VF-1 FLAPS

[Stamen0083]

I think the VF's vectoring thrust would be enough to maneuver. To bank, point the thrust in opposite directions.

As for turned stowed main geas... Almost all planes do it, since it saves space in the gear bay for the engines. If the Tomcat's gears were stowed unturned, it would poke through the wing glove, and it would just look ridiculous.

The A-10 is the only one I can think of that doesn't turn the main gear, and even then, much of the wheel IS sticking out from underneath.

[RosarioLuv]

hmm, i gotta get my aeronautical terms straight. I thought "bank" meant pointing the nose "up" whether to actually fly up, or turn (first you would use flaps or whatever to tilt the plane sideways, then straighten out, then "bank" "up" (relative to the nose). In either case, whether going up or sideways, I guess I mean, how do you control the VF-1's nose angle (pitch?) without elevators? I remember reading somewhere that the folks at Studio Nue were giving Kawamori a hard time for not putting elevators on the VF-1. If I were to guess, though, I would say the leg fins maybe could be used as elevators.

Back to FLAPS though, just how far can the wings sweep and still be aerodynamically viable (there just seems to be so little wing surface in its traditional delta swept position....plus the flaps overlap the legs and would be rendered useless as the legs would block the flaps from being able to move....so in full swept position the valk couldn't manuver with the flaps; it'd be stuck in the direction that it was going before it swept the wings back)

btw, more OT, but am I the only one that is bugged by the cavity between the head and the shoulders (in fighter mode)? Seems like that would cause a vaccum effect or at least massive drag with the air getting sucked over the head and slam right into the flat front of the shoulder tops....seems like it might be solved if the shoulders were slopped more. That would look interesting in battroid though...

Edited July 13, 2004 by redemption

[Stamen0083]

hmm, i gotta get my aeronautical terms straight.  I thought "bank" meant pointing the nose "up" whether to actually fly up, or turn (first you would use flaps or whatever to tilt the plane sideways, then straighten out, then "bank" "up" (relative to the nose).

Pitch: Nose up/down

Yaw: Nose left/right

Bank: Rotate on central axis.

//Hmm... that should be Roll, not Bank.

Vectored thrust creates a force, and it might be enough to pitch the nose. I don't know whether it is powerful enough to do so, but it DOES create a force, since changing the thrust direction creates an additional force vector.

The F-14 had no problems with sweeping the wings back fully. At full sweep, no control surfaces on the 'cat moves, yet it can still turn and burn with the best of them.

The only problem I can see with the VF-1 would be stability: with no horizontal stabilizers, the plane is likely to pitch, unless the computer actively controls the thrust vectoring to compensate.

Edited July 13, 2004 by Stamen0083

[David Hingtgen]

Gotta nit-pick, since this is the topic of discussion:

Rotating about the central axis is ROLL. BANK is actually turning/changing heading. (the "pulling up while rolled to the side" part) And which is usually coupled with yaw. You can roll without banking or yawing. Your standard 360 roll for example, or a 4-point roll.

Flying with the wings swept: F-14 can get 90% of its lift from the fuselage and gloves under some circumstances, and I think gets 60% from the gloves in normal "swept-back" high-speed flight. VF-1 isn't quite a smooth in that area, but certainly has gloves, probably has some effect. Though it SURE doesn't even have .001% as lifting of a fuselage as the F-14 does, and that hurts it. F-14 is still one of the most aerodynamically efficient aircraft designs ever, period. And because of the glove/fuselage design, it can fly with large chunks of the wings gone.

Roll etc: same way the F-14 does, tail+spoilers when unswept, and differential tail when swept. Of course, VF-1 would use differential thrust vectoring, having no h.stabs. But the vectoring'd be very effective with the engine spacing.

Having no ailerons is not a problem. B-52's don't. B-1B's don't. Tornados don't. F-111's don't.

Edited July 13, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[Stamen0083]

Everything's been cut up:

And the cove doors closed:

And this has nothing to do with VF-1 flaps, but I had to scratch build gear doors on my VF-0S because I misplaced a few of them. Of course, after building one, I have to build them all.

Not a bad likeness, eh?

[Chronocidal]

Hmmm.. looks good.. On the subject of a Tomcat's flaps, I found a pretty nice diagram of exactly what they do. I'm attempting to build a high-detail Flight Sim model of an F-14, cause I've never seen one that actually did these flaps right (understandable though.. OY! so many panels to animate...>_<) So far I have the cove door, and eyebrow door as one piece each, but I'll need to split them so I have a place for the actual sections that hold the flaps on.. sheesh. it's like the wing splits into two sections, then forms two separate airfoils. O_O

Sorry if the image is too big, I can reduce it more, but the text becomes pretty hard to read at 800 pixels wide.

[Stamen0083]

David wasn't kidding when he said the Tomcat flaps are the most complicated in the world. I'm having a hard time deciding how to attach the flaps themselves to the wing.

The slats are simple enough. The flaps, though...

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, I've been having the same problem on my CG Tomcat model.. I just figured it out though.. if you look at the top of a Tomcat's wing, there are small breaks in the spoiler that are raised up slightly..two per section on the 3 sectioned flap. Those are the places where the flaps are mounted... they had to leave cutouts in the spoilers and upper eyebrow door to allow clearance around the wing sections. I don't know where those sections would be in the VF-1. You may need to just find a good place to do it, like between spoilers, or flap sections, something that looks like a likely place for there to be a wing structure support, and then add those supports to the back of the wing to glue the flaps to. When I get the model done, I'll post a picture of what I mean.

[Chronocidal]

Sorry to take so long, took a while to get the wing structure looking good, but I think I've got it working now... This model doesn't have any of the actual mechanisms for moving the flaps, but from what I've seen, this is approximately how they mount.