Semi-rigid rotor. A true advancement in swashplate helicopters. - Garry's Mod

All previous helicopters I have posted use a rigid rotor. Meaning that the rotor blades can only move chord wise (It can only change angle of attack). All of the forces acting on blade get transferred to the body. During lateral flight, the changes in relative speed of the rotor blades causes a torque to occur on the rest of the craft, this makes it difficult to fly easily (thus more skill is required to fly) and to get good control. Proportional controls are practically a must because of offset swashplate positions needed to maintain lateral flight. At very high airspeeds a rigid rotor helicopter will become so unstable that huge amounts of cyclic are required to maintain flight, this along with major collective changes assure a crash. To get away from this, the blades can be made to flap lengthwise freely, this means that it does two things. - Uneven lift caused by different airspeed goes into tilting the rotor disk and not the body. The rotor being a giant gyroscope makes it very hard to tilt, uneven lift goes into tilting it and not the whole helicopter. - Small changes in blade pitch and CG position differences get dampened, so much less vibrations are felt in the airframe. (Smooth as silk ride :D ) [IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x92/XXXmags/gm_construct0000-1.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x92/XXXmags/gm_construct0001.jpg[/IMG] Initial tests: [MEDIA]http://youtube.com/watch?v=Abs7n1_uEMg[/MEDIA] Later tests showing the amazing potential this has: [MEDIA]http://youtube.com/watch?v=NfD6VXKKdx0[/MEDIA] And one of the most amazing this, a fully DUPLICATED helicopter. [MEDIA]http://youtube.com/watch?v=fAKdSmwpE-I[/MEDIA] The degradation caused by duplication is CLOSE TO NONE. This is possible because the rotor blades were constrained on the helicopter with its angles aligned with those of the world (the prop's angles and the worlds were aligned). Along with that, being duplicated at said angle makes sure there is very little degradation. The blades are attached to the shaft via av. ballsocket, so its very sensitive to this. There is a problem with this though, if a multi-bladed helicopter (more then 2 blades) wanted to be made, all blades would have to be put on the rotor each time a duplication is spawned. If all blades aren't spawned with their axes aligned, will would fail if constrained. Although I have tried this in the past, this axis alignment was CRITICAL to the success of a semi-rigid rotor. Strange detail but a critical one.

It's revolutionary! No seriously. THIS is a true revolution. It's simple, it functions better than any other helicopter I've seen, AND it can be duplicated. This is a true step in swashplate helicopter design. My only complaint; The test heli is damn ugly, work on making it prettier.

This looks wonderful. I have been trying to get a simple swash-plate to work for months now. Its always so frustrating when someone else seems to have done it so simply. Im asuming it has only about 6 working parts : power source (wheel), rotor axle, swash-plate base, rotating upper plate and the two rotors. Well done. I am incredibly impressed and awed at what i can assume is a very important technological part of creating a working helicopter. (In Gmod at least)

Damn! That flyes like a real heli. Nice!

@ Cherry. Yes, its constructed exactly like that.

Fucking amazing. Congrats getting this to fly so smoothly and defeating the dupe rape that likes to accompany swashplates.

Amazingly Awesomely Epicly COOL! Whats the map in the video? Dupe for me please?

[QUOTE=XXXmags;21163488]@ Cherry. Yes, its constructed exactly like that.[/QUOTE] You couldn't possibly send me the schematics of it? I am fascinated by how it appears so stable. What are the weight values you used? is the swash plate heavy or light?

Awesome. Say...could you post a tutorial?

Well it seems like a big help to the stability of your previous swashplate designs, I don't see it as a vast improvement on the design itself. Seems like the next logical step but I wouldn't call it revolutionary. Good on you for figuring out how to prevent dupe-corruption; man have I been THERE! Also, I don't remember your swashplate having pitch; new?

Really really sexy

After watching the videos a few times, it donned on me that it looks like the heli has trouble maintaining altitude. Is that true, or are you just flying low all the time?

