Inspired by one of the most amazing machines to come out of the 50s.
The basic idea is two engines powering contra rotating props. The platform is made to move simply by leaning in the desired direction, so beating the Segway to that trick by half a century or so XD. Yaw control was achieved with a hand control operating a pair of flaps diverting the airflow going in to the props. Contrary to popular belief (and possibly somewhat counter-intuitively) the machines were known to be very stable. This stability was one of the problems encountered in getting the machine to move about.
This build is heavily based on the second prototype, the 1031-A-1 (catchy name!), and was the first prototype to be able to leave ground effect and actually fly. At that time it was still a US Navy project, and looked quite promising considering that it was made out of little more than sheet metal, nuts, bolts and string.
It's all built, textured and scripted by me for SL. It will still look like it's meant to even at LOD factor 1 as I've painstakingly prepared LOD models to make sure that it does :) There's no ripped mesh, uploaded 3rd party models or plug in scripts here!
Features
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I've tried to make it reasonably authentic, based on the reference pictures I had. And yes, it is rather bizarrely coloured, just like the RL one!
It does the usual forwards, and backwards, and up, and down, and left, and right. It's a bit like the helicopters with cyclic and collective, I guess.
You can guest it, so that other people can fly it.
Maximum speed is under 40 knots.
Props, flaps and pulleys are animated.
It has working gauges for mouselook flying.
It has a few different camera positions, and you can reset the camera should it break on a sim crossing
Copy/Mod so you can make it your own.
Specular maps for pretty much everything, so use advanced lighting for best effect. The flaps even have a normal map for those rivet heads :)
Chat commands for the usual things, like start/stop and camera settings.
Controlling your personal death trap
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Did I say death trap? I meant flying machine, obviously.
W/Up - makes you lean forwards, and increases speed/loses altitude
S/Down - makes you lean backwards, and decreases speed/gains altitude
E/Page Up - increases throttle/RPM, you need more throttle as you go faster and/or turn
C/Page Down - decreases throttle/RPM.
A/Left - turns to the left. Turning will make you lose altitude, so increase RPM to maintain altitude.
D/Right - turns to the right. As above, balance the RPM to your turn.
When not using mouselook, you can strafe left/right by holding the Shift key down while using A/Left and D/Right.
Flying tips/things you should know
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Remember that you'll need to adjust the throttle/RPM whenever you do most anything at all, so keep an eye on it!
Note that under 25% throttle the platform will not respond to stance/strafe commands, it'll just gently float down under gravity's relentless influence. You simply don't have enough air pushing beneath you to provide vectored thrust.
Taking off is simple, just mash that throttle up to 60 or 70% and move your stance forward a few notches. After you've gained 10 meters altitude or so then you can think about more stance to gain speed and so on.
Landing is pretty simple too, I tend to approach with stance set to 5 or 6 and throttle around 35% to 45% or so to get me on a nice glide. Well, not a glide, but a controlled plummet perhaps. As you get closer, knock that stance back to 1 or 2 (or even -1/-2 if you came in really hot) and get ready to increase the throttle to just under 50% to get a lovely soft landing and then either crash the throttle down below 25% and/or move your stance to 0 to actually get on the ground.
With very little practice you can get the machine doing death defying tree-top hugging and figures of eight around conveniently markers like buoys, pylons, AFK noobs and so on. Get out there, and give it some stick :)
Copy and mod
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Plenty moddable, and sensibly built so you can pull it to pieces and remodel it.
Comes with FP textures, and texture files (PSD) and pilot pose files (BVH) are available from dropbox so you can stamp your own look on it.
All of the scripts apart from the main engine script are modifiable too, so you can modify to your heart's content. Go poke about in the code, make it yours :)
Voir l'article dans Second Life- made for SL, by my own paws!
- seats one
- modifiable, even the scripts (apart from the engine script)
Love It!
This is another RB vehicle, that I purchased for my wife first, and after her reaction, simply had to get one for myself! To put it as honestly as possible - It's real a blast! Firstly, the history behind this vehicle is pure epic, and adds to its "charm". Secondly to go along with all RB vehicles, it handles smoothly, both in flying and taking crossings, as well as makes for a great all around exploring vehicle.
Not to sound like a broken record from my other reviews here, but I can't help again mentioning how wonderful it is that you supply us with working PSD templates!
So very much thank you again for this and all that you do!!
What a wonderful ride!!!
OMG!! This machine is soooo excellent. Easy to fly, responsive, crosses sims easily, intuitive to control. Simply a blast. The design and detail is superb. I'm impressed. I own a lot of aircraft, and I mean a lot, but this 1031-A-1 and the Blimp are two of my favorite aircraft. You will be pleased that you got it for your own flight line. Just wave and smile as you pass me. Cheers!
A crazy aviation idea from the 50ties
Actually I never appreciated SL aircraft very much, since they are (despite of the optics of some exquisite models) flying rather poor, even in comparison to technically outdated flight simulators, like the FS-X (well, SL isn't meant for realistic flying).
But this machine is flippin' sweet. It flies easy as a pie (ok, you should take a few heli lessons of course!), looks great with many details; also features nice effects like the downwash in ground vicinity, and a great sound, for flying as well as starting up or shutting down. Plus - and this is in SL even more important, it crosses sim boundaries quite easy.
With a little training, you can land accurately on the smallest spot (I guess this was its genuine purpose, however it never went to service), and since SL doesn't restrict it to the pure surface effect (I suppose it was actually a sort of a hovercraft), it may even serve als a fully functional aircraft here. (Today we would name it an "ultra-light").
I can't get over how good this is.
I have a Blimp, and bought it from a vendor so no review possible, same with my alt and the Stolly. EVERYTHING that I am my alt has from the Bunny is fabulous.
The details, low LOD, the sim crossings, the control realism, everything.
And you can mod it!
Well worth every cent.
Never saw before Small Flying Platform in Mesh.
It's never have service in RL. but It's on the Service in SL. as personal flying platform flying to the places. Thanks rubber making the never seen before Flying platform in SL Mesh Format.
A Fun and Unique Vehicle
It's actually hard to review this product, being that it's so unique.. but here goes anyway.
The Hiller follows the same high quality standards set by every vehicle in the Rubber Bunny collection, being very well made in terms of the mesh model, great texturing (with full-perm textures included and PSD files available), modifiable, low land impact, excellent scripting, and just plain fun to use.
It's sort of like flying a helicopter in SL, but not quite, and you have to learn to finesse the throttle for a nice level flight once you start leaning forward a lot, but it's not difficult to master, and very enjoyable to pilot. The Hiller is also faster than it looks, top speed is about 20 metres per second, which is rapid enough in SL terms.
Perhaps the best feature of the Hiller is that it allows you to explore places on the grid that almost no other vehicle can access. It may have rotor blades, but with them being contained in such a small shroud, the Hiller can squeeze into tiny places like under waterfalls and inside caves, and in mouselook view you really have a totally uninterrupted view of your surroundings.
The instruments work of course, plus there's also a text display that you can activate if you prefer flying in third-person view, and of course the price is really great!
Being honest (and rather picky too), the working instruments are actually the weak point of the vehicle. If you fly in mouselook view, the instruments are outside your field of vision most of the time. You can re-position the text display (thumbs up for mod vehicles), but reading the numbers isn't as nice as looking at the instruments.
It would be great if there was a wearable hud that was basically just a recreation of the two instruments on the vehicle, so you could read them regardless of where you were looking.
Overall though that's a very very minor flaw on what is an amazingly fun and cheap vehicle.
Go and try the demo, you wont regret it :)
