Microsoft Flight Simulator - Darkstar, Tokyo to Los Angeles

I promised to try and find the aurora, so went to space weather forecast and found the day that would have the highest probability of northern lights - same person also requested a flight from LA to Tokyo ( had to reverse direction to extend range due to Earth's rotation ). So here it is ... No aurora sadly ( nice sunset though ) - I came in to what looked like a nice landing, but in the flare I gave the girl too much power ( powerful engines! ... only moved the throttle a quarter inch .. ) but had enough runway to touch down... I didn't redo the flight, because space weather was already declining when I touched down: www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/a...
Skin texture and photoshop files on this drive link, feel free to base your own skin on it - the placement for some parts were a little tricky, since most of the plane is just grey on grey ( especially the "Danger intake" decals ), but not anymore :D drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Playlist if you want some rock on your journey across the pacific :D open.spotify.com/playlist/3f2...

[@Michael_Michaels]

If such machine will ever become a reality, and if someone would be lucky enough to watch it in the night passing by, what a sight it will be!!! It amazes me so much!

[@WitusWorks]

I agree!!! - for now the Space X launches and landings must suffice hehe

[@Yeshayahu.]

Well, I think about someone lucky enough to fly in a pilot version of it (probably only for test or something), this guy would definitely feel in a spaceship, I mean, common bro in a few hours you can go across the world

[@t.3465]

@@Yeshayahu. 270,000 feet is the distance to space lol

[@redsquarejay]

Something like it might exist.

[@mr.stately9205]

I'm 100% sure it does exist imagine a modern-day version of the SR-71. Scary stuff when you move so fast that you don't need any weapons to defend yourself.

[@giuseppec.5519]

This Plane is incredible I went from Antarctica to Greenland in 1 hour and 56 minutes…😮

[@WitusWorks]

It's absolutely fantastic! :)

[@svenhandt6066]

very great and interesting flight simulation, watched it from beginning to end.

[@JONESSTI01]

I just hope they don't stop it from working after an update once the TG maverick bit gets forgotten about on the game. I love the DarkStar.

[@WitusWorks]

I think that would cause an uproar among the fans of both TG and DarkStar, but developers have been known to do silly things ... I'm definitely on your side :)

[@10WARTHOG]

What a cool video. I enjoy it all the flight

[@Tu49]

Well well, you had fun

[@WitusWorks]

Haha yes! but no aurora, pretty sunset though :)

[@rocketpunchgo1]

43:45 that baby is cookin'!

[@WitusWorks]

Yes siree! - eastbound and down!

[@deletdis6173]

😂​@@WitusWorks

[@darenchan517]

If you climb to 350000ft you will have a chance to find aurora.

[@WitusWorks]

hehehe nice try ;)

[@anonymoususer855]

Nice video! What did you do at 57:20, and for what purpose? Why did the plane decelerate?

[@WitusWorks]

Turned off the scramjets, the tanks are empty, so it's time to start cruising with the jet engines instead :)

[@ivan_pozdeev_u]

17:03 "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!"

[@WitusWorks]

Hahahaha YES!!

[@terryj50]

It’s so good just over 1hr did it the other day got over Mach 10 for most of it

[@22640cal]

I am kinda obsessed with the Darkstar, I hope it will be a real airplane someday :) Im still trying to figure out why the roll inverted needs to be done? I know its to gain speed but why not push the nose forward?!

[@WitusWorks]

Would be so cool if it was real!! - you roll inverted to not pull negative g's, it's very uncomfortable for the pilot to quickly pull a lot of negative g force, much better to go inverted and pull positive g's :)

[@22640cal]

@@WitusWorks I should of known that lol

[@lineisout]

@@WitusWorks the inverted roll would have no use in real life (or in the game for that matter, you can break the sound barrier without doing it), airliners do not put themselves on their backs to start their descents and I haven't heard of passengers fainting from negative Gs🤷🏻‍♂️ moreover, having to point the nose of an aircraft designed for speed down to break the sound barrier is ridiculous, modern fighters can break through this barrier easily while climbing. in fact, this little effect was just done to spice up the darkstar experience (it made it less good for me)…

[@WitusWorks]

​@@lineisout It makes sense to invert the lift vector in a low level ridge clearing maneuver and at high altitude to descent quickly instead of pulling negative g's. When it comes to airliners, of course they don't turn upside down to descent, the negative g forces in play are minimal so why would they - MSFS isn't super realistic when it comes to the Dark star, I'll give you that :)

[@lineisout]

@@WitusWorks who said you had to take a quick descent? The only imperative is to reach a slight negative pitch (which again is ridiculous), just like an airliner, at comparable speed. Try next time you take the darkstar for a ride not to do that silly barrel roll, you'll see that you don't need to pull out strong negative Gs to get the wanted pitch😌

[@atticuscorbitt8199]

Incredible plane for sure! Though I’m having a hard time transitioning out of hypersonic flight without wrecking my plane

[@WitusWorks]

And a high altitude doesn't help?

[@atticuscorbitt8199]

@@WitusWorks not really, maybe it’s something I’m doing wrong but I’ve heard switching from the FSX control scheme might help out with controlling the plane. Don’t have the full sim setup, just using an Xbox controller

[@WitusWorks]

@@atticuscorbitt8199 Ok, I'm on a PC, so can't replicate that :S

[@simonbellamy67]

Lovely landing. Buttery smooth....

[@WitusWorks]

Hahaha, she's actually pretty heavy and has A LOT of power ;)

[@fieryphoenix586]

I feel it's a pretty easy plane to land. It probably has a lot to do with the plane being heavy.

[@deletdis6173]

Nice

[@ciscoponch67]

Mitchell Gant salutes you!!!

[@WitusWorks]

And a salute back to you! - I hope you found a nice hiding place for the Firefox ;)

[@t.3465]

does the plane need more fuel to climb to higher altitudes? Can u fly the darkstar at 250,000 feet altitude? And how much is the fuel efficiency worsened?

[@WitusWorks]

It doesn't need more fuel as long as you start with full tanks, the Darkstar can fly at the sims max altitude ( 250.000 feet and wants to go higher ) - at that altitude your fuel efficiency is at its peak, that's how its possible to do the long distances :)

[@t.3465]

@@WitusWorks nice! how far can it go at 250,000?

[@WitusWorks]

@@t.3465 in my attempts I made to to around 9000 km, you might be able to push it further by experimenting with throttle settings at max altitude..

[@JagatanandaLawati]

This technology I like

[@WitusWorks]

Me too! :)

[@fieryphoenix586]

Flew from Hawaii to Yokota AB in Japan. Still gotta figure out the landing directions on approach. I came at the base from the east side.

[@WitusWorks]

Cool! - isn't it just the usual left turning pattern? - unless there's residential areas that require the opposite?

[@fieryphoenix586]

I'm just getting back into the game. I'm talking about the landing path. I know there are times when you approach a runway, you'll get a landing path. I flew over, turned around, and tried landing from the south end. It kinda ruined my approach and had to fly over again and land from the north end. It's a base I've lived on before when my dad was stationed there. Had to show him an F-16 takeoff in VR. He was really amazed by it.

[@WitusWorks]

@@fieryphoenix586Awesome that you can show your dad how the sim recreates the area, personally I'm not that big a fan of how the F-16 was recreated in MSFS, it's cool in DCS though! - speaking of dads, I had a similar experience with my dad, he was raised on a small island that is now a wild reserve, so he can't visit it, but I could zoom around the island with him in the sim, thoroughly enjoyable :) ( we did it in a DC-3 since his cousin flew one ). Concerning the landing path, you can turn on assistance options and get a landing path, I think you need to contact tower and request any type of landing, but that should give you the glide path for the designated runway :)

[@estherrongana9561]

I wish i can aford mfs to fly this :C

[@WitusWorks]

There are free alternatives if you just want to sim and have a decent PC / Controls, DCS is free with Su-25T and TF-51 :)

[@diegohernandez3307]

Try to do a Travel beetween Tokyo, Japan and Punta Arenas, Chile

[@WitusWorks]

Try it yourself :) - the plane is free with MSFS 2020 :)

[@pakkinen]

ultrahigh tech plane landed using a display with 80´s graphics lol

[@WitusWorks]

That analogy makes it oddly reminiscent of the Spirit of st. Louis with a telescope out the side and all :D - good one!

[@CallsignAegis]

Man Japan is so fast

[@WitusWorks]

yea ... 2 - 3 nautical miles per second, it's bye bye Fuji-san!

[@melman3430]

Daleko

[@WitusWorks]

velmi daleko!

[@Rigo_Diaz82]

Rocketman!

[@jordanwilliams2557]

with limited fuel it only goes so far though

[@WitusWorks]

I don't know if they changed the amount of fuel the Darkstar can carry, but at the time of recording I had limited fuel and made the distance :)

[@terryj50]

You have to put the fuel to max and reduce the payload you should be able to do it make sure all tanks are 100%

[@thegreathadoken6808]

Good flight. I'm surprised you made it all the way from Tokyo to LA, did you fly so high to try to conserve fuel? I don't believe the Northern Lights is coded into the sim, though it's somewhere on Asobo's 'To-Do' list. I've published a couple of Darkstar flight videos myself. We both have a no-talking-no-bullshit-straight-down-to-business video style, with me it's because I neither have the editing skill nor the motivation to do anything fancier. Hey, wanna do a collab? Get on the same server, maybe have a Darkstar race, close formation flying, standard point-to-point flight, whatever? You publish to your channel, I publish to mine. Just a suggestion, you can say no...

[@WitusWorks]

Hey man, thanks for the praise! :) - yea you have to max altitude the darkstar to get range, then when the scramjet runs out of fuel you can coast for a fairly long on normal jets :) I gotta check out your channel :) No collab for me, sorry, I'm super busy working on a TBA game at the moment :)

[@thegreathadoken6808]

@@WitusWorks Top man. Good luck with it! See you around.

