Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

Okay, here's my thought. I think that of all the things that will come up, Retractable Floats is probably one of the more likely innovations. We have ideas and plans to do particular things well, but we only just invented the world's first retractable landing gear.

...so the odds that one of the other companies is going to get to retractable floats first is low. So that can be our unique offering, on top of a competently designed and well-crafted plane.

So what plane design would most enable us to have our cool new gimmick?

[X] A farman pusher configuration: gunner, pilot, engine, and a tail on a support structure.

The Laurent said:

Can math whizzes comment on this?

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The build rules don't care if the vertical stabilizer is dorsal or ventral, only the number and whether it's conventional. It's mostly a fluff thing, but if you really wanted to you could say that it's an optimization for +Visibility, trading drag, mass, or toughness for it.

Crazy Tom said:

Are retractable floats a thing? They would save a lot of drag as well, and thus increase our speed and range.

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Yes, but they will be expensive and heavy. All you need to do is check the box in the designer for "retractable".

For armament, I'm thinking a regular MG to make conversion to a BMG (Balloon Gun) easier.

samdamandias said:

toughness for it

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Ventral tailfins do have a risk of smacking into the ground/water and then snapping off during landing. Does this matter for the rules?

samdamandias said:

Yes, but they will be expensive and heavy. All you need to do is check the box in the designer for "retractable".

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Hmm. Sure, sure. But, like, we do need to figure out something clever to do with this plane, because thus far we've never put in a design where we haven't been trying something new... I'm not necessarily 100% sold on the idea of retractable floats, but it feels like it'd kinda build on our retractable landing gear.

E: I'm hearing contradictory stuff in various things. So I dunno.

[X] A combination tandem layout pusher triplane with a single wing forward and two stacked wings aft.

It's like a canard biplane, but with a really big canard that lets us stuff the observer out there silly far front and get the pilot out in front of the main wings! Outstanding visibility, potentially good aerodynamics, and it makes the most of our very limiting wingspan of 8 without stacking a wall of wings right in front of the crew. Plus what even happens in that combination?

I'll sketch it later, but I actually genuinely like the layout. It's fun and interesting, and the observer should have amazing visibility.

[X] A combination tandem layout pusher triplane with a single wing forward and two closed wings aft.
[X] A tandem layout pusher double biplane with two sets of closed wings.

Nearly the same, but specifying closed wings for the aft pair. That's a neat idea, and I like the idea of sticking the observer way out in the nose.
Also, approval-voting the double-elliptical layout because it's so pretty and should also work fine.

Do closed wings give an efficiency bonus? I forget how they're defined in the rules.

[X] A combination tandem layout pusher triplane with a single wing forward and two closed wings aft.
[X] A tandem layout pusher double biplane with two sets of closed wings.

Approval voting for that other one, but I honestly think the already-achieved double oval layout will probably work well.

Hey, everyone! You should take a look at the character sheet, it's been updated and has some pretty vital info!

[X] A combination tandem layout pusher triplane with a single wing forward and two stacked wings aft.

I have no idea how or whether this would work but sketches were promised, so it's probably being proposed by someone with more plane wizardry skills and investment than I.

Crasian01 said:

Do closed wings give an efficiency bonus? I forget how they're defined in the rules.

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Indirectly; they give a significant structure bonus for a small mass penalty, allowing you to save mass and drag from needing fewer struts.

They also, iirc, have a small control penalty, but we're not going for a crazy turn-fighter here.

thepsyborg said:

Indirectly; they give a significant structure bonus for a small mass penalty, allowing you to save mass and drag from needing fewer struts.

They also, iirc, have a small control penalty, but we're not going for a crazy turn-fighter here.

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Fascinating. Well I probably shouldn't do any more doodling but that sounds reasonably legit.

Okay, so, let me go through stuff for people, because why not?

So, the character sheet is updated with new stats, so let's go through them. First, our hero!

Matsura is the person with the most skills.

