Knight26

Ok I tried Opus' dihedral concept, I'm not loving it, maybe it's just that I have not cut in the leading and trailing edges yet.

Also you'll note I went back to the old view angle without perspective.

Interesting, I like the idea of the ventral fin but that is a pretty serious dihedral and I can forsee some problems, I will play with it though. Anyway I put these together this afternoon after all my running around, playing with the weapons config and giving it a mono-wing config. Let me know what you think.

Opus: HUh?

forward swept canted, funny thing happened when I was previewing them, if you run them all together at a good pace it look like its flapping its wings, lol.

Forward swept, uncanted.

Next, rear swept, uncanted.

Ok I was playing around with wing configurations this morning, and came up with the following four basic concepts. Thanks MSW for the basic idea. I am still leaning towards an overall FSW config and may go to a single wing planform in the end, but I am still tyring to figure that out.

Will work on this more today, have the day off, to answer some questions first: @graham: I don't know why the majority of sci-fi fighters don't have built in rear visibility. But, as I explained in an earlier thread the cockpit has a sensor imaging system installed, which allows the crew to "see" through the walls of the cockpit. It is similar to what is seen on the YF-19. Also direct rearward visibility is pretty overrated, what is needed is the over the should view which the design still give you a pretty good view of. @phyrox: No, these are not lego inspired, though haterist at one point noticed the same thing and was going to look into seeing how to build the 5000 out of lego. Heck I haven't even picked up a lego in years, though I appreciate many of the things people have been able to do with them, those brick designs are pretty versitile. @MSW: Interesting design, maybe I can work in some elements, with your permission, but those cruciform wings might get in the way of the docking fixture. We will see how it progresses.

Well the pilots do like to see, so the canopy isn't going to go away, as for the weapons, I have no clue what you are talking about.

What is the tachikoma fighting against?

The 4000 and 5000 are superiority fighters, designed to get in close and dogfight. They are the multirole workhorses of the confederation. THe 4000 was also the first digfighter to carry any kind of ordnance that could threaten a capship, that torpedo tube. Mind you all that can do is take out surface emplacements, turrets, sensors, observation domes, etc... These are the close in knife fighters, so the 4000 will end up covered in thrusters with a strong gun armament and secondary missiles, the tubes are already in, uses a magazine instead of the more typical single missile per tube on other fighters. This was done as a means of better protecting the missiles, but proved too weighty and prone to breakdown so on the 5000 they went back to the old style with added armor. Right now after the wings my biggest concern is the front of the engines and seeing how to blend that area better, try to get around the limitations of ACAD.

Just for reference, here is the original 4000 design. As you can see it was not a very well executed design. The redesign will probably not be as well but I will put more thought into it as the sidestory my friend Kevin is writing will feature it. I'm considering something of a box wing on this redesign, sort of a bi-plane config, but we will see.

Ok how about a redesign of a redesign, if that makes sense? Basically the Splicer 5000, the blue fighter in this thread is a direct development off an earlier aircraft, kind of like the F-20 is to the F-5, or more appropriately the Su-37 to the original model Su-27. In this case the Splicer 4000 was a highly advanced, marginally experimental plaene, and when it was first introduced was one of the best around. Unfortunately it couldn't be upgraded because of how the systems were all integrated together. The 5000 was borne as a result. Now this craft never recieved the advanced PDE/grav engine so no need for intakes. However since the 5k comes from the 4k I am trying to keep the engines cockpit as close as possible. The docking mounts that are on currently will be deleted after I figure out the new wings. Well here is the start, let me know what you think, and of course once it is done I will texture it. I think it needs a new color instead of blue though, maybe a gray shade, thoughts? Comments are appreciated.

Hmm, I could try to compose something like that this weekend, smaller angle lense on the camera, put it in front of the cockpit Barker Class if the background and other fighters zipping about, hmm.

How can you not see it? Anyway the wings will not be thinned out, they have a lot of structure in them, remember those are the engines on the end.

For those who don't know where I got the inspiration for the second in cockpit shot:

And an exterior shot in the debris field.

And the second one.

A recreation of one of my favorite in cockpit aviation photos.

Of Course the registry picture.

below and behind

Ok she's finished, bonus points to whomever can identify the squadron logo.

I dunno Jovovich never really did anything for me, too skinny, now henstridge from species, oh yeah there is a super hottie.

Below and behind