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Correct, the front of the flapper door is screwed to the aft of the canopy and its slides over the fuselage when the canopy raises.

Now then.. WING-MADNESS!!!

ETA = 4 full days, sorry

progress:

*wingtip is DONE
*wing base form is DONE
*trying to figure out the aeleron, I'm like: ARGH

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Stuck. The aeleron is too hard to figure out right now, the only thing I can see it that it's basic cross-section structure is a forked Y-shape, but I have no idea what the induvidual pieces of the aeleron look like because on all close ups I have the Y-shape is closed. Is it easy to make a picture of a spread out aelron?

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Alright, here's a little progress shot of the wing. That aerodynamic wingtip took hours. But this is about the flaps.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53384576/

There are no details on the flaps, because right now jackb's close up shots show an intimidating amout of technical details, I can't decide what to draw :/.

So my question is, when you look at these undetailed flaps from this angle, what is the first thing your mind says is missing? Once I know that, I'l draw that single most important detail and leave it at that.

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Wow, looks great.
Its taken me about 5 min of looking at that to try and find anything wrong, and I just found it. Minor, but your going for an insane level of detail...
The inboard flap goes all the way to the fuselage. In your picture there is about a 9\" gap between the two.

Oh. This is because the fuselage isn't complete yet. There is a gap between the fuselage and the flap:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53418077/

But there is a plate blending the fuselage and the wing together, and I did not draw it yet. This plate covers the wing all the way up to the flap. (the little triangle shape to the left of the gap marker).

I'm going to give the flaps a nice finish today (tweak shape and perfect the sharp edges) and move on the aeleron. Once the aeleron is done, I'll add the weapon pylons. The fuselage needs a few tweaks too.

<--Oh btw, I plagiarized your avatar. ahehehe

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

The panel that blends the wing and fuselage only blends them on the top. There is a straight gap like the pic you posted on the bottom, but here's a better shot of the top.

The flap does end outbd of the fuselage, but the panel covers the inbd edge of the top of the flap.

I have very high detail shots of the flaps too from you, showing me there is a 9 inch piece of wing between the inbd flap edge and the fuselage, and that the blend extends 2 inch over the inbd edge. I put this photo behind a translucent version of my model, and it still checks out. I'm rather puzzled.

I managed to get a good aeleron picture from an A-10 AWA. I sort of went brain dead when I saw all the tiny.. hyponotizing.. details... X.x. However, I could still use a picture of an opened aeleron photographed from the sides.

I do have one question: Is the aft ridge of the aeleron ALSO a movable part? (A 4 inch broad strip that point diagonally upward) (=trim tab?)

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

OK, then it's just my eyes tricking me. Once you put the panel between the two I'm sure it will look more normal.

Sent

Yes. That's the servo tab. It and the counter-weight move also. Not alot, just enough to adjust trim.

Ok thanks, this is sufficient information to create the aleron. I'll need some time to get it right though, I noticed that the trim tab will need some staring at to be understood.

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

First part of aeleron complete. It took me hours again, but that's because I initially used far too complex topology. I'll probably get faster after more objects like this one.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53497163/

In a few hours I hope there will be a complete aeleron.

*a few hours later*

Well, I made a mess-up of the rest, so there is only minimal progress:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53503851/

It's been 4 days, guess I'll need one more day. Upper aeleron-flap (flapperon?) still requires a movable trim edge+counterweight, and I still need to add the lower aeleron-flap. (I have NO idea what they are called, sorry). After that, some final tweaks and the wing would be done.

Oh, then it's time for the tail, I hope those vins aren't too complex. If they are I'm going to flip like a ninja... Oh.. weapon pylons... Hmm.. landing gear... We're far from there yet.

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Not too shabby.

As for nomenclature, the whole thing is officially called a deceleron, although aileron or speedbrake are both acceptable. It is further split unto the upper and lower boards.

A flaperon is a whole different flight control, one the Hog does not have. That is when one flight control performs the roll of both the aileron and flap (like the F-15 and F-16). A stabilator is another flight control the A-10 does not have (combination stabilizer elevator, also like on the 15 and 16)

Argh this is so annoying I can't stand it! I had to redraw the aileron once because of a major error, and it turns out the lower and upper board are also time consuming to draw well. At least the trim edge just cost 1 minute. I'm not going to add the hydraulics for the trim edge though, that really was the last straw for my nerves when I tried it.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53574783/

The only changes are:

*Better leading edge for the aileron
*Upper board completely finished
*Trim edge added

I can't give any more ETA's now, it's such a mess. But I'll finish the A-10 even if it'll kill me. Muha!

