F-20A Block 20 Hammerhead

Spent a lot of time updating the Block 12, so much so that it’s now renamed Block 20. New skin with IR masking, lots of fixes, longer flight time, throttle issues minimized, dynamic lights now work and a bunch of analogue instruments added πŸ™‚

This jet is an homage to the F-20 Tigershark that never really got its proper place in aviation history, although it and the F-5 could be called the grandfather of perhaps the F-16 and the F/A-18, maybe even the JF-17. Conceptual stealth fighters are becoming very visible as technology looks towards the future generations in fighter aviation.

Concepts like 6th gen FCAS, NGAD, Tempest and J-36 spring to mind. They give a fleeting insight into what the next generation of air dominance fighters might look like. The ideas have captured smaller industries as well – Turkish TAI TFX or Swedish Flygsystem 20 seem to be serious proposals for native fighter concepts. In 2019 a Lt. Col. in the Royal Danish Air Force pitched the idea of a fighter concept that could support Denmark’s F-35’s in maintaining national borders and in other specialized roles.

The design should also align with the ideals put forward by the fighter mafia: That a fighter should be small, nimble, easily maintainable and be inexpensive to keep flying. Which meant the design quickly adopted roots in the F-5 and F-20 – out of respect for those designs the designation F-20 was maintained. This concept is a thought experiment visualized in Microsoft Flight Simulator, the virtual aircraft draws heavily upon the F/A-18 in the sim, which is what the real concept would also have to do: Be based on existing parts and technology. That is why the engine is an F110 engine borrowed from the F-16’s that danish ground crews already know very well and why the glass cockpit / avionics look similar to 4th gen. The aircraft design itself is based on the YF-23 ( you can tell by the pelican tail ) the F-16 ( small size, big engine ) the SR-71 ( the chines around the nose ) and the F/A-18 both in multi rudder functionality – and finally the F-35 thrust vectoring from the B model, nozzle design and the diverterless intakes.

The aircraft was also designed to operate from austere airfields, the dorsal intake helps in this regard as well as making sure the engine is fed air no matter the orientation or air speed of the aircraft. The canards help with high maneuverability and grants the jet limited STOL capability.

Spoofing

My telephone number is being used for spoofing apparently, so if I call you and I don’t sound like myself, while asking for your credit card details, PIN number, waist size or other personal details, please just hang up. Tech support says there’s nothing I can do, but I reported the issue with my carrier, – the average time “they” typically use a number like this is 2 weeks :S

Void Crew is live!

So what’s been happening lately?

Well for the last 1.5 years I’ve been hired as an external 3D artist, working on hard surface designs for a 2 – 4 player Coop space pew pew FPS adventure game. It released on Steam the 7th of September and it’s a lot of fun to play, you can try it out for yourself here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1063420/Void_Crew/

Later, I’m gonna compile a few examples of what my involvement was on the project and see if I can get it cleared for public viewing, but for now, here’s the launch trailer πŸ™‚

Glorup, coat of arms restoration

Our local landlord, the owner of Glorup Manor challenged us to restore his coat of arms from an old lowres scan. Ordinarily that type of work would be handled using vector shapes, but since the graphics had to retain a vintage look we kept it in bitmap and ended up repainting the image at a higher resolution. We’re happy to help out and perhaps the image will end up on local signage sometime during 2020 πŸ™‚

The initial image and the end result can be seen above.

Det’Vin

We’ve all been through strange times caused by COVID-19 and some businesses have had to redefine themselves in order to survive.. Sometime during May we we’re contacted by a dynamic duo with a strong knowledge base in wine. Their task was simple: Convert their wine tasting setup from a cafe based experience to a series of digital media.

We helped make the transition happen by creating the logo and a series of small animations for use on their Youtube channel. The business is still adapting to the new media, but is moving towards a stable format which can be viewed here ( preview only, since embedding isn’t allowed ), the channel is live every friday: