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Piper L-4H Rosie the Rocketer 1.3 by Uncle T
   
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Era: WW2
Category: Military
Type: Plane
File Size
Posted
31.387 KB
21 Jan, 2023 @ 5:30pm
1 Change Note ( view )

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Piper L-4H Rosie the Rocketer 1.3 by Uncle T

In 1 collection by Mean Green
WWII Aircraft by Uncle T
421 items
Description
FOR VERSION 1.3!

This is my take on the Piper L-4H Grasshopper reconnaissance aircraft.
This particular version is "Rosie the Rocketer" piloted by Lt. Col. Charles "Bazooka Charlie" Carpenter. Inspired by other L-4 pilots he strapped 6 bazookas to his plane and managed to destroy or disable several armoured vehicles and was officially credited with 6 destroyed tanks during the autumn of 1944.

It's an approximation, not a 1:1 replica. (I know some proportions are a bit messed up.)

The Grasshopper was produced in large numbers during WW2 and used for among other things reconnaissance, artillery spotting, liaison, medical transport and ground control.
The L-4 Grasshopper was mechanically identical to the J-3 civilian Cub, but was distinguishable by the use of a Plexiglas greenhouse skylight and rear windows for improved visibility,

Alt controls to fly.
W/S: Variable throttle.*
S: Ground brakes.
A/D: Ground steering/Yaw.**
Up/Down arrow: Pitch.
Left/Right arrow: Roll.
Fire action 1-6/Num 1-6: "Bazookas". ***

* The new aerodynamics in 1.3 is IMO an improvement on the 1.2 version in many ways, but sadly the reduced lift on aerodynamic parts makes it almost impossible for small planes with weak engines to get off the ground. Up to 80-90 kph there's almost no discernable lift and control surfaces have no effect, and if the engine is quite weak it takes forever to reach 80+ kph that you need to be able to take off and the risk of the plane veering off course seems to increase the slower you accelerate.
The added weight of the "bazookas" and the D-day markings makes it nearly impossible for this version to take off without severely increasing the engine power, so to counter this I have increased engine power significantly, making it a easier to accelerate to 85 kph and get off the ground. The downside is of course a ridiculous top speed for this plane (320+ kph) which in reality is only about 140 kph, and also at speeds over 200 kph the lift generated form all the aerodynamic pieces I've added to make it get off the ground is insane. So to make the plane able to get off the ground but not go nearly three times as fast as it should I've added an engine cut-off at 180 kph. Omce you go faster than 180 kph the engine will go to idle, and once you get back down to 180 kph it kicks back in again. It's a bit of a rough fix and it gets a bit annoying hearing the engine start and stop constantly but it's the only solution I've been able to come up with so far.

** The real thing does not have any steering on the main landing gear but I added a little to help with the annoying swerving on the ground.

*** Since it's impossible to strap the in-game RPG to the plane and since it's as impossible to build tiny bazookas these rockets will have to do. Since they are so short they seem to be even more prone to inaccurate behaviour than missiles usually do but it's what I can accomplish considering size and weight are issues.

Feel free to edit, but if you re-upload publically in any way please acknowledge the original creation and creator.

Have fun!
4 Comments
Mean Green  [author] 22 Jan, 2023 @ 4:39am 
Horten Ho 229 is on my list already. 🙂
Mr.MayoMan 21 Jan, 2023 @ 8:50pm 
they were some of the Fuher's most popular designs for aircraft
Mr.MayoMan 21 Jan, 2023 @ 8:49pm 
make a Nazi flying wing
Mean Green  [author] 21 Jan, 2023 @ 5:38pm 
So I've slowly started to convert my 1.2 planes to 1.3, and I very much hope that the rest will be less troublesome than the Piper Cub and Grasshoppers. To be fair these are the smallest, slowest planes I have yet to build so they suffer the worst from the utter lack of lift at low speeds so for this particular one (there is a Cub version that functions in the same way too) I had to get a bit creative. The solution is not great but at least it works ok.
And no I don't feel like making a plane like this fly 300+ kph, but feel free to edit it if you want. It'll be a bitch to trim though. :)