God damn that airspeed indicator + the amplitude warning lights are AMAZING. Also, the extent of manual and "dumb" (not as complexly automated) solutions feels especially appropriate to an ornithopter not just for the pilot experience it'll provide but with its connotations to dune -- gotta watch out for too much use of thinking machines after all.
I love ornithopters so much! They tickle the complex mathematics, aerospace, mechanical principals, military engineering and vehicle driving parts of my brain all at the same time in ways that nothing else does.
I am impressed by the work of you and Messier to get something like this flying. Do like my ornithopters, even if they seem very impractical for something of the size of human transport. But they are just so darn cool. And is a nice looking aircraft you manage to make to.
I find it fascinating how different ornithopters are in every sandbox game. Some struggle with physics, but others manage physics well but lack something else (like Scrap Mechanic)
The Birds of Paradise lore has been expanding consistently as I work on these things, since it's been the fodder for all my greebling and livery work. It'll turn into an actual written story some day. The setting the Birds of Paradise reside in is actually extremely long-lived and important to me (I first conceived of it about fourteen years ago and it's been a huge part of my creative life ever since) , but it's somehow only amounted to a small handful of short stories on my part. When I get around to the subject, I'll certainly mention it on this channel. Hell, maybe I'll end up consistently doing little lore drops and that'll turn into something itself.
They're a lot tricker to get to work since the update, but still pretty doable. I recommend just slapping the wing mechanism together (maybe without the amplitude control hinge, to start) and just screwing around with it on some simple testbed aircraft. It's a lot easier to iterate once you have it at least moving.
There are a few considerations. Like conventional aircraft, you have to consider center of pressure and you ideally want it behind center of mass by some margin. Ornithopters complicate this principle in a few ways. For one, ornithopters generate INSANE thrust while they're in their "power band", and this thrust is concentrated toward the wingtips. This means your wingtips need to be somewhere where they won't cause problems for your thrust line, because you can imagine them as where giant engines are located. So you have to be careful with dihedral. For another, since we're directing thrust downward for V/STOL and controlling pitch and roll with differential control inputs, we can't have our wings as far back as we'd normally want. Actually, we want the center of mass to fall between the sets of wings, but still in front of the center of pressure. As a result, you don't actually have a ton of options with wing placement . The range that will produce a flyable ornithopter is very narrow. I usually start by mounting my wings equidistant to the center of mass on either side, and then just slide them around until it flies right.
How do you get the hinges to rotate for an unlimited amount of time? I have been trying but can't get it to work for me. It would also help if you could explain how you got them to rotate so fast
You can enter arbitrary values in hinge max and min slots. I set my min to 0 and my max to some arbitrarily huge value like 10000000000000. Speed can also be set to arbitrary values, but the editor is capped at 1000 deg/s. 1000 degrees per second is fast enough for some ornithopters, particularly those with longer wings. But if you need faster (like this one) you can edit the aircraft data file in a text editor and set the speed to any value. The easiest way to do this is to set the speed to something distinct in the editor (say 420 or whatever) and save it. Then open the file and search "Speed=420" and replace all instances of it with "Speed=4000" or whatever speed you want to go to.
@@nullozmko9397 appdata/locallow/stonext games/Flyout/craft/[your craft file] Locallow is most easily accessible by entering "%appdata%" into the file address bar. That'll take you to /roaming though, so drop back one directory level and then go into locallow. IIRC there's also a command that takes you direct to locallow but I forget it
As amazing as Create is, it doesn't look (at least from what I've seen) to have the nuance that makes ornithopters interesting, so probably not a ton of them. I'm also a huge dirigible fan though, and a giant mobile living space really plays to minecraft's advantages.
You gotta get into it as there's no other way of understanding what he's talking about. So as far as I understand the whole thing is that mankind simplified flight to the maximum which is probably gliding while people try to avoid full complexity and thus are stuck in the middle with some ornithopter designs. So I guess the issue is that some half-baked medium complexity does not work and the more the more you look for purely mechanical solutions. And no matter how tempting the dragonfly design is, the largest dragonfly like beast lived in the Late Carboniferous (300 million years ago) and were called Meganeura and had just a wingspan of 75 cm or less than 30 inch.
