. I tried finding this mythical program you mentioned Raylectron but no links have come up for me? is there a site or free trial site as I am always interested in trying new render programs.
being able to just paint on the surface would be a very nice feature to be included in a 3d program. it would make texturing and such so much easier. nice weathering it has really emphasied some of the details.
Thanks guys.
I'm also working on a single stage to orbit rescue shuttle that is converted from a 2 stage to orbit commercial shuttle. I'm doing the commercial one first, obviously ripping off early designs for the NASA orbiter;
And no worries about the straight wing, all the early space shuttle designs had straight wings (see Maxime Faget's concepts) and if I remember correctly the primary reason they went with a delta wing was a USAF requirement that it have a 1000 mile cross-range recovery range for polar orbits.
Posts
cone
quite right, i was suggesting a fusion reactor but some fission systems could still be used as main engines fairly safely if they were closed cycle. the thorium fuelled reactors currently being proposed would in all likelyhood be unable to undergo catastrophic meltdown as each fission produces only 1 neutron so a constant neutron source is needed to sustain the fission. that "project rho" is a site i am familiar with and it's pretty damned good.
i notice the tail fins are back. it's looking good, just don't add tail planes(as in horizontal stabilizers) they would ruin the appearance. what are your plans for the nose, there are many good options but i think that unless you base it on the sukhoi su 15(which would require a change to the cockpit position as well) then using the nose of the YAK 141 might be best.
Happy Holidays! And yes I am back from the dead with a few WIPs. Other interests and the usual burnout have kept me from working on VIA but I'm going to get back into it part time.
First up is a revisit of the last one I was working that got very frustrating. This is going to be rethought as the commonwealth Puma strike fighter.
Next up is the redesign of the MiG-231 which is supposed to be a soviet copy of the corsair. Tried to get a WWII soviet vibe going.
It's good to be back and Happy New Year to you all!
Personally I'm liking the new Puma, is it a two seater now? "Corsairski" Lol
And yep, Puma is a 2 seater.
Oh, been working on this on and off for a few months, not much progress yet
Here is another thing I am working on. The bare metal fighter I was working on wasn't doing it for me; the mesh was really messy and I didn't like the way the wings joined the body. Also wasn't that crazy about the cockpit. So I redid the fuselage and wings from the ground up
When you told that you were inspired by WWII designs, I, somehow, expected the "half bubble" canopy, like front one on Mi-24 or on MiG-15. I mean - rear and sides are bubble, but front is flat armored glass. Current design looks like crossbreed of X and Y-wing from Star Wars. That`s not a bad thing - just my expression from the design. BTW, can you post a rear view of the last fighter craft?
For the Soviet one I was trying to go for an Il-2, MiG-3 mosh up. As for the Puma, I might revisit the forward fuselage and ditch the flat panel cockpit, since it is British I could go with a Harrier sort of hunchback look.
Here is the rear view;
And here is the Corsairski in a 2 tone grey scheme;
Also, looks like you decided to add some secondary thrusters to the rear end of the fuselage of Puma after all
EDIT: Forgot to say that your work is excellent too and very inspiring!
Here is a WIP of the weathering, I'd say about a quarter done;
Thanks for the props! And yes, I'm photoshopping a finished render. Totally wish I could do it natively in SU too.
And great work with weathering, Bbzw2!
I'm also working on a single stage to orbit rescue shuttle that is converted from a 2 stage to orbit commercial shuttle. I'm doing the commercial one first, obviously ripping off early designs for the NASA orbiter;
And no worries about the straight wing, all the early space shuttle designs had straight wings (see Maxime Faget's concepts) and if I remember correctly the primary reason they went with a delta wing was a USAF requirement that it have a 1000 mile cross-range recovery range for polar orbits.