Design Stats
Aerodynamics Engineering - +2
Structural Engineering - +2
Chemical Engineering - +1
Mechanical Engineering - +1
Ballistics Engineering - +1
Electrical Engineering - 0

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In total, they have seven points assigned, whereas the best anyone else gets is +4 total. The 'downside' is that they are merely really good or pretty good at a variety of things. +3 seems to represent a ton of skill, so +2 means that Matsura Asuka is someone who would do amazingly if assigned to Aerodynamics or Structural Engineering, but is 'competent' at almost everything else. I do hope there's some chance for us to get +3 into Aerodynamics, considering how much Matsura likes streamlining.

Unlike the others, they don't have traits, per se, but they do have:

Slide Rule
Computator (1 Reroll per Routine)

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I can't remember what the Slide Rule did.

Now, next!

Kibe Koume, 26, Office Manager
Tiny & angry, Kibe went to school in Albia, picking up the language, the religion, and a fuckload of swear words. Speaks Albian.
Mechanical +2, Ballistics +1
Office Manager: If Kibe is not assigned to a team, the Office Stress is reduced by 1.

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So, a good Mechanical, which is a reason to assign Kibe to a team... but if not on a team, it means that Kibe singlehandedly gives us more room to fix our mistakes. So unless we're really, really down a Mechanical, we should probably not.

Actually, what's the difference between a team and project, @open_sketch

Sakane Jun, 26, Second Team Leader
A soured patriot, Sakane is married and has a young child being raised gender-neutrally. His two brothers who fought in the war.
Structural +2, Aerodynamics +1
Team Leader: If there are any additional projects, Sakane will lead them.
Joinery: Sakane has training in the traditional Akitsukuni carpentry art of joinery, creating complex self-supporting joints with no fasteners or glue. When working with non-monocoque wooden spars or ribs, +1 Structural.

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A good, solid structural engineer, and if we have to do wooden stuff, we definitely assign him to that! He's also a backup team leader, and not bad at Aerodynamics!

Tezuka Kenji, ???
A stoner with occasional flashes of insight. Nobody really knows what he does, but he's probably useful?
Aerodynamics +2, Chemical +1
Flashes of Brilliance: Each natural 10 rolled by any team Tezuka is assigned to gives +1 forward to the next research roll.

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Here's our secondary Aerodynamics person, up there with us. He also has Chemical knowledge. Most importantly, we should put him on teams *just* for that bonus. Put him with Aerodynamics and there we go.

Hasegawa Morio, 26
A hopeless nerd with a photography habit, mostly on account of developing his own film, Hasegawa seems to do nothing but work and stack card houses, but somehow has an incredible attractive boyfriend. Speaks Gallian.
Chemical +2, Ballistic +1
Silent Workhorse: Hasegawa can work on two different projects at once for no cost to Office Stress, providing they use different stats.

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If we have group projects, this will be great. As is, he's our Primary Chemical Engineer! Yay! Also a decent backup Ballistic.

Kawamura Yosai, 25.
Serially successful womanizer and incredibly attractive, Kawamura doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of seducing women. Well, except for that time he seduced Asuka, which nobody talks about. Speaks Dyske.
Structural +2, Electrical +1, Social +1
Easily Distracted: If Kawamura is working on the same team as a female or non-binary employee, the team is at -1.

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Houston, we have a problem. A -1 to everything is terrible, and Ohara Airworks is 7/12ths non-male. Either we stick him on a Dude Team with the other four, or we don't include him. He has Structural and Electrical experience, but his Structure isn't that special.

Koide Hatsu, 24.
One of the few female graduates of an Akitsukuni engineering school, Koide is brilliant and incredibly driven, but her first job at Akibara was both humiliating and exposed her to an abusive coworker. Her father is a rich businessman with factories in Joseon, and she's engaged to Ken from Castles of Steel. Speaks Joseon.
Mechanical +2, Structural +1
No Sleep: If you let her, Koide will work herself to death. She can work a second project for no Office Stress, but all her stats will be reduced to 1 for the routine.

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Yep! Here's our Mechanical Engineer, who can thus allow Kibe to fulfill the role of fixing everything else. No Sleep could be useful, but not needed now.