Amazing! I also built an ornithopter, but in KSP. I used a flexible wing configuration like the dragonfly you mentioned in 5:15 and it was super effective, even with a low frequency flapping. I don't know how flyout works, but I imagine if you could split those flaps into three or four sections and have them camber more towards the tip it would have a great impact on performance. Oh, and it amazes me how stable it is, congratulations! My flappy thing: ruclips.net/video/sEvEN_lgqw0/видео.htmlsi=Yqud67SyToz-_a3J
Missed this originally! I've actually flown yours in the past, though I believe it was an older model. I tried to get ornithopters to fly in KSP too but wasn't getting anywhere and eventually gave up. Yours is very impressive. >Dynamic wing flex in Flyout It's conceivably possible, but I have yet to get it to behave well. It's strangely difficult to get joints to experience flop on demand. I have gotten it to kind of work using transverse-mounted wing segments with their flex option turned on (flyout has wing flex optionally built in, but it only works on the up and down axis, not twisting), and that kind of works, but it isn't terrific. Part of it is that Flyout, unlike other building games, considers spanwise flow and ground effect, but it relies on the whole wing existing as a unit to perform those operations. So if you split the wing, it behaves as many more wings with smaller wingspans rather than one large wing. You end up paying for that in induced drag and lack of ground effect. It may still be the best strategy, though, especially for low frequency ornithopters. Now that I've had luck building high-frequency VTOLs, I'm going to put some time into working on low frequency double and monowing designs, and explore that sort of strategy a little closer. Will post results.
@@decofox6789 Cool! I'm so glad to know you flew my craft. I've seen your old stormworks videos, they were part of my research back then. Ground effect, induced drag? Amazing how flyout simulates all that. I'm looking forward to see your results.
Very nice. I like that it doesn't fly like a helicopter, tiltwing or vtol but has it's own unique handling regime.
God damn that airspeed indicator + the amplitude warning lights are AMAZING. Also, the extent of manual and "dumb" (not as complexly automated) solutions feels especially appropriate to an ornithopter not just for the pilot experience it'll provide but with its connotations to dune -- gotta watch out for too much use of thinking machines after all.
I love ornithopters so much! They tickle the complex mathematics, aerospace, mechanical principals, military engineering and vehicle driving parts of my brain all at the same time in ways that nothing else does.
When the scripting comes.. i cant wait what comes from you !! very inspiring stuff !
I love the design, and the gliding is cool too. I also enjoyed the world building in the beginning.
I love the writing and voiceover of that intro, it is *chef's kiss*
I am impressed by the work of you and Messier to get something like this flying. Do like my ornithopters, even if they seem very impractical for something of the size of human transport. But they are just so darn cool.
And is a nice looking aircraft you manage to make to.
I find it fascinating how different ornithopters are in every sandbox game. Some struggle with physics, but others manage physics well but lack something else (like Scrap Mechanic)
Upgrading from Flyout to Flapout
i NEED more worldbuilding stuff like this
The Birds of Paradise lore has been expanding consistently as I work on these things, since it's been the fodder for all my greebling and livery work. It'll turn into an actual written story some day. The setting the Birds of Paradise reside in is actually extremely long-lived and important to me (I first conceived of it about fourteen years ago and it's been a huge part of my creative life ever since) , but it's somehow only amounted to a small handful of short stories on my part. When I get around to the subject, I'll certainly mention it on this channel. Hell, maybe I'll end up consistently doing little lore drops and that'll turn into something itself.
@@decofox6789 i hope to see much more soon!
Oh damn you can feel it responding to controls. very hard thing to convey through video. only imagine how it really feels. Noice!
I gave up on making one, cause I tried to add a third hinge and failed.
lmao I was planning on trying one today but I think I'm going to loose my hair on this as I'm already bad on copters
They're a lot tricker to get to work since the update, but still pretty doable. I recommend just slapping the wing mechanism together (maybe without the amplitude control hinge, to start) and just screwing around with it on some simple testbed aircraft. It's a lot easier to iterate once you have it at least moving.
Rene Riout sends his regards!
I may have to build a replica of that thing one of these days
I watched the whole video then at the end realized I wasn't smart enough to understand anything he said. But it was very cool.
“Humans are a spreadsheet species”
Yup😂
i need MORE of this!!!
How do you know where to place the wings?
There are a few considerations. Like conventional aircraft, you have to consider center of pressure and you ideally want it behind center of mass by some margin. Ornithopters complicate this principle in a few ways.
For one, ornithopters generate INSANE thrust while they're in their "power band", and this thrust is concentrated toward the wingtips. This means your wingtips need to be somewhere where they won't cause problems for your thrust line, because you can imagine them as where giant engines are located. So you have to be careful with dihedral.
