Project Das Fliewatüüt

[Thunder Chicken]

And the other side is blank?
I think I've got the main shape pretty close to the original, without a plan view it's a bit of guess work and takes a few itirations.
Currently cleaning up the cutaways, curved cuts in an elipsoid are always fun to do!

As far as hatches go it seems to be so. The door frames and rivets look to be symmetric.

EDIT Also note that there is an exhaust port at the extreme rear of the fuselage. That's clearly to eliminate heat from the reactor core. The Rebellion may exploit that weakness if we're not careful.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

It appears that Boy Lornsen's originall book Robbi, Tobbi und Das Fliewatüüt was translated into English, but doesn't seem to be commercially available. This link has Chapter 1, which gives some nice details about the Fliewatüüt, and a tease of Chapter 2.

https://jennifer-busch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Busch-and-Hagedorn_Robbi-Tobbi-und-das-Fliewatuut_EN.pdf

 

[Buck Rogers]

EDIT Also note that there is an exhaust port at the extreme rear of the fuselage. That's clearly to eliminate heat from the reactor core. The Rebellion may exploit that weakness if we're not careful.

Did notice the exhaust, and also a bottom hatch? Although I don't think it needs to be operational, Am intending to include these features and the rivets (even though they are quite large) in the textures. Bearing in mind skinning an egg is the worse case scenario.
P.S. just don't tell the rebellion

 

[Thunder Chicken]

The control panel had three levers. And just to make sure you didn’t confuse them, they each had a different colour button: one was red, one blue and one yellow.

The one with the red button was the accelerator. You needed that one most, which is why it was blazing red.

There's the engine throttle.

The blue lever controlled the engine modes. You could switch between air, water, and land.

Luft, Wasser, und Land. Probably want some sort of interlocks so you can't switch modes at the wrong time. Maybe a weight-on-wheels switch for allowing land driving to be engaged. Will have to do some altitude testing to determine if on land or floating in water.

And the lever with the yellow button had a very special function: it folded the four rotor blades backwards into a V, or unfolded them again. Tobbi had thought this up specially because on the country roads it would be all too easy to catch the rotor blades on trees.

The TV show version had three blades, and they are at different elevations, and deploy and stow like a fan. That's going to be a cool animation, especially with the gear driven rotor. And the steerable drive wheels. And the doors. And the controls. And Robbi's facial expressions, telescoping arm, blinking eyes...

This is going to be a busy add-on.

 

[Buck Rogers]

A little update:
I've been struggling with the shell, I'll have to redo it in higher poly. But I've got the shape set, so I've continued with the easier stuff, i.e. everything else!
...And wanted to ask about animation, I see you've already been thinking about it.

Extern:
Rotor shaft and adjacent cog
Blades individually foldable 3x blades, one straight back, the other 2 rotate 120°? (I've also noticed there are several different versions! not only blades!).
water blade
wheels, rear wheel rotation? (steering, wierd angle), also the possibility to animate the suspension! note the inpractical angle again?
Raspberry hatch
doors (there may be need for additional hinges (door, blades) can be added later unless specifically animated).

Intern:
The 3 levers you mentioned
flight stick? Don't see any pedals?
All the standard instruments from the R4 (what are the stats for a raspberry turbine?)
Anything I've missed?

Does the console need lights for the lever functions? I see only 3 dials? Will have to make a new console layout.
The cabin looks otherwise pretty bare? Rear wall is blank, will have to add some detail.

Position and scale: eyeballed center of mass (current position) or simply direct under the rotor (of course this can be adjusted in the code)
I would also like to set the size in stone, makes animation etc. easier, you were saying 1.5m for Tobi, it's all a bit abstract, maybe 2m from ground to top of the ring?

Hope to get a big chunk done this weekend, If the scale and position are set I can send you a "bald" version to code while I work parralel on the textures when I've got the 3d done.

Looks like ther's a RC version too!

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Extern:
Rotor shaft and adjacent cog

Looks good.

Blades individually foldable 3x blades, one straight back, the other 2 rotate 120°? (I've also noticed there are several different versions! not only blades!).