Kobayashi Ayao, ???
Disowned heiress of the Kobayashi family, all Kobayashi wanted was a career and to be a modern woman. For her trouble, a cousin threw acid on her, scarring her face, neck, much of her torso, and her left arm. Despite appearing serene and above it all, she's actually an avowed communist activist and baseball player.
Aerodynamics +2, Social +2

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Hey, it's another solid aerodynamics person! And the Social, while not relevant to building things, could be useful. Perhaps we could send her if we ever need to talk to a client or convince people!

Adachi Ren, 24
Adachi learned chemistry from her father, one of the most famous chemical engineers in the country, rather than through formal schooling. She's married, has a kid, and takes spirituality very seriously. Yes, you did the math right, she had Yuki when she was 17. It's 1912, folks.
Chemical +2, Electrical +1
Young Mother: Adachi will cause double Office Stress if she has to work multiple tasks.

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Here's our second Chemical Engineer. Yes, the trait is sorta a downside, but we have plenty of people, so why not just, like, actually respect her boundaries. She does good work.

Uyeno Sei, Ballistics Engineer, 31.
The oldest member of the crew, this is Uyeno's second career. Her first was as an officer in the Imperial Navy with specialized technical training: her very promising career was cut short by her transition. Her work in a naval arsenal on machine-guns landed her the job here. Briefly dated Satomi (the age range is a bit creepy but again, 1912), she's missing a piece of her ear and is deaf on that side, from an exploding cannon. Recently returned from Varnmark from experimental surgery, she's known for her skill navigating gendered bureaucracy.
Ballistic +3

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Here is our ballistics god! We need to just assign her to guns for the rest of her life. End of story.

Mi Kyung-Jae, 23
A recent graduate of the Imperial College of Heijo, Mi is from the recently annexed territory of Joseon. For those keeping track at home, that means he's a Korean national living in Imperial Japan in 1912. We haven't seen much of his personality because he's rightfully terrified of everything around him. He has a specialty in endurance engine design and modification. Speaks Joseon.
Mechanical +1, Chemical +1
Endurance Engines: Mi has an excellent understanding of metallurgy and tolerances. Any engine he works on gains +1 Reliability if a 16+ is rolled.
Pulsejet Wizard: Mi is now one of the world's leading experts on the pulsejet engine. He can be given his own project to custom-craft pulsejet engines, and he gives +1 to any pulsejet-related project.
Joseon National: Mi does not have security clearance to work on any top-secret projects.

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Okay, so, this one is pretty simple. His stats are not great (yet), though I assume he can come into his own. But he should probably be put to work on engines, if you can assign multiple people to them. He'd do the tolerence work!

Miyoshi Shigeri, 23.
A non-binary person and admirer of Asuka's work, they were in an support role in the Army before joining the company.
Structural +1, Mechanical +1, Aerodynamic +1
Mechanic: Miyoshi has some experience repairing and refurbishing aircraft. They get +1 if assigned on the clean-up phase.

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Meet our relief pitcher! They're reasonably good at three things... and become very good at them if they're in Clean Up. So we're not going to assign them before clean up, and then we're going to take their +2 Structural, Mechanical, or Aerodynamic and run with it.

Finally!

Assets
- Engine Test Rig (Allows engine tweaking and optimization.
- Wind Tunnel (+1 Aerodynamics)
- Rapid Prototype Lab (+1 Clean Up)

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So, we have a bonus to Aerodynamics rolls that basically makes us some of the best in the field, and we have a Cleanup bonus that, combined with Miyoshi's brilliance at mechanics, will help us fix up any mistakes we get in the first half by being Icarus.

Honestly the closed tandem seems unnecessary here, we don't need Drag reduction or an especially high durability. Mass reduction is more important, means more room for fuel or lower stall speed. The engine is limited to 19 speed, so anything over that is useless to us.

I'm updating my vote to approve a tandem pusher as well, even though I'd prefer a Farman pusher.

[X] A farman pusher configuration: gunner, pilot, engine, and a tail on a support structure.
[X] A tandem pusher configuration: observer, pilot, engine; control surfaces and stabilizers on the wings.

