Aircraft - Beechcraft Starship 2000

[Rigel]

This is my latest project. I found this plane on Youtube and fell in love with it immediately (Burt Rutan's tend to do that for me). It's unfortunate it never succeeded.





Here is the start of the model. I am using the techniques that I learned in BillS's MiG 3 tutorial.

[Taranis]

very nice design to pursue, looks like a great start , I want to get out of the space ship modelling and enter the current world and model Planes and Cars for a change

[Rigel]

Thanks Ger! By all means, go model some planes and cars. I'd love to see what your talent could do with the subject.

[BillS]

Pokes his head in... Did I hear my name?

I'd like to see what you come up with to Taranis.

@ Rigel. Some of those poly lines going out the wing seem a little tightly packed and look to be causing a bit of a bump in the airfoil shape. You can see it best in the 3rd and 5th image. You may want to try and loosen them up a bit while its still early on. If you have modeler 32bit installed.... OnEdge makes it simple to move them around and not break the shape.

[Rigel]

I've been wondering about that bump in the wing. Lines to close together. . . great! I'll have a crack at that.

[Taranis]

Thanks BillS and Rigel for the encouragement.

Once I have finished the Enterprise Tutorial I want to models some old style cars...
from 1930s to 1960s era, same with old passenger planes. even one of my favorite designs,
the Consolidated PBY Catalina, for me a most versatile craft.

Its also for a project I have been thinking about for some time now.

so I am looking at all the tutorials I can find.

[david webster]

Thats a good start Rigel, what is great to see is that you are putting into practice what you have learnt from Bill's Mig tutorial, look forward to more updates.

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by Taranis

the Consolidated PBY Catalina, for me a most versatile craft.

One of my all time favourite airplanes.

Originally Posted by david webster

Thats a good start Rigel, what is great to see is that you are putting into practice what you have learnt from Bill's Mig tutorial, look forward to more updates.

Thanks David!

[Taranis]

Originally Posted by Rigel

One of my all time favourite airplanes.

If I could fly (without flapping my wings, This is what I would aim for) a thing of beauty

[Rigel]

I spent a couple of hours working on the wing yesterday. Realized that in the drawings I'm using they were drawn with the flaps extended, so the middle section of the wing is wrong. I may just scrap what I have and start over. After I spend some time studying the cut-away drawing to try and understand the wing shape.

[Taranis]

ouch..... boy do I know how that feels.... I have done and undone only to redo my models after finding that something was amiss, not fun.

Thus keeping my unofficial title of "Captain Slow" lol

[Mikala]

Originally Posted by Taranis

ouch..... boy do I know how that feels.... I have done and undone only to redo my models after finding that something was amiss, not fun.

Thus keeping my unofficial title of "Captain Slow" lol

Ha lately I've been Cap'n Standstill!
Subscribed.

[BillS]

You may want to try and copy and paste the polys that you are going to use for the wing into a new layer then shape them there and extend them out to the tip and work from there. That is assuming that the wing is a separate piece.

[Rigel]

In the photos, the wing seems to be a separate piece, up to a point.

The main problem I was running into were the low quality 3-view drawings; they made the extended flaps look like the wing's trailing edge. It was after looking at some of the photos that I realized that part of the wing isn't that long (front to back). This thing almost has three wings attached together; the part closest to the hull is really thick and is actually curved more on the bottom than the top (because the engine sits on top of it). Then on the outboard side of the engine, the trailing edge is more forward than the wing inboard of the engine, until the flaps extend then it matches up. Then the third piece is the outermost part where the ailerons are.

I've got the shape where I want it. Now I have to make sure that I'm ready to freeze it, then join the sections together to make it look like all one piece.

[BillS]

I'm sure you'll get it

Soon I'll have you designing R/C planes and talking about NACA airfoils.. Reynolds #'s

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by BillS

I'm sure you'll get it

Soon I'll have you designing R/C planes and talking about NACA airfoils.. Reynolds #'s

The idea has already been put in my mind, after seeing this:

[BillS]

That is pretty damn cool I'm going to have to wait until I get home to actually hear it.

There used to be a program out there called modelCAD that I always wanted to get. You gave it the flight parameters, engine, dimensions etc. Then you made basically drew out the top and side outline and it filled in just about everything else. When you were done you could send it to a plotter to print your plans.

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by BillS

That is pretty damn cool I'm going to have to wait until I get home to actually hear it.

There used to be a program out there called modelCAD that I always wanted to get. You gave it the flight parameters, engine, dimensions etc. Then you made basically drew out the top and side outline and it filled in just about everything else. When you were done you could send it to a plotter to print your plans.

That sounds cool as well.

I'd love to use a 3D printer to knock RC planes, now that I know it can be done.

[Rigel]

Spent a few hours today working on the tipsails (the vertical stabilizers on the wing tips).

Here are some renders of where I'm at. I've got the wing where I want, shape-wise, I just need to freeze it at some point and eliminate the gap between the sections.

The tipsails are not ready to show in sub-d yet. But hey! It's starting to look like a Starship now.

[BillS]

That is looking damn nice!

[Rigel]

Thanks Bill.

[Rigel]

Did some work on the tipsail. I froze the sub-d mesh, cut out the rudder, cut out the rudder trim tab, then finished off the edges of the rudder and trim tab. Did a lot of optimizing on the tipsail. Still need to reduce the poly count somewhat and finish the edge where the rudder meets it. Also build the three hinges for the rudder.

[Rigel]

Tipsail, rudder and rudder trim tab complete.

[Merlin]

The History Channel series Boneyard did an episode that featured the Starship !
See attached link

http://www.history.com/shows/boneyar...d-the-starship

[TheGreatRaja]

very nice, to bad they stopped making them! Great job!

[Rigel]

Thanks for dropping by TGR!

@Merlin: yes, I've seen that video. Thanks.

[Rigel]

I know it doesn't look like much, but. . .

I changed the shape of the tipsail (mostly the rounded pod part at the bottom), corrected the shape of the trim tab and knocked around 700 polygons out of it.

[BillS]

700 is nothing to sneeze at at this stage of the game.

[Rigel]

Yep. After all, once I mirrored the tipsail across, that was a savings of 1400 polygons.

[Woody]

Doing a great job on this bird Rigel - that thing is crazy looking.