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Good, because the servo tab has no hydraulics or actuators on it. Just a pushrod, and the actuating end of the pushrod is hidden from view.

Progress report:

*entire declaron is finished for now (minute things like hinges will be added in the final detail pass)

Will post pic once the day is done, or when I finish the wing.

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Again, I didn't finish the wing. But I'm getting awfully close! (Just have to make some plate edges for the wings to make it look thick, and tweak the flaps a tiny little bit)

At least I learned a bit about modeling with lesser precission for smaller parts. I noticed that a lot of time consuming smooth finish does not show up even when the aileron fills the whole screen!

here you go, 3 renders.

Comments relating to a picture are going to be under the image on the deviant page from now on.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53647019/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53647137/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53647216/

An issue I mentioned some time ago is still playing: The landing gear. It's probably going to be the greatest hurdle for me. I haven't been able to obtain a good picture of the full landing gear. Could you please make a picture of the front landing gear and the rear landing gear seperately, with the gear visible from top to bottom?

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Again, WOW.
I'll get you some pics of the gear on Monday.

Finally, the wing's intermadiate modeling pass is done! I've added plate thickness to all visible plate edges around the flap bays, even added two interior plates that will be visible when the flaps slide down. I also got the protrusion between the deceleron and the 2nd flap done, but not entirely right. Making it perfect would go beyond my quality standard and cost way too much time. That protrusion contains one of the guide rails if I'm right.

The shimmering highlights around the flaps and deceleron are basically the only visible result of the whole 2 hour finish and polish process :/. Grrr! If I were a photoshop artist, that would mean a light grey brushstroke and 4 minutes.

On a more serious note, there is one problem with the deceleron. I can't figure out the 2 hinges the entire thing is attached with. As you can see there are two holes in the deceleron where the hinges will be, but I'm not sure if there should even be a hole. Could you pherhaps take an insane close up of the deceleron hinge? I can actually change this hinge because the leading edge of the deceleron will need a final tweak at the very end.

Here are the renders:

(click 'download' for full 1600x1200 view if the image is small)

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53723696
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53723754/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53723808/

Oh spiffid. I forgot the flare dispensers! Argh. I forgot the thingummies attched to the deceleron's leading edge. Oh no, I forgot the wing/fuselage blend panel! Oh oh... Rear landing gear door is misssing from the gearpod... and the wheel sticking out of it. Pylons, weapon pylons!.. forgotten. Hmm... Everything but the wing/fuselage blend panel are for the final tweak pass. grrr!

I'm going to move on to the tail section now. What you see there are just place holders.

Thanks for all the help, if there's a poll for crew chief of the year let me know I'll vote for ya!

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

Just letting you know, I won't be making any progress on the model until after april 27th, I've got to study harder to pass my upcoming exams and I'm getting rather sick (of all times why now arf), this will slow me down. I'm quite suddenly starved for time...

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

At last. After a week of studying hard being sick and messing around with my model I finally got back into business and added a small but hard to make piece to the A-10: The wing/fuselage blend-panel.

Close-up:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54353535/

Oversight renders:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54353452/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54353640/

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

J/K LOL
Very good

I've hit a major snag of DooM, I can't get the gearpod right no matter what I do with my polygons. There are some fundamental limitations to which geometry can be attained with a smoothed mesh of polygons... most notably the perfect sphere. (There are always 8 ugly-points on it). I will need a lot of time to find an acceptable compromise.

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

What perfect sphere?

Well, if a modeling method cannot create a perfect sphere you don\\t have to bother using it to make curved surfaces that are based on surfaces cut out of a sphere and then slightly deformed.

NURBS have the amazing property that they can exactly reproduce all conic cross sections: Circle, elipse, parabole, hyperbole. Also, pieces may be cut out of a NURBS surface without disturbing the original geometry.

Most industrial objects contain surfaces that are based on either of these cross-sections, including the A-10. The top surface of the gearpod for instance is a surface cut out of an eliptoid (surface sweeped out by rotating an elipse around either its long or short axis). So, I'm going for the industrial standard and I will learn to use NURBS like a good CAD/CAM user. I think I can show the gearpod in about a week, after I have properly understood NURBS.

I will then redo most of the A-10 with these industrial grade surfaces, hopefully finding out where NURBS are better than polygons and vice-versa. (I would NEVER recommend NURBS to model a human face.)

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Guns don't kill people, -I- do! - Dwarven Rifleman, Warcraft III

If you have to explain, I wouldn't understand.