CG My Alaskan / Pandoran Bush Plane WIP.

[Taw Makto]

Hey, not everything has to be ugly and functional on Pandora! My jet is my forum name / my forum name is my jet..... etc. It's a completely original aircraft design that I've built in X-Plane and Rhino3D. This is the Rhino model.



I've spent a lot of time over the past two weeks to get the model this far. A bit more detail to add, and then I can export from Rhino to AC3D to texture and configure the animated controls, etc., after which I'll be able to inject it into X-Plane and fly it!

I've already tested the flight dynamics model - a primitive version of what you see - in Pandoran atmospheric pressure and gravity. X-Plane will let you do that, strangely enough. The jet is a bit faster at the top end due to the increased availability of oxygen - more thrust - and a bit slower to stall due to the lower gravity. Otherwise, flying there is a lot like flying here. Well, except I'm sure it looks a LOT nicer just about wherever you fly.

I propose that Hell's Gate isn't the only place that humans made moonfall on Pandora, and there are likely small airstrips here and there to support both scientific research and the Avatar program. Even if I can't finish the X-Plane planet model to fly in, I'll certainly be able to do some neat CGI flying in a Pandoran setting. I've got all the tools....I just need time!

[Sacred Tsahaylu]

Wow, that's cool.
I wonder if X-Plane would let you import a scorpian, doubt it

[Taw Makto]

Thanks!

A Scorpion would be entirely possible, as would a Samson, a Valkyrie or a Dragon. There might have to be some special accommodations in the flight dynamics models, but the object model that is rendered can look and behave exactly as they did in the movie. Weaponry is another story - X-Plane is not very good at that sort of thing.

Note that I'm saying "possible." It would be a lot of work for someone, and it's not for your typical new user. A knowledge of 3D modeling is necessary, as well as a bit of an ability to program and "get under the hood" and deal with the inner workings of X-Plane. Its a very steep learning curve, and the documentation is a bit sketchy.

I thought about doing a Scorpion back when I got my toy model of one. It would look cool...but it would be more than a month's worth of weekend free time to make it happen. And it's just not fast enough for my taste.

[Sacred Tsahaylu]

But the physics of it? Surely a Scorpian can't actually fly?!

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Sacred Tsahaylu

But the physics of it? Surely a Scorpian can't actually fly?!

It can fly, it's actually an excellent design in terms of manoeuvrability, it doesn't need a tail rotor, and IIRC in the spec, it's faster than currently existing equivalents like the AH-64.

[Taw Makto]

Why not? Beat the air sufficiently into submission and anything will fly! I do question that the rotors might be a bit too far forward for a reasonable center of gravity, and the rotor blade design is simplistic. However, I really see no reason it wouldn't be flyable. There's plenty of lifting disc area with those two counter-rotating fans on either side. Build the thing out of carbon fiber - very likely in 200 years given current tech, and it would be both light and strong. Nope - no worries.

[Sovereign]

All I can say is that Rhino's much easier to work with in terms of curves and smooth surfaces than 3ds max...

[Sovereign]

Here's a Wikipedia article about ducted-fan propulsion (which is the technical term for how the aircraft in Avatar work).

[Taw Makto]

IIRC there's someone over on X-Plane.org working on a Samson. Some brave soul that's rather closer to the beginning of the learning curve than the end. I'll be sure and post something here if anything comes of it.

I went flying in Peru last night in the direction of Machu Picchu. Kind of cool, but kind of depressing too. I'm becoming aware that X-Plane flying isn't going to compare all that well with the film. Rainforest terrain is pretty bland from a couple of thousand feet up. And with X-Plane's limitations, it's not that exciting down low either. I'm planning on a simple experiment sometime soon after my jet's done to see what might really work. I have to get my sim system back up too....the ****pit's down for skinning. Been that way for about six months. Bummer. I feel the need, the need for speed.....well, simulated speed, that is.

( By the way, yes, I said ****PIT. I can't for the life of me understand the need to censor parts of words. That's taking it a bit far. Airplanes have ****PITS. There's nothing wrong with that word!! It doesn't mean penis-pit. See? It will let that through, for all the sense it makes. Hehe, rant, rant, rant. Hard to please user. ****!!! )

[Sovereign]

Yeah this is what happened at AF--Coke got censored (drop the e). Censors should be smarter (predefined whitelist of "words that contain bad words but are not themselves actually bad").

[Taw Makto]

Finally...an update. One can put up renders of a model in their CAD app all day long, but it's in the simulator that this project really needs to sing.

Here I'm descending into Rio Amazonas in Ecaudor. Lovely terrain, reminds me of a certain planet we all know and love. Much more to do on the jet, but the hard stuff is done. Time to tweak, time to paint...

[Human No More]

Nice!

[Taw Makto]

Glad you like it, HNM! But I realized today that my engines are unrealistically sized, and the wings need to be a bit further back on the fuselage. X-Plane lets you arbitrarily set the center of gravity, and that's a bit of a fudge on top of all the wonderful things it calculates with such great precision and speed. Fortunately, this is an airplane made up soley of 1's and 0's, so a correction is but fifteen minutes worth of pointing and clicking...not tens of thousands of dollars lost to error and new costs.

Time to point, time to click. More later!