Yeah, you can put the blades in flight position. As long as I can animate each of them individually I can deal with them in code.

water blade

Yep

wheels, rear wheel rotation? (steering, wierd angle),

In the book the front wheels are the drive wheels. I can animate steering by differential rotation. The rear wheel I can probably caster like the one on the R-4, but the angle is going to make it interesting.

also the possibility to animate the suspension! note the inpractical angle again?

Maybe. I'll dig up my VW Thing code and see if I can animate some strut travel.

Raspberry hatch
doors (there may be need for additional hinges (door, blades) can be added later unless specifically animated).

I think these would be fine. You may already be aware, but the doors hinge backwards.

Intern:
The 3 levers you mentioned

There are some pictures of levers with different colors in the stills and the museum video. I think they map to the colors and functions indicated in the book.

flight stick? Don't see any pedals?

There are cockpit stills in the zip file I put in the OP. There are two yokes with white knobs in front of each seat. No pedals, but no tailrotor either. I'll deal with this with a liberal sprinkling of pixie dust, maybe variable rotor torque.

All the standard instruments from the R4 (what are the stats for a raspberry turbine?)

There are some stills of the instruments and panel as well. They look like pretty basic instruments. The engine power is going to be whatever seems about right. Another liberal sprinkling of pixie dust will take care of that.

Anything I've missed?

Does the console need lights for the lever functions? I see only 3 dials? Will have to make a new console layout.

There are some lights that seem to be just there to blink. But we'll need some indication of the engine output status (Air, Water, Land). We might want to repurpose some of those lights and add these annotations (in German). Some compromise will be needed between what it looked like in the TV show and what practically will be needed to fly it effectively.

The cabin looks otherwise pretty bare? Rear wall is blank, will have to add some detail.

That was where Tobbi stored all the stuff, life-ring, rope, etc.. You could read the description in the Chapter 1 of the book and add some of those things for visual interest. It's pretty much a black background with Tobbi and Robbi in front in the TV show.

Position and scale: eyeballed center of mass (current position) or simply direct under the rotor (of course this can be adjusted in the code)

CM will be under the rotor mast, so if you can set the origin there that would make things easy. Vertical location of the CM will probably be below the floor as that is the only way to make it float in a stable fashion. Pixie dust..

I would also like to set the size in stone, makes animation etc. easier, you were saying 1.5m for Tobi, it's all a bit abstract, maybe 2m from ground to top of the ring?

I was thinking the overall vertical dimension to be about 2m as well. I would go with that.

View attachment 42999
Hope to get a big chunk done this weekend, If the scale and position are set I can send you a "bald" version to code while I work parralel on the textures when I've got the 3d done.

That would be great. It looks really good. I can start tinkering with the animations and see if there are any issues that need to be addressed.

 

[Buck Rogers]

Yes to all the above. the main question was if all these elements should be animated (so I make as seperate msh grps, saves to many changes later, number of msh grps etc.), I'll take it as a yes.

The rear wheel I can probably caster

It's a very wierd angle to castor? Which bit needs to swivel? I'll set it free to rotate and we'll see how it works out.

There are some lights that seem to be just there to blink. But we'll need some indication of the engine output status (Air, Water, Land). We might want to repurpose some of those lights and add these annotations (in German).

Yes, I can draw one up when I get to the cockpit unless you have a layout in mind.

That was where Tobbi stored all the stuff, life-ring, rope, etc.. You could read the description in the Chapter 1 of the book and add some of those things for visual interest. It's pretty much a black background with Tobbi and Robbi in front in the TV show.

I can draw a door/hatch whatever.

CM will be under the rotor mast, so if you can set the origin there that would make things easy. Vertical location of the CM will probably be below the floor as that is the only way to make it float in a stable fashion. Pixie dust..

I'll place it exactly at the lowest body point.

I was thinking the overall vertical dimension to be about 2m as well. I would go with that.

Roger.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Yes to all the above. the main question was if all these elements should be animated (so I make as seperate msh grps, saves to many changes later, number of msh grps etc.), I'll take it as a yes.

If there was a possibility of it moving, break it out as a mesh group.

It's a very wierd angle to castor? Which bit needs to swivel? I'll set it free to rotate and we'll see how it works out.

Yeah, I'll wrestle with that. It probably didn't rotate on the model, but we're pursuing the fantasy of real mechanical motion. It can still turn, but it will also slightly lower the tail as it does so.

