Quick Note on VTOL Ornithopter Design 

There's a fair bit of headroom on these (they're extremely light). The concept could definitely be upscaled considerably. Possibly a hell of a lot with proportional increases in joint weight. But I haven't done much experimentation with large ornithopters yet

Flyout! Highly recommend.

You do, especially if you're stuck or building airplanes in games where you have to go way out of your way to make them behave in realistic or interesting ways.

That would be terrific, but so far all my attempts to split the wing have caused immediate destruction at high frequencies. I bet it can be done, but I'm not sure how.

I've played with that a little. Still trying to nail down a purely wing-based solution for the time being, though. This version has actually gone on to be entirely controllable, though it has a slow top speed (105 knots or so) and is a bit shake-happy at that speed. Going to release it shortly, as I don't think this particular design has much more room for improvement

@@decofox6789 sorry I forgot the name at the tame, but I was referring to a reaction wheel, I'm excited to see how this one works though I've been trying to work on these designs since I first saw you post about it. Honestly some of the most interesting planes I've seen in this game so far.

Not yet; still trying to harass it into being reasonable to fly, as that version goes through like three control reversals while transitioning. Current version is almost ready. My latest edited ornithopter video goes into how the hinge stack is designed though, and the (mechanically similar) ornithopter it features is available on the Flyout discord. It doesn't *quite* VTOL (though it is very close), but it's also a lot less finicky than this example making the jump to being able to fly backwards really complicates things, it turns out. You're also welcome to hit me up on discord and I'll try to explain what I've got / shoot you unfinished examples. >Dune style The dune config offers some serious advantages, particularly in Flyout. With eight blades stacked and countering each other like that, you can achieve glassy-smooth flight while still flapping the wings rather than rocking them the way I am here. The big advantage of that is it means you can do all your VTOL control mixing by messing with flap amplitude and not touching your actual surfaces. Makes it a lot easier to deal with control mixing and prevent adverse yaw, which has been a huge adventure on this design. I'm with you, though: I'm most interested in ornithopters in nature. After the VTOL goal is achieved, I'm going to move on to single-wing bird-alike designs that concentrate on gliding efficiency. I'd like to get an ornithopter motor glider flying.

Awesome stuff@@decofox6789. I'm excited to see where this project takes you - as you said its probably the less easy option, but hopefully its much more rewarding. The method you are pursuing should ultimately be more versatile than the dune method due to its ability to function in more dimensions (like backwards). It strikes me that once you have this method largely tamed you could attempt combining the two techniques (as dragonflies can obviously control their flap amplitude), which may provide an even more capable platform, albeit with the obvious weight and complexity penalties. The bird wing project sounds really cool. I worry you may face a lot of challenges as bird wings are so heavily dependant on multi-axis joints in the wings, and flexible wing structure. Good Luck! May well take you up on the discord offer. Is username the same as youtube?

@@quantumidgit2466 yeah, same username

@@decofox6789 one final thing I meant to say - you talk about dragonflies at high angles when flying backwards. This is absolutely right, and they are often at angles as steep as 90 degrees, looking vertically upward when flying backward. They can, however, also fly much more slowly backwards when in hover whilst horizontal. This is done by (loosely) alternating 'lifting' wingbeats and backwards propulsive wing beats, adopting a kind of wingbeat by wingbeat feedback system for each wing individually. The same goes for translating left and right. Really cool, but impossible to do in flyout (or on real models without very complex control architecture, though there are interesting opportunities to implement AI for this, to provide a more organic control system)

It would help a lot, but these projects are about the journey for me as opposed to the results. My interest is primarily with "pure" ornithopters and trying to replicate what we see in nature. No shade to people who do use other maneuvering solutions though.

@@decofox6789 would bending the fuselage between the wing banks allow roll control? By putting one set of wings close together and the other ends far apart it could cause some sort of interference while shifting center of gravity and cause a roll. Maybe that could balance out unwanted roll. I don't think any animals bend their bodies like that to move, but you're still relying on the wings.

You can file edit hinges to any speed

@@decofox6789 what file do I need to edit?

@@somerandomdude714 the aircraft config file. I forget exactly what it's called. Open up the aircraft in your aircraft folder (it's in app data/locallow/stonext games/Flyout) and search for "speed=". I recommend setting your hinge speed in the editor to something unique so it's easy to find. IE: set it to "622" so you can then find and replace "speed=622" for "speed=3000", or something

@@decofox6789 Thank you This helps a lot