Also, I propose a name for the craft: the Dipper.

The Laurent said:

Here's our second Chemical Engineer. Yes, the trait is sorta a downside, but we have plenty of people, so why not just, like, actually respect her boundaries. She does good work.

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The Laurent said:

Houston, we have a problem. A -1 to everything is terrible, and Ohara Airworks is 7/12ths non-male. Either we stick him on a Dude Team with the other four, or we don't include him. He has Structural and Electrical experience, but his Structure isn't that special.

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We have a double problem. Adachi and Kawamura are the only people with any Electrical expertise whatsoever, which means that we have to either eat the -1 to everything, overwork Adachi, or rely entirely on Morio for our Chemical Expertise.

Or go without optimal bonus assignments, but that would crush the plane wizards' souls on a very deep level.

me.me.here said:

We have a double problem. Adachi and Kawamura are the only people with any Electrical expertise whatsoever, which means that we have to either eat the -1 to everything, overwork Adachi, or rely entirely on Morio for our Chemical Expertise.

Or go without optimal bonus assignments, but that would crush the plane wizards' souls on a very deep level.

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It feels like the actual solution is to use Adaci and then just hope Clean-ups go well. But actually, here's a question: what would use Electrical Engineering?

Basically, is it worth it--if we make a good profit and can afford to ask for it--to try to hire an actual electrical engineer at some point?

Himmelhand said:

I'd prefer a Farman pusher.

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If the observer is allowed to be anywhere, what drives your preference for the Farman config? @open_sketch mentioned earlier that she was going to change the req. so that it's not explicitly a tailgunner, and the original post got edited as well, but also maybe you're just seeing something that I'm not seeing.

Hm. @open_sketch regarding the various traits our coworkers now have, does "team" mean "everyone working on a given plane" or just "the people working on any given part of that plane" (e.g. wings team, engine team, etc.)?

Wiadi said:

Hm. @open_sketch regarding the various traits our coworkers now have, does "team" mean "everyone working on a given plane" or just "the people working on any given part of that plane" (e.g. wings team, engine team, etc.)?

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I don't know (not being sketch) but I will note that there's a third option: Everyone working on a particular phase. I'd be pretty silly to retroactively lower the scores of all the rolls previously made just by bringing in that guy into the Clean-Up phase.

Crasian01 said:

If the observer is allowed to be anywhere, what drives your preference for the Farman config? @open_sketch mentioned earlier that she was going to change the req. so that it's not explicitly a tailgunner, and the original post got edited as well, but also maybe you're just seeing something that I'm not seeing.

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The preference is mainly because that is a more novel configuration for our designs, despite the fact that it's closer to a conventional arrangement. Observer up front with a pusher for optimal visibility, Farman instead of tandem because we've done a lot of tandem planes, and because it also builds upon the idea of an unobstructed observer forward (perhaps not mechanically, but narratively). Finally, Farman designs evoke something adjacent to twin booms, which is just about the best aesthetic, next to forward sweep supersonic fighter.

Himmelhand said:

The preference is mainly because that is a more novel configuration for our designs, despite the fact that it's closer to a conventional arrangement. Observer up front with a pusher for optimal visibility, Farman instead of tandem because we've done a lot of tandem planes, and because it also builds upon the idea of an unobstructed observer forward (perhaps not mechanically, but narratively). Finally, Farman designs evoke something adjacent to twin booms, which is just about the best aesthetic, next to forward sweep supersonic fighter.

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Well if that's the case, why not just do twinboom? I was actually thinking that a U-tail might be interesting, like what you see for the OV-10 Bronco:



Or of course, the standard P-38/Cessna Skymaster style of tail is pretty reasonable as well.

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Actually, twin boom, with observer in one boom and the pilot in the other boom? Sounds like a lot of fun, I'd be down.

[X] A combination tandem layout pusher triplane with a single wing forward and two stacked wings aft.
[X] A combination tandem layout pusher triplane with a single wing forward and two closed wings aft.
[X] A tandem layout pusher double biplane with two sets of closed wings.