Yes, I can draw one up when I get to the cockpit unless you have a layout in mind.

Basically want to preserve the panel shape and maybe locate the gauges in similar locations, but we'll have to modify the lamp positions to provide engine status information. We'll sort out something.

I'll place it exactly at the lowest body point.

That'll do. I can shift it if necessary.

One other detail might be a separate mesh with wooden skis that can be lashed to the wheels, but that can come later. Tobbi and Robbi made these in the lighthouse with Matthias so they could go to the North Pole. I'm sure a Fliewatüüt enthusiast would want this.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

As I feared, it seems Orbiter dislikes umlauts:

000021.905: ============================ ERROR: ===========================
000021.905: File not found: .\Config\FliewatÌÌt.cfg
000021.905: No vessel class configuration file found for: ¿ÿÿÿÿ
000021.905: [Vessel::OpenConfigFile | D:\a\orbiter\orbiter\Src\Orbiter\Vessel.cpp | 254]
000021.905: ===============================================================

And I just added a German keyboard extension so I could type Fliewatüüt without copying and pasting it.

At least it just affects the folders and config file names. I can still write it properly in the scenario file titles and folders.

 

[Urwumpe]

You can write "ü" as "ue" in case Umlauts are not possible.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

You can write "ü" as "ue" in case Umlauts are not possible.

I just replaced them with "u". It really just affects the interfacing with Orbiter, which doesn't care about pronunciation. All the human-facing bits seem to be fine with the umlauts.

 

[Urwumpe]

I just replaced them with "u". It really just affects the interfacing with Orbiter, which doesn't care about pronunciation. All the human-facing bits seem to be fine with the umlauts.

But its a Fliewa-tooot now.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

But its a Fliewa-tooot now.

So Fliewatueuet?

 

[Urwumpe]

So Fliewatueuet?

Just kidding, there is no good solution to it. "ueue" would be the most literal transformation, correct.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Just kidding, there is no good solution to it. "ueue" would be the most literal transformation, correct.

I think there is a sufficient number of vowels as it is. I'd hate to cause a shortage because we got greedy.

 

[Urwumpe]

I think there is a sufficient number of vowels as it is. I'd hate to cause a shortage because we got greedy.

Thats why we Euros created upper class vowels with lots of diacritics and accents on it to increase the value. If you don't have enough space for vowels, take the luxury versions.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

So perhaps @Urwumpe and other German speakers could offer some input on annotations for flight controls. There is a blue lever that controls whether the engine power goes to the rotor, the water propeller, or the drive wheels, which certainly will be animated. However, some annunciator lights with labels would be needed so the user knows which mode they are in. I would like something that would be plausible to a German aficionado of things Fliewatüüt and keeping in the spirit of the book.

Some variations I was wondering about (derived from Google translate, so apologies for errors):

Something evocative of the name:

[x] Fliegen
[x] Wasser
[x] Tüüten (edited for grammar)

Or the element being traversed (no Feuer):

[x] Luft
[x] Wasser
[x] Land

Or the mechanism employed:

[x] Rotor
[x] Propeller
[x] Räder

Or a combination, or something else?

 

[Thunder Chicken]

The vessel physics will be interesting as the vessel mass is probably only about 300 kg or so as a rough estimate. I basically will have to set the mass to something where it floats appropriately.

Some back-of-the-cocktail-napkin math indicates about 40 kW or 54 hp of engine power to hold a hover with the rotor dimensions of the Fliewatüüt. Throwing a factor of 1.5 at it for performance gives an engine of about 75 hp which is about the power of an mid-sized outboard or a small car engine, which fits nicely with the scale and the expectations of the vessel needs.

It seems that the Fliewatüüt isn't physically implausible (except for running on raspberry juice, but cod liver oil could definitely be made to work). A small 4-stroke engine running on cod liver oil could slot neatly into my existing engine code, the actual rotor diameter and water propellers could slot right into my propeller code, and the drive wheels could come from my VW Thing. As Robbi and Tobbi sit in front of the rotor axis and the engine is behind, even the CG might be plausible.

Tobbi was clearly a bright kid.

 

[Urwumpe]

I would go with the first version, since after all, its a childrens movie. But I would use "Tüüten" as last option.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

But I would use "Tüüten" as last option.

What does this convey? Or is just a matter of grammar?