Get rid of lights at end of runway(or do something about them)

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

9 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

My SSTOs often require the whole runway... and yes, those runway lights are very annoying

 

A long time ago we had this big launch tower next to the launchpad... those who built very wide asparagus-pancakes often collided with it... there were complaints... it got removed.

I don't see how this should be any different. All of the above spaceplanes can takeoff before the end of the runway... at least without a payload... but when loaded near their limit and/or with an awkward payload weight distribution... then I need to use the entire runway.

Those lights are just annoying obstacles

 

Those contraptions are hideously under-winged.  It's no wonder they require a 2 km run up to takeoff. ... And more engines than God.

 

Consider what you have there, and compare it to this:

 

Or this:

 

 

 

Wing, my friend.  ALL the Wing.  If you gloss over aircraft designs from the real world, you may notice that just about every aircraft (minus a few outlier designs) has a set of wings that if you detached them and placed them on top, they are just about as big as the vehicle.  The C-130-ish clone with the T-tail grosses 46 tons empty, but flies like a feather.  I have yet to fill the internal cargo containers with anything to test it, but it has such an ease of acceleration and speed that I'm confident in its maximum capacity.  The B-1b clone is sitting on the runway with three bays of ordinance and full tanks.  Aside from needing to increase tail surface size and find a way to reinforce those infernal robotics joints (making those WORKING swing wings wobbly as sin), it performs like a 50 ton supersonic bomber filled with lethal ordinance.  But they are BOTH very much half wing.

 

Take a look at the AN-225, the world's largest cargo aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya

 

If you spun its wingspan sideways, it would cover up the plane.

 

Incidentally, I suggest FAR, B9 Procedural Wings, and AJE.  Then the planes start really acting like planes.

[KerikBalm]

You're comparing real world aircraft to KSP spacecraft.

They land just fine sans payload... and real world hypersonic aircraft have very little wing area. Those aren't An-225s.. they're more like skylons.. and I try to keep my designs stock.

Don't forget that the game considers mk2 and mk3 sections as wings/lifting bodies.

Show me one of your stock designs that gets payloads of that size and dimensions to orbit.

These aren't airliners... its not a commercial airport... its a runway for hypersonic spaceplanes.

 

And as for the engine number, at 1 engine per 10 tons, they'd need 40 engines... the most recent version comes in at 32 engines...

Edited June 25, 2016 by KerikBalm

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

I don't play stock.  I like my realistic aerodynamics.  Aircraft do what they're supposed to.

 

And I'm still certain you'd get a LOT more out of them loaded if you up-winged them.

 

 

[KerikBalm]

Well, top to bottom:

Those are just engine pods to get it to orbit, its a duna- space plane:

(this time with redesigned engine pods, in both cases they detach land back at kerbin, while the spaceplane burns to duna)

I'm not going to add more wings to the payload, it has enough wing area for duna... and the engine pods don't need more wings either, they have enough wing area for re-entry and landing (when they are basically empty)

 

2nd... You can see I tried to "wing up" by placing a stack of 3 shuttle main wings+ strakes.

Next one... yea, I again tried to fit in more wing area... the earlier version had more wing... but those 1200C  airliner main wings wouldn't cut it after version 1.04... so I had to remove them... I added strakes at various places to increase wing area...the latest version has some Big-S shuttle mainwings in place of strakes, and also has less intakes.

Even so... it still lifts off the runway on its own most of the time... but sometimes the payload sticks out the back so much, that I simply can't pitch up.

Like this one:

(Which docked with the payload of the SSTO seen in the 4th of my images, and is pictured docked with it in the 5th image)

*edit* so I uploaded my -2 engine, -many intakes, + more wing area version... climbs very very well with no payload

http://i.imgur.com/eXzDhAS.png

http://i.imgur.com/BJLhFLs.png

http://i.imgur.com/7LZAlrm.png

Edited June 25, 2016 by KerikBalm

[kBob]

For basic planes, nothing says you have to use a