Truly amazing! The last video actualyl made me lol ! Schematics would be really helpful ;) heehee theres an advert for an RC Helicopter at the bottom of the page :P

@Meeph Flying low most of the time, flight dynamics are the same if its flying high or low. Flying low just looks cooler cause you got the ground rushing under you. @Gun Oh man its a GREAT improvement. The diminish in vibrations is a plus but its when moving forward that one can see the difference, its MUCH easier to fly then a rigid rotor.

Revolutionary :smugdog: I like how simple the test heli's shape is :D Also like the swashplate, sehr gut.

If you guys didn't know this guy has spent forever, I mean forever making helicopters using swashplates, Trying to make them function perfectly in all ways, so congrats it's very nice to see that you've actually done it, body is a bit bland and simple but nice to say the least and it functions amazingly very nice overall.

It indeed is very awesome. However, It looks very pain in the assy to build and I think it's going to have problems when you attatch guns and shit to it since there's nothing stabilizing the body, sort of. Aaaaaaah what the hell i'm just whining. It's awesome.

A True Advancement :smug:

Very awesome. And holy shit you have weird taste in music.

cool heli bro

Been looking through your threads. It's nice to see I'm not the only one who gets an idea then fixes his sights on improving it, engineering it to perfection. This is what you have done. I didn't really appreciate what you had done over the last year but i can see that you have put so much work into this and i apologise if i ever said it was simple as i should understand that no mater what it looks like, the processes involved are anything but. Congratulations!

[QUOTE=kp3;21170182]It indeed is very awesome. However, It looks very pain in the assy to build and I think it's going to have problems when you attatch guns and shit to it since there's nothing stabilizing the body, sort of. Aaaaaaah what the hell i'm just whining. It's awesome.[/QUOTE] Thats why you have to adjust the weight to fit the heli. Which would mean making the entire mechanism more powerful to lift that kind of weight, but that's only a minor setback. And besides, I rarely see helicopters used in battles on Gmod anyway, and even if they are, they're just hovering targets that get raped by the nearest guided missile.

[QUOTE=DONUT KING;21174353] they're just hovering targets that get raped by the nearest guided missile.[/QUOTE] Ye, that happens alot :(

Are you kidding I remember the old days on Edberg's servers when we used to have helicopter fights against other helicopters and helicopters against planes all the time with people like PieJesu, Edberg and everybody, it was a lot fun back then, I have no idea what happened to everyone though....

Back long time ago i tried this. It didnt work so well as this though.

Now if it just was an actual swashplate :v:

[QUOTE=PacX;21195539]Now if it just was an actual swashplate :v:[/QUOTE] What do you mean?

Hey Mags, try duping a 4 blade heli with this [url]http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=20112122&postcount=1[/url] Edit: I was wondering, I don't remember where I saw you say it, but I had a question about the drag on the body. You said that if the net drag on the body is too low, it will act like an inverted pendulum and be unstable. But if the net drag was at or above the force on the body then it will auto level out. But isnt the net force on the body like at the center of the rotor or did I just read it wrong?

If the net drag from the body is below its center of mass, it will act as a inverted pendulum, if it is above or at it, it will be neutrally stable or self correcting. The rotor doesn't really take much part in this because all the drag it produces gets canceled out by its own thrust, it does though create some resistance to angular movement, but not much. Strangely enough though, some props (excluding their volume) create more drag then others, for example: The tesla wheels that come with PHX slow down much faster then the airplane wheels of the XQM pack thats also bundled with PHX.

this helicopter is perfect. Absalutly perfect. Extremely similar to the real thing, with a nearly identical system. If this isnt a revolution i dont know what is. I would like a dupe of just the rotor to disect it a bit. When I build of video it usually doesnt go over well. Or preferably, tutorial? Even a diagram detailing your methods. This is the greatest amount of perfection i've seen in any given space, and i thought my nacelle vtols were pretty sweet :v: How did you manage to get the body to follow the rotor so easily? I would have expected a constant pendulum when slowing from high speed. BTW, i reccomend a disk shaped hologram on top of the rotorshaft to hide the space generated by centrifugal force, at least i would. *runs off to try to build one* Edit: I really cant figure this out. Can we please have a tutorial?