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After review of our wildly successful VSSTO Ray, we realized that the Vertical takeoff was really holding back a magnificent airplane and trying to force it to be something that is very impractical. Our engineers went to work, Feverishly adding landing gear, removing a couple engines, putting one back, and testing several times to make sure that we provide you, our loyal customer, with the finest Single Kerbal Excursion Craft that your funds can buy. Though we spared no expense, don't think this craft will break your bank! Coming in at only 31 parts, the H-Ray costs on 43,660 funds to launch and is 100% reusable. Ask Val - you need one of these! Download this ship on KerbalX! As always, best of luck! All warranties void upon ignition. Thanks! Danny. P.S. Tried to get some better pics - go view them at full resolution! P.P.S. Did I mention that this ship will get you to a 72k LKO with more than a thousand delta-V left over (1045 on my third flight!) This is way cool!

Not sure why I created this or what I'm going to do with it, but it's been kinda fun to fly... If you know about Rapiers, at low speeds they loose thrust as you gain altitude, so it's a little tricky on takeoff, but basically, just hit T Z <SPACE>, start pitching slowly right away to get airspeed and get the wing flying. A wheel or two might actually make a nice addition, but it was just kinda fun to do it this way. I make no guarantees about landing, as I actually haven't landed this yet... But she does get on orbit with 400-500 dV to spare on the Rapiers. Some of you cool folks feel free to update this and make it even better... Danny. Tough to make it any cooler looking though... Oh hey - maybe I ought to include the .craft? https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruk0iuwhmhrrfhx/Ray.craft?dl=0

Hi guys, as you probably know, the thrust output of all air breathing engines is modified by two factors in KSP 1) the atmospheric density curve, specified in the config file. With all stock engines, thrust gets less the higher you go, though the Rapier does well in this regard since thrust loss with altitude is slow up to 20km. 2) the velocity curve specified in the config file. With some subsonic designs like the Wheesley and Goliath, the trend is only downward with increasing speed, but most actually gain thrust initially, before tailing off as you go faster still. The Rapier again does best here, peaking at a higher speed (mach 3.7) than any other engine and tailing off in power more slowly above optimum. So, the goal of air-breathing flight is to reach the highest possible speed and altitude before engaging the lower ISP closed cycle engines. This is where the tradeoff comes in. If you accelerate to mach 3.7, the velocity at which Rapiers produce maximum thrust, then you will be able to reach a higher altitude before your specific excess power reaches zero. On the other hand, I've noticed that thrust declines VERY quickly above 23km, halving between 24km and 26km for example. Given that power holds up pretty well , is it worth going over your max power speed, and accepting a lower peak altitude instead? Can anyone remember the equation that shows what altitude can be reached from a given velocity in a vertical climb, assuming no drag. Eg. an object moving 100m/s straight up, how far will it reach before falling back ? With this info, the total energy (kinetic + potential) of each speedrun method can be calculated to find the best. eg. i can plot a graph of thrust vs speed and air density, calculate "total energy" to get the optimum?

To be more specific, I'd like to see two things: A liquid-fueled scramjet (Supersonic-Combustion Ramjet) engine that can propel a craft from about 900 meters per second at roughly 10-12 km altitude above Kerbin up to 2-2.3 kilometers per second to push apoapsis between 120 and 160 kilometers with periapsis either above sea-level or to a depth below sea-level of less than 100 km A Solid Fueled Integrated Rocket Ramjet (basically a solid-fueled ramjet that initially operates as a solid-fueled rocket-booster, and once the rocket-portion has burned out, it's built up enough airspeed for the booster's casing to act as the duct of a now-air-breathing solid-fueled ramjet engine that can accelerate the vehicle the rest of the way up to the speed and altitude at which the above-mentioned liquid-fueled scramjet can take over the task of accelerating the payload to orbit.