For another, since we're directing thrust downward for V/STOL and controlling pitch and roll with differential control inputs, we can't have our wings as far back as we'd normally want. Actually, we want the center of mass to fall between the sets of wings, but still in front of the center of pressure.
As a result, you don't actually have a ton of options with wing placement . The range that will produce a flyable ornithopter is very narrow. I usually start by mounting my wings equidistant to the center of mass on either side, and then just slide them around until it flies right.
How do you get the hinges to rotate for an unlimited amount of time? I have been trying but can't get it to work for me. It would also help if you could explain how you got them to rotate so fast
You can enter arbitrary values in hinge max and min slots. I set my min to 0 and my max to some arbitrarily huge value like 10000000000000. Speed can also be set to arbitrary values, but the editor is capped at 1000 deg/s. 1000 degrees per second is fast enough for some ornithopters, particularly those with longer wings. But if you need faster (like this one) you can edit the aircraft data file in a text editor and set the speed to any value. The easiest way to do this is to set the speed to something distinct in the editor (say 420 or whatever) and save it. Then open the file and search "Speed=420" and replace all instances of it with "Speed=4000" or whatever speed you want to go to.
@@decofox6789 Ah okay, thank you so much, i needed this!
@@decofox6789 What's the easiest way to find the data file for a saved craft?
@@nullozmko9397 appdata/locallow/stonext games/Flyout/craft/[your craft file]
Locallow is most easily accessible by entering "%appdata%" into the file address bar. That'll take you to /roaming though, so drop back one directory level and then go into locallow.
IIRC there's also a command that takes you direct to locallow but I forget it
@@decofox6789 Thank you
will you be building ornithopters in minecraft if and when the Minecraft create submod "Create Aeronautics" comes out?
As amazing as Create is, it doesn't look (at least from what I've seen) to have the nuance that makes ornithopters interesting, so probably not a ton of them. I'm also a huge dirigible fan though, and a giant mobile living space really plays to minecraft's advantages.
Oh hey it's the guy he talked about.
fine, ill give it a go... i mean how hard could it be to- oh
You gotta get into it as there's no other way of understanding what he's talking about. So as far as I understand the whole thing is that mankind simplified flight to the maximum which is probably gliding while people try to avoid full complexity and thus are stuck in the middle with some ornithopter designs. So I guess the issue is that some half-baked medium complexity does not work and the more the more you look for purely mechanical solutions. And no matter how tempting the dragonfly design is, the largest dragonfly like beast lived in the Late Carboniferous (300 million years ago) and were called Meganeura and had just a wingspan of 75 cm or less than 30 inch.
Why is this labelled as microsoft flight simulator?
Beats me. I think I forgot to label it manually and RUclips latched onto the 10 seconds of FS2020 footage
Amazing! I also built an ornithopter, but in KSP. I used a flexible wing configuration like the dragonfly you mentioned in 5:15 and it was super effective, even with a low frequency flapping. I don't know how flyout works, but I imagine if you could split those flaps into three or four sections and have them camber more towards the tip it would have a great impact on performance.
Oh, and it amazes me how stable it is, congratulations!
My flappy thing: ruclips.net/video/sEvEN_lgqw0/видео.htmlsi=Yqud67SyToz-_a3J
Missed this originally! I've actually flown yours in the past, though I believe it was an older model. I tried to get ornithopters to fly in KSP too but wasn't getting anywhere and eventually gave up. Yours is very impressive.
>Dynamic wing flex in Flyout
It's conceivably possible, but I have yet to get it to behave well. It's strangely difficult to get joints to experience flop on demand. I have gotten it to kind of work using transverse-mounted wing segments with their flex option turned on (flyout has wing flex optionally built in, but it only works on the up and down axis, not twisting), and that kind of works, but it isn't terrific. Part of it is that Flyout, unlike other building games, considers spanwise flow and ground effect, but it relies on the whole wing existing as a unit to perform those operations. So if you split the wing, it behaves as many more wings with smaller wingspans rather than one large wing. You end up paying for that in induced drag and lack of ground effect. It may still be the best strategy, though, especially for low frequency ornithopters. Now that I've had luck building high-frequency VTOLs, I'm going to put some time into working on low frequency double and monowing designs, and explore that sort of strategy a little closer. Will post results.
@@decofox6789 Cool! I'm so glad to know you flew my craft. I've seen your old stormworks videos, they were part of my research back then.
Ground effect, induced drag? Amazing how flyout simulates all that. I'm looking forward to see your results.
The French fr
The french do making wacky things for some reason
i came here from the other onrithopter video