MP-11ND Masterpiece Dirge

[Ralph Wiggum]

TT seem to be taking a conservative approach to the Masterpiece line; I honestly don't see them releasing a 3-pack or any sort of multipack, and risk losing a chunk of money.

[UltraMarginal]

G1 cartoon Dirge's wings similarly shrink and only come up to hip level. But unlike Ramjet, Dirge's wing tips have a distinctive set of additional smaller wings (which actually makes it impossible for Dirge to fly, but let's continue to suspend disbelief ) which would be lost if Dirge were allowed to transform in the same way as Ramjet.

Uh, I beg to differ, obviously I'm not the first.

Huh? Since when do winglets prevent a plane from flying?

The small wings at the front of dirges alternate mode are known as canards, they are not uncommon amongst older developementel jet aircraft, as they do provide a significant amount of pitch stability and control, especially when used in conjunction with a rear horizontal stabiliser and elevator. They also adjust the location of the centre of lift of the aircraft when compared to a more traditional configuration.

The drawback of a canard is that like all practical wings, the air leaving it's trailing edge is turbulent, this effects the lift that can be generated by the wing area behind the canard. If you do a google search for 'canard aircraft' you'll see that the a lot are on propeller driven aircraft (many of which are probably prototypes), the canard and main wing are about as far from each other along the fuselage as possible and generally they are on a different plane/level, this is to reduce the amount of turbulent air interacting with the main wing. You'll also notice that the main wing is generally much longer than the canard, also driven by this.

Gamblors pics illustrate a lot of these points.

Just sayin'

http://media.defenceindustrydaily.co...winders_lg.jpg

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft.../viggen_02.jpg

http://media.defenceindustrydaily.co...r_Water_lg.jpg

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/...-PA-467524.jpg

http://defense-update.com/wp-content...ellis_kfir.jpg

http://www.wou.edu/~clu06/csc625/Images/su-35/1.jpg

http://adg.stanford.edu/aa200b/poten...images/x29.jpg

Dirge's ult mode will fly, it might not be a very efficient design on a fighter jet per se but it will work.
Stabilisers are preferred on delta wings over larger winglets which is another reason you dont see dirges being built.
But the B2 Stealth Bomber has neither and still flies fine, so thats one example.

Anyway, were going a wee off track from what is the MP release of a toy with fictionally modified wing design on an F-15 body.

Assuming that there are rudders on the wing tips of Dirges wings, they should function but I expect they would cause some issues with the development of lift from the wing. Delta wings generate a lot of their lift from vortices developed down the leading edge, I've never seen any studies showing how this is effected by winglet/rudders especially in supersonic flight but I imagine it would not be good.

Winglets have been shown to improve lift in subsonic wings which is why you see them in a lot of passenger airliners these days.

The B2 is what's known as a flying wing, it is the epitome of unstable. It would not fly if it didn't have computers on board to keep it stable with constant trimming and control surface corrections, especially since it has no vertical or horizontal stabilisers to speak of.

All modern fighters are similar in that they are inherently unstable, that is the trade off required for speed and manoeuvrability. Airliners are very stable, but slower and not particularly agile. consider for comparison a fast hunting bird like an eagle going into a dive, it tucks in it's wings and becomes extremely fast and agile, when it's gliding it spreads its wings to generate as much lift as possible for minimum effort.


I've always thought that the coneheads vehicle design was an attempt to make 3 'other' jets out of the F-15 base mould with minimal change to the core.

I have always assumed that Ramjet is trying to be a Blackbird (SR-71) with the large engine nacelles built into the very thin wing and twin vertical stabilisers. The Wiki says it's based off the F-16XL but I don't really see it.


I've always thought that Thrust was some kind of experimental VTOL but the massive pods on his wings housing the vertical fans would drastically reduce the effective lift generated by the wings in normal flight. It's why aircraft like the Harrier and Lightening II house their thrust generating systems in the main fuselage.
But, as mentioned if he's using the same science to fly in vehicle mode as he does in robot mode, the shape of his wings is probably irrelevant.

Dirge too, I always thought was some sort of experimental canard wing aircraft.


Anyway, there's my Tuesday arvo, should have been working, knowledge dump. hopefully someone finds it more interesting than boring.

[Akky82]

If we are going by the cartoon then that's the least of our problems, how do all the Decepticons and Dinobots fly in bot mode despite having no visible means of propulsion or lift.

Must be our yellow sun!


But seriously, when I get my new place i am going to make custom shelving with three spots to mount the coneheads in alt mode. Always loved dirge the most, cant wait (caught thrust preorder, if i miss dirge i'll be a big sad panda).

[gamblor916]

Uh, I beg to differ, obviously I'm not the first.

"wall of text"

That was an interesting read. The thing I most want to know is when PC pre-orders go up.

[Trent]

You could always paint over it if it bugs you that much.


It allows Dirge to achieve greater cartoon likeness. Ramjet didn't need them because the cartoon usually shrank his wings in robot mode. They only came up to his hip level, whereas the G1 mould's wings went straight up behind his armpits.

G1 cartoon Dirge's wings similarly shrink and only come up to hip level. But unlike Ramjet, Dirge's wing tips have a distinctive set of additional smaller wings (which actually makes it impossible for Dirge to fly, but let's continue to suspend disbelief ) which would be lost if Dirge were allowed to transform in the same way as Ramjet. But these ridiculously oversized wings cannot remain a single piece for the MPs, not only because of wanting to come down to hip level, but also because if the wings were attached to both the body and legs then it would further restrict leg poseability... although it looks already restricted as it is, I don't know how you could make MP Dirge execute dynamic leg movements like kicks etc. It's almost looks like he's wearing leg braces. Run, Forrest, run.

Yeah, but that has significantly large winglets which appear to be acting as vertical stabilisers. In fact...
"Winglets served double duty on Burt Rutan's canard pusher configuration VariEze and Long-EZ, acting as both a wingtip device and a vertical stabilizer. Several other derivatives of these and other similar aircraft use this design element." (source)
But I don't know if such proportionately small winglets on Dirge's wings could effectively double as vertical stabilisers.

And to add to this discussion, I present the X-36:




Just like Dirge it has no vertical stabilisers and also no winglets. It flew very well. Excellent stealth profile too

[spiderken17]

That was an interesting read. The thing I most want to know is when PC pre-orders go up.

yes, that.

[GoktimusPrime]

Thanks for the lesson, UltraMarginal. It was most edumacational.

Must be our yellow sun!

The Sun is actually white. We just see it as yellow (or orange or red, depending on time of day) due to the way that the sun's light enters Earth's atmosphere. Man of Steel offered a variant explanation...
"Earth's sun is younger and brighter than Krypton's was. Your cells have drunken its radiation... strengthening your muscles, your skin, your senses.
Earth's gravity is weaker, yet its atmosphere is more nourishing. You've grown stronger here than I ever could have imagined."
- Jor-El

[UltraMarginal]

That was an interesting read. The thing I most want to know is when PC pre-orders go up.

thank you , and I totally agree!!

And to add to this discussion, I present the X-36:




Just like Dirge it has no vertical stabilisers and also no winglets. It flew very well. Excellent stealth profile too

That is a cool aircraft, thanks for pointing it out. The way they overcame the stability issues with split ailerons and thrust vectoring makes for one hella complex bit of kit.

Thanks for the lesson, UltraMarginal. It was most edumacational.

Your welcome

[spiderken17]

I dont come on this forum to learn! Shame on you.

[nsm034]

Nothing on Tomy mall yet so preorders might be a while off yet