Aircraft - Wings of War - WIP - Artificial Imagination

[Artificial Imagination]

Ok folks, heres my go.

SOL and its child company ASOL...all waill be explained...

I'm at work right now so I don't have an image to upload just yet but I'll get working on my...erm...I don't think my chicken scratch counts as sketches but you get the idea...as soon as I get home.

As requested, a company logo, which I think I'll refine more later, MSPaint isn't the best as you can see but its all I have at work and I wanted to get the idea across before I forgot about it...and a brief company history.

AEROSPACE OPERATIONAL LOGISTICS
A SUBDIVISION OF SOLAR SOPERATIONAL LOGISTICS

SOLAR OPERATIONAL LOGISTICS, or SOL for short; was established in 1995 in the northern Scotland as a private company catering logistical and technical supprot primarily to the European Space Agency and other smaller projects in many countries in or surrounding Europe. As logistical support their role in the European Space Agency and the upkeep of the International Space Station, or ISS, brought them to the attention of NASA who contracted them to assist in the construction of the Lunar Habitat for use in the first manned mission to the Moon of the 21st century.

Due to the increased work load with NASA, SOL established an American division of the company dedicated entirely to working within the NASA framework; this division would become known as SOL-US. The European division of the company would continue to work almost exclusively with the European Space Agency but SOL would continue to be the trademark of the company.

During their work on the Lunar Habitat, several key engineers presented NASA with a prototype for an unmanned survey drone that would be used to help astronauts in the exploration of the lunar surface. Ultimately NASA rejected the drone after the initial design phase stating that it was a “unnecessary weight”. SOL however took the design instead to the US Air Force to try and sell the drone to them as an Unmanned Recon Drone. Immediately the Air Force fell in love with the Drone. The problems it would have faced on the lunar surface became non-existent for a terrestrial based product given that there was already extensive use of unmanned flying vehicles in use already; the drone simply had to be modified to fit the needs of the USAF.

After almost 8 years of faithful service the Recon Drone; nicknamed “Hawkeye”, was beginning to show its age. Despite numerous upgrades and re-works the original Hawkeye framework was limited. Current technology was allowing for smaller, faster UAVs which could also carry larger payloads. After 9 revisions and upgrades it was time for the Hawkeye to step down. Recent advances in computer technology meant that the new Predator UAV was becoming the predominant UAV in use by the USAF due to its versatility and range. SOL decided that given the success of the Hawkeye, a new division would be created to deal exclusively with the USAF and other Aircraft users. Aerospace Operational Logistics, ASOL, was born September of 2006, their first project, the Hawkeye-10.

Code named HE-10, the new Hawkeye would be a completely re-designed UAV with a new framework and completely new and most up-to-date computer systems. System redundancies, EMP shielding, onboard weapons platforms, high powered radar systems and communications systems, more versatility, these were all minimum system requirements set by the board of directors, what they saw as a way to keep Hawkeye in the sky as long as possible.

Planning and initial design should have begun in mid 2007 however, due to lengthy negotiations with the USAF and the upcoming trip to the ISS of SOL’s experimental launch vehicle for re-supply of any lunar missions in the near future, planning and initial design did not begin until early 2008, almost 8 months later than intended. This left ASOL with only 3 months to put a design on the table for prototyping and testing. As if to set a target for themselves, the designers and engineers working for ASOL set themselves a launch date of July 31st 2008 for the initial long range flight of the Hawkeye-10.

[Artificial Imagination]

Could someone, an admin or mod, change the category for me, I thought I had chose the F3D Contest but apparently not.

[Meurig]

Done.

And nice concept Looking forward to seeing it develop.

[DELTA]

Welcome aboard. Good to see you in the game

[Artificial Imagination]

Thanks Meurig, and thanks Delta, I hope I can keep up with everyone else lol.

[BillS]

Yaaaaaa Another one joins the fray!

[DELTA]

Can you imagine what we could do if we worked on a project together? LM watch out!

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by DELTA

Can you imagine what we could do if we worked on a project together? LM watch out!

Yep. I think we might set a new speed record for how fast a prototype fell out of the sky.

[Artificial Imagination]

LOL no kidding, although, it would be interesting to collaborate with everyone here, that would get interesting.

Little update on my progress...

I've started to re-work the logo, trying to get something I'm happy with while keeping the current look.

I've also started working on hashing out a box structure to work from to get a basic shape developed, I'll post some pix when i get home.

[ALp]

Originally Posted by Artificial Imagination

LOL no kidding, although, it would be interesting to collaborate with everyone here, that would get interesting.

Little update on my progress...

I've started to re-work the logo, trying to get something I'm happy with while keeping the current look.

I've also started working on hashing out a box structure to work from to get a basic shape developed, I'll post some pix when i get home.

Are you home now?

[Artificial Imagination]

You'd think that by going home early I would have had something to post by now, but unfortunately my wife was sick yesterday so I ended up playing with my daughter all day

I have Paint Shop sitting waiting for me as soon as I get home today to get this stuff going and the renders of the mock up won't take too long. Should have something to show later tonight.

Sorry for the delay.

[CAClark]

ASOL just reads like as-s hole LOL

[Artificial Imagination]

I wondered when someone would pick up on that hehehe

I can change it though if its going to be a problem.

[Elowan]

Originally Posted by CAClark

ASOL just reads like as-s hole LOL

Beat me to it! Two minds in the same hole so far. Heh.

[Artificial Imagination]

Great minds think alike hehehe

[Rigel]

Not a problem with the logo, heh heh. I was thinking it too, just didn't want to mention it.

