Drop Ship (now with added pew pew)

[Brandlin]

Today's thought challenges:

• How to make the rear ramp longer to get a shallower open angle. An additional sliding piece looks necessary but that is going to make the door very very thick!
• Whether to mount both the engines close to the hull or to push the front engines out further so they dont eject into the rear intakes. Will anyone except me care? I'm trying to avoid the hunched shoulders look of the prototype where it became almost as wide as it was long.
• Whether to put a missile bay in the belly with opening doors. Will anyone want this? It wont be accessible with the model on the ground.
• Where and how to mount this to a flight stand. Especially if I mount it on a flight stand. Will anyone use it in flight?
• Whether to design the cockpit to be ply and styrene or resin cast - I'm not making it hollow, so resin would be easier however the weight will make the ship tip forwards to rest on its nose. Should I put a fifth landing gear under the cockpit?

Lots to mull over in my head and your views and comments welcome...

[Inso]

My thoughts:

No fifth landing gear.
Shorter legs for a shorter ramp OR lower the hinge point so that the ramp is longer and lower.
No missile bay underneath (it's a transport and wouldn't have weapons... the escort ships would have those).
Resin would be the better option for the cockpit.
You just need an 'X' cut-out, under the fuselage for the flight stand (like on GW fliers) so it could be further forward to compensate for the resin cockpit.
I think the front engines should be further out than the rear ones... I would be bothered by the current configuration.

[The_Beast]

Engines: wouldn't make more sense to make the rear ones a bit larger; assume they are sufficient to propel the ship forward, the four engines are just required for balance in VTO_? Another possibility for the forward engines is vectored thrust at an oblique angle.

Straight swivel, I'd think the forward engines should be farther out to avoid blast effects on the rear pylon, but vectored would take care of that.

Doug

[Brandlin]

My thoughts:

No fifth landing gear.
Shorter legs for a shorter ramp OR lower the hinge point so that the ramp is longer and lower.
No missile bay underneath (it's a transport and wouldn't have weapons... the escort ships would have those).
Resin would be the better option for the cockpit.
You just need an 'X' cut-out, under the fuselage for the flight stand (like on GW fliers) so it could be further forward to compensate for the resin cockpit.
I think the front engines should be further out than the rear ones... I would be bothered by the current configuration.

Thanks Inso Should have known I'd get a full response from you!

Engines: wouldn't make more sense to make the rear ones a bit larger; assume they are sufficient to propel the ship forward, the four engines are just required for balance in VTO_? Another possibility for the forward engines is vectored thrust at an oblique angle.

Straight swivel, I'd think the forward engines should be farther out to avoid blast effects on the rear pylon, but vectored would take care of that.

Doug

Thank You Doug.


In general my thoughts so far from my musings today have been

Resin cockpit, non detachable no extra landing gear.

Legs cant get any shorter to lower the ramp - its already only 5mm from the hull underside to the ground. (It really isn't a very sensible overall hull shape). However lowering the hinge point and making the door/ramp longer helps... i need to model the effect to see if it's enough, i think it wont be. A suggestion from the FOD is also to make the ramp slide out from under the hull... which would mean a chunk of redesign, but sounds interesting.

I like the underbelly storage/missile idea but you are right Inso unless its for carpet bombing the landing site then its not the weaponry this vehicle would need. SO i shall probably omit it.

It also means that attaching a flight stand should be easier - or more likely two Flight Stands, foward and aft - the sensible place to get them to mate/work is in the space on the 'bulge' between the landing gear. I quite like the idea of recessing a fairly large ring magnet into the hull skin, and then having an arrangement on the flight stand with a ball bearing that fits in the ring magnet so that the pitch and roll of the vehicle is poseable. :-)

As to Engines, I shall knock up some CAD models of a couple of options. Mostly this will be the following

Rear engines will be flush to the rear hull.
Forward engines - flush to the hull or extended outboard.
Forward and Rear engines same size or rear engines larger.
Both engines sets fully rotatable / poseable (it's no more work to make fully 360 swivels or just an arc)

[eilif]

Rather than making the door longer, why not just mold steps into the backside of the door? Sort of what you see on some corporate jets where the door opens down and becomes a stairway.

[Brandlin]

Rather than making the door longer, why not just mold steps into the backside of the door? Sort of what you see on some corporate jets where the door opens down and becomes a stairway.

Nice idea. However the rear ramp is for vehicles not just troops.

I have been wondering about putting troop doors on the sides of the hull. I MAY look at making them operable, rather than just surface detail. The problem with the design is that they would exit troops into the rear of the front engines... toasty!