I'm in for any of these, though I will note that the double biplane concerns me about how clear you can keep the observer's position. You might be able to get them out in front of the wings and also have the wings reinforce each other with nothing above, so that'd be super cool. Plus, it might just let us slide in a bit more wing area without exceeding the triplane requirement, which will really help our drag. Downside is that it means you can't keep the front as clear of wings, so visibility will suffer.

(This is how vote changing works, right)

I'm not a big fan of a farman configuration just because they're so draggy. So, so draggy. Getting speed and range is going to be a battle against that, and honestly so is stability. When the client's list of priorities is entirely in the downsides column, it's not a promising starting point, you know?

A conventional plane is really pretty good. The visibility isn't going to be great though, especially with a heavy plane limited to short wings. That's not a deal breaker in itself, there's plenty of time to see ships, but I think there's promise in a different approach.

From the top because I'm an obsessive perfectionist:

- Must be powered by 1 F-Series 6-Cylinder Inline.
This and cost mean performance is a function of wrapping less plane and less drag around the engine. Also, it'd probably be best for everyone's sake to keep the drag low so it doesn't have to run all out once it's done climbing. The thought of flying out at sea and revving a -3 reliability engine hard with nothing in sight makes me deeply unhappy.

- Must use a radiator which can operate on seawater.
Sure, slap it on and eat the cost malus.

- Must have a crew of two, a pilot and an observer with an effective gun.
I interpret this as something where it's optimal to get either front or rear firepower, as well as sides and up. I don't think downwards gunnery can be done particularly safely or effectively in practice. I do consider it a downside to not be able to manage rearward fire, but ideally speed and visibility will let it make itself a thorny prospect.

- Must have floats.
Put them on. Retractable could be cool, it'd be a way to boost speed, but it'd increase stall speed. I'd expect the lower we get the stall speed, the more sea states the design is workable in, and the less likely it is Asuka has to think about the interactions of a plane and wave at a closing velocity of 30+ knots. I seem to recall they don't like thinking about the ways water landings can go wrong. You know what, I'm putting flaps on my scratchpad design and not taking them off for the world.

- Must have a wingspan of no more than 8 meters.
Oh boy. So we want to be fast, we want to carry an engine and radiator that aren't light, and we want to carry a hefty chunk of fuel and crew. And we're limited badly in terms of wing dimension. This makes things like a double biplane, hush you we swear it isn't a quadriplane very compelling because we can keep our aspect ratio from getting unmanageable.

- Must be a biplane or triplane configuration.
A tandem with biplane rear is a triplane, and a double biplane is a biplane twice, right? Or maybe it's just a tandem biplane whose wings happen to be folded. And not deploy. But they're only one wing each we swear!

- Must have a fuel endurance of at least 9 uses.
Two fuel tanks at least. Two tanks gives 11.9 uses. More than that and we need more structure and I start fretting about size spiraling out of control and overwhelming our poor engine.

-Range
A product of speed and fuel uses. The less draggy we are, the better because it gets our speed up. So aspect ratio, cheap ways of getting structure and so on are a big help imo.

-Speed
Oh hey nice, we already have reason to optimize for this, and it lets us double dip! Asuka's planes are always the fastest, accept no substitutes! This means that dropping drag to make the most of our power budget makes a huge difference.

-Stability
This is really easy to generate with a tandem layout. There's most definitely other ways to do it, but this is a good one.

Other unmentioned considerations:
- We probably want a relatively low takeoff speed for naval use. The sea hates humans and their works, and the lower the speeds involved before we get before we go our separate ways the better. This sadly mitigates against achieving range through fuel.
- It's a spotting plane. Would we want to consider a radio transmitter if we come in below budget to really turn heads? Transmit enemy locations without having to fly back, getting contacts earlier in the day! Pace enemy fleets giving continual updates! See the future, now!

I have created a monstrosity:



Blue blobs are pilot and observer. Engine is center mounted on a pod between the upper and lower wings.

Actually as monstrosities go this isn't even that crazy. I can't help but think it's not exactly practical though, lol