[Artificial Imagination]

Hi guys, I just want to let everyone know that I haven't abandoned this, my lap top coped out on me the other night while I was trying to transfer everything to my portable hd, only having one internet connection is a pain with 3 computers, I guess I was just erm, running it a little too hard and it overheated, got lucky though, everything backed up ok to the hd and I just need to get it online, my boss gave me permission to bring it to work so tomorrow I'll have some stuff online to show you.

Sorry for the delay.

[Bishop]

Originally Posted by Rigel

Not a problem with the logo, heh heh. I was thinking it too, just didn't want to mention it.

Now what might have made it a REAL issue is if the logo was vaguely star-shaped.

[Artificial Imagination]

Originally Posted by Bishop

Now what might have made it a REAL issue is if the logo was vaguely star-shaped.

Hehehe, erm, ok, not taking that into account I have to re-worked logos to show you, The first is the Company Logo for A.S.O.L. and the second is erm, incorporating the Star shape of the S.O.L. logo, soething I thought rather poetice considering Sol is our sun

I've finaly got something to show you on my UAV, first a few explantions.

The thing on top are not going to be rotors, those are actually more in the style of an AWAC sensor pod. The idea is a multi-role high end UAV that can perform any role without having to swap out components. The air intakes on the forward section are for internal cooling of the computers and equipment associated with the sensor pod.

The onboard weapons at present include only 6 missiles, (taken I believe from Londo Molari-s missile pack in the resource section for placeholders) these however may be augmented by an internal missile bay, that design aspect has not yet been finalized. Additionaly an onboard 30 mm cannon is in the plans and may or may not be added.

Not shown in these images are the forward wings and engines, currently there are 2 designs being considered, a fixed engine configuration and VTOL style side mounted engines.

First the company Logos.





Secondly, we have some screen shots from Modeller including the Poly Count.









And finaly we have 2 Radiosity shots, one perspective and one upclose to the Sensor Pods.




Hope you guys like this, any ideas, comments and crits would be most welcomed

I'm sorry these updates took so long but between a sick baby and working overtime I haven't had a lot of time, but hopefully the following weeks will make a difference

[Rigel]

Looks good, especially in the radiosity shots.

[Artificial Imagination]

Thankyou

[DELTA]

Good Start.

[bmckain]

No crits from me yet, just to echo, it's looking really good.

[Artificial Imagination]

Thankyou both, having a little trouble deciding on how I want to do the wings and still incorporate landing gear, I've got something in the works at home which I'll try to post tonight or tomorrow for you all to see.

We're trying to get everything straight so we can buy a house right now, so this is kind aon the back burner for a few days.

[ALp]

Cool bird Cant wait to see more

[Artificial Imagination]

Well, this is kinda coming down to the wire now, I have no idea if I'm even going to be able to finish the modelling by the time the contest is over but I'm sure as hell going to try.

Long story short, life interfered as it always does, summer sucks when you have kid and just want to sit and lightwave.

Anyhow, what lmited time I did have to play had some good results.

After a few initial wind resistance tests and a preliminary test flight piggy backed on a 747 RnD decided that the whole air frame was too tall, the craft unstable at high altitude and unable to attain the promised speeds at low altitude so a reworked airframe was put into rapid construction. The entire unit is now lower and longer, the electronics of the sensor booms have been re-developed to fit into the smaller spaces and the internals re-worked to accomodate the new shape.

Renders in the works as we speak, should have something for you all relatively soon.

Better late than never...

[Artificial Imagination]

Ok, so, heres where we're at.

Some of the engineers involved decided that they would go ahead and test glide the HE-10 1a pictured above, suffice to say the 747 barely made it onto the runway before it ran out of furl, it took almost 5 hours to clean up the wreckage.

After the revised air frame was built and the HE-10 2a brought upto par, the project went into more tests and the glide pattern looked good. The second glide test went off without a hitch, this time however, over the pacific ocean, pictured below.

The initial paint job is a base designed to mask the Hawkeye at high altitude.

Also please find attached the latest image with the forward landing gear installed, note the mirrored image.

I thought it would be kinda cool to put the Hawkeye on top of a mirror plate to do the render but it kinda turned out too dark but still kind alooks cool.






As always comments and questions etc greatly appreciated.

Up next, the optical systems.

[bmckain]

Aha, somebody has been busy.

[Artificial Imagination]

Thankees!

Trying to work out the placement of the forward landing gear proved to be a challenge, especially considering each gear has 10 wheels :S Not sure yet if thats going to come back and bite me in the a$$ or not yet.

Work on the optical systems, dome cameras etc are proceeding as is the aft landing gear.

Should hopefully have more this weekend.

[Artificial Imagination]

Weellllllllllllllllll allllllllllllrighty then!!

Chances are that I'll never have this finished by the time the contest is over so I'm just going to keep plugging away and hopefully finish this before the end of the year, but who knows, I might get it done before next thursday :S

Anyway, I've redone the forward landing gear to a more traditional single wheel per gear and added in the aft gear, I realise that once I get the pictures up its going to look like a lot of this stuff is just "tacked" on there but this is how the original concept drawing went and I'm trying to keep to it.

I've also built a custom missile rig which I'm pretty happy with, its probably nothing like what is, was, or ever will be in use but it fits my needs and I think it looks cool.

I've added in camera domes and a few other bits and pieces to add variation to the design and I have some renders in the process at home.

I've got an animation storyboard and now I'm just trying to work up the courage to ask my lil lap top to do me one last favour before I let it sleep for a month or 2 lol If I can remember how to do Missile exhaust with particles anyway.

So thats an update of where I'm at with this one and a warning that I may not finish but I'm sure as hell going to keep trying.

I'll post the renders when I get home, god knows they should be done after 10 hours :S