[Brandlin]

Just a few images to show the arrangement of the Engines. Note these are WIP at the moment. They will need to be detailed so they can be 3d printed and then resin cast.

I decided to go for similar shaped engines fore and aft for simplicity. I'm still debating whether to push the forward engines further outboard to prevent them from ejecting into the rear ones. I'll fiddle with it to see what looks and feels right.

The engines are shown here in the standard forward thrust position, but the mechanism allows them to be placed in any of 12 locations.

[Westfalia Chris]

Nice idea. However the rear ramp is for vehicles not just troops.

I have been wondering about putting troop doors on the sides of the hull. I MAY look at making them operable, rather than just surface detail. The problem with the design is that they would exit troops into the rear of the front engines... toasty!

Now, I know that it will not go easy with the curved hull concept, but did you consider having the whole cargo pod floor slant down, like with the UD-4L from Aliens? A bit derivative, though.

Another option might be to have a sliding piece beneath the floor of the cargo compartment which can move outwards, then tilt down to act as a ramp. The door wouldn't actually be a ramp in that case, maybe have two parts swing outwards.

I've attached a quick sketch of how I imagine it to work. The edge of the compartment floor would need to be sloping down to match the extended ramp, as would possibly the outer edge of the ramp; and you'd need some guiding rails inside the compartment.

EDIT: Messed up the transparency.

[eilif]

It's kind of a cheat, but what about making the ramp a separate piece that doesn't fold into the capsule?  Just have it modeled in such a way that it looks like something that would fold up into capsule and leave a little bar or knotch at the capsules edge that it can be fitted into when the craft is set on the table.

Less moving and sliding parts is probably better for preserving paint jobs anyway.

[Brandlin]

WestfalliaChris - thanks for your input. This is what what suggested over on the forum of doom and i mentioned above...

Legs cant get any shorter to lower the ramp - its already only 5mm from the hull underside to the ground. (It really isn't a very sensible overall hull shape). However lowering the hinge point and making the door/ramp longer helps... i need to model the effect to see if it's enough, i think it wont be. A suggestion from the FOD is also to make the ramp slide out from under the hull... which would mean a chunk of redesign, but sounds interesting.

Your sketch is almost exactly what i am playing with at the moment. The issue is size. In order to get the slides and the 'axle' to allow the ramp to pivot at the end takes a few mm. Assuming a 2mm brass rod 'axle' for example you end up with around a 6mm 'slot' for the axle to ride in, and I'm not only on the limits of structural rigidity for the materials I have but also tat 6mm comes off available door height as the floor raises. I think this IS the solution, but i need to see how I can get it lower in the hull and then redisgn the structure around it.

Thank you for taking the time to draw your idea so neatly!

It's kind of a cheat, but what about making the ramp a separate piece that doesn't fold into the capsule?  Just have it modeled in such a way that it looks like something that would fold up into capsule and leave a little bar or knotch at the capsules edge that it can be fitted into when the craft is set on the table.

Less moving and sliding parts is probably better for preserving paint jobs anyway.

You are right -its a cheat. But something I might have to resort to :-(

[Inso]

You could always increase the height of the cargo bay to keep the door height similar.

Also, with the ramp sliding out from below the floor, I assume the actual door will raise upwards rather than lowering so you don't have to worry about the hinge interfering with the ramp.

Now that you are veering away from resin casting your existing mouth-wash bottle, you are no longer tied to the same dimensions/shape so if you lessened the curve on the bottom and increased the side height, it would provide a bit more space below the floor.

[Brandlin]

Yup lots of options. Importantly all of them require a lot of rework of the hull structure.

Time to play with blocks and basic shapes to get the geometry right before embarking on the quite large task of redesigning the structure... learning curve and all that.

[Inso]

Yup lots of options. Importantly all of them require a lot of rework of the hull structure.

Time to play with blocks and basic shapes to get the geometry right before embarking on the quite large task of redesigning the structure... learning curve and all that.

Rome wasn't built in a day... but when it was eventually built, it was awesome

[Brandlin]

Rome wasn't built in a day... but when it was eventually built, it was awesome

Rome didn't have me on the project :-p ;-)

[Brandlin]

Okay, so all basic components sized and fleshed out. Surface details are still broadly to complete but you can get a sense of the overall scales etc.

Lots more pictures on my blog.



Front View: shortened landing gear to make the hull feel squatter and reduce ramp angle.


Side view showing Ramp angle.