Aircraft Real & Fiction (Mostly Fiction)

[Zipper730]

I'm working on some graphic art of (mostly) fictional aircraft and fictional concepts based on real designs. Since I usually do try and make sure the design actually conforms to some basic engineering principles, I usually use a lot of precise drawings and have (been diagnosed with having) obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The first idea is based on the P-39 which would be turbocharger equipped (and probably will end up taking some lines from the P-63), as well as a P-39 with Spitfire wings (not just because they look cool, but because they perform well at high speed).

So far, the basics evolve from line-drawings that I found on wikipedia, which were drawn by a person named Kaboldy.

Since the image is huge, I basically screen capped the images to produce the desired

front,


top,


and side views
,

Which I've so far turned into a massive drawing, which I've scaled down, and posted as a thumbnail to avoid trouble (The version I'm using on my computer is 8400 x 8400, uncrossed, and if posted here, would either crash the system, cause the moderators to ban me, if not have an apoplectic attack!) that depict the top/forward and side/forward views with lines drawn to connect them and indicate that they are all to scale...

Kaboldy did a very good job with making sure all the lengths lined up (though the tail-fin, possibly the main-gears are a pixel off or so) with minimal editing.

The first part to get to is sifting through the threads regarding the XP-39, so as to find a good drawing of the intercooler side-scoop arrangement and work that into the drawing.

BTW: I'm using GIMP because my old computer needed a replacement, and Photoshop doesn't come in a program you can just buy (Photoshop CS2 is not compatible with the new operating system), so basically I have to either lease a program or go elsewhere, so I went elsewhere.

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff!

 

[AMCKen]

XP-39 with side scoop.
https://static.thisdayinaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/tdia/2016/04/XP-39web.jpg

More pics at:
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/bell-xp-39-airacobra/

2018/08/09 Why would a site not allow 'hot link'? Do they not want people to be looking at their stuff?

 

[Zipper730]

AMC Ken,

It loaded correctly...

 

[Zipper730]

I'm focusing on a set of diagrams of the P-61 which I'm currently working on: Again the problem is mostly lining the image up. Basically the best idea I've got is old Pythagoras's theorem, which also in this case requires me to measure the distance around the design to find the mid-line.

 

[Zipper730]

I found something interesting a few weeks/months ago: There's something called "Shipbucket FD" which are kind of these cartoony scaled drawings of fighters and bombers. They're not as detailed as I'd like but I've been fiddling with them to come up with some design concepts.

 

[Zipper730]

Single-Seat Firefly

I know a person named Hannah (who uses the screen-name KJ_Lesnick) who's a member of What-If Modelers who was curious why the FAA ordered it as a twin-seater when the idea was clearly outdated, and how a single-engined design would perform.

Since there were such proposals which offered speeds ranging from 331-357 knots (381-411 mph) depending on whether it was fitted with a Rolls-Royce Griffon, or Napier Sabre, it's clearly quite a difference over the 277 knots predicted (318-319 mph) and actual 275 knots (316 mph) seen in real life. This speed falls between the Hellcat and Corsair.

With the Firefly having a turning-circle tighter than an A6M as it was, the greater speeds would have been quite remarkable and could have, in some ways been better than the earliest marks of the Seafire, and would have reduced their dependency on our F6F's and F4U's quite a bit.

At her request, I offered to either edit a line-drawing or do an edit of an FD-scale Shipbucket drawing. I initially thought of using the line-drawing, but having to rescale everything to match and correct for misalignment, I decided to grow with the Shipbucket idea.

It would have been done awhile ago except that I excel at procrastination: The starting point was this image

which was produced by two guys named Radome and Darth Panda

The normal two-seat Firefly F.1 was 37'7" in length, 44'6" in span, and had a wing-area of 328 sqft. The Griffon powered version which, admittedly, slower than the two, is also the easiest to edit as the nose basically can be kept the same, and would have been 34'3" in length, 42' in wingspan, with a total wing-area of 292 sqft.

With the normal aircraft being 254 pixels in length, I calculated a length of 240 which was actually a complete fuck-up as I calculated the ratio of the wingspan of the two aircraft (I'm more interesting in jet-powered aircraft than propeller-driven aircraft and, as a result, I got used to the fact that the biggest number is usually the length), and I just realized that now...

Regardless, I'm going to post the image anyway because frankly I'm not the slightest bit prepared to re-edit everything all over again.

Here's my image edit...

I removed the color from the design because it's easier to make out details when you're going with NMF. Calculations for the wing was based on the fact that the single-seat proposal had a 292 square foot area. I sort of divided the spans and then either squared or square-rooted it or something that, and used the chord and height of the wing to apply the transformation to. The gun-barrels weren't changed in scale because 20mm is 20mm.

The cut-back of the after body was kind of eyeballed based on what looked right. I do remember that there was a specific spacing between some of the antennae so I drew a multi colored line (alternating black and white lines to derive scale) indicating the positions so they stayed right.

I might very well rework this or edit a more detailed drawing at a later date

BTW: Got permission to name the member