[@t.3465]

@@WitusWorks at 270000ft can you coast without any engine power at all, and for how long of a distance?

[@WitusWorks]

@@t.3465 I can't remember to be honest, but you're not in orbit, so she's gonna slow down if you don't input enough throttle :)

[@ivan_pozdeev_u]

Stupid robot! She wanted you to change to a code that you were already at, and when you couldn't, cancelled the flight plan!

[@WitusWorks]

Give it time, ATC will get better, enjoy the thngs that work in the sim hehe :)

[@goldnoob6191]

It's pleasant to watch but I think the sim version of this plane is severely flawed when iy comes to physics. Having your nose glowing red is a severe problem causing instant destruction at those speeds..

[@WitusWorks]

Which is one of the reasons that the orbiter has a blunt nose - the temperatures are simply too high for the material science to solve a pointy nose when it was designed - not sure how materials have evolved currently, but I think I read somewhere that Lockheed Martin expected to be able to achieve speeds around Mach 4 with the Darkstar and not 10 as the sim and Top Gun 2 suggests :) - great observation :)

[@goldnoob6191]

@@WitusWorks since friction increases is quadratic I presume only tungsten like materials can accommodate such high temp, but it impractical for flying machines

[@WitusWorks]

@@goldnoob6191 There's several options, this is the original space shuttle materials en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_thermal_protection_system and here's the solar orbiter, which is a spacecraft, so not applicable to atmospheric flight, but still interesting: sci.esa.int/web/solar-orbiter/-/61013-solar-orbiter-after-installation-of-multi-layer-insulation-and-heat-shield#:~:text=The%20high%2Dtech%20heat%20shield,developed%20specifically%20for%20Solar%20Orbiter.

[@goldnoob6191]

@@WitusWorks agree, but they do not support sustained use. Space Shuttle tiles do take advantage of their porosity to dissipate heat but still at some point in time they won't work anymore and will vaporize.

[@WitusWorks]

@@goldnoob6191 Space Shuttle had to go a lot faster than Darkstar though ... Anyway, we'll just have to sit back and wait until they reveal whatever magical material they've cooked up to solve this task :)

[@parkerthemad]

This plane is inspired off the Lockheed sr72 which will have a public flyby in 2025 when it is showcased

[@WitusWorks]

Awesome, can't wait to see what the differences are :) thanks for the heads up!

[@justicemoody]

Don’t care about the video but you win the thumbnail award. 🥇

[@WitusWorks]

Hahaha thank you! 😎

[@thegamingraven6719]

The visibility of that plane is sh-

[@WitusWorks]

Hahahah yes!

[@thegamingraven6719]

Seriously they put all that tech into s p e e d and yet they give their visibility so little that it becomes basically unflyable

[@WitusWorks]

@@thegamingraven6719 I think it's to underline the massive heat build up around Mach 10 - it's a bit silly though, since the space shuttle went Mach 26 and had forward looking windows..

[@oliverlee1998]

The window glass wasn’t facing that airflow tho, if it were it’d be blown in. The heat resistant tiles on the belly took the hit

[@VerisimilitudeDude]

​​@@WitusWorks The time that the shuttle was going that fast was in space, and when it was entering the atmosphere, it was was going about 18000 mph and decelerating rapidly and was going in at an angle where the bottom of the shuttle with the heat shields was taking the blast of heat caused by friction.

[@evanhighschoolairplaneslov4377]

Japan Tokyo’s HND to USA’s KLAX in only 1 hour FLIGHT to get there????!!!!”

[@WitusWorks]

275.000 ft and Mach 10 makes many things possible :)

[@cdub10071]

Why use ATC if you’re not going to execute the instructions. It makes it seem more amateur then it is.

[@WitusWorks]

Because I'm an amateur and still learning :)

[@GenericWhiteMan00]

It's a video game, chill out.

[@olivergronowski1328]

no more fucking thorottle at the end you'll overshoot the runway.

[@WitusWorks]

in hindsight I completely agree!

[@nelsoncollazo1705]

Dude! You’re on wrong runway, it said 16l not 04

[@WitusWorks]

Dagnabbit! But I wanted to go East straight away and save fuel that way ;)

[@mapolinski]

You flew too high. It's only because of a bug in MSFS that the engine didn't flame out. When they fix this your technique won't work anymore. Better to learn the proper technique.

[@WitusWorks]

I did learn the proper technique hehe, but the sim allowed the long leg and another commenter asked for a trip from Tokyo to Los Angeles so here it is :) - the ballistic curve that ex. the Starfighter is famous for is awesome though and the pilots who I've talked to who did it have balls of steel! Just imagine if the engine didn't come back on :)

[@danielcarlassara3167]

Que aburrimiento

[@WitusWorks]

Then watch something else :)

[@trschreck]

all that way just to pooch the landing.

[@WitusWorks]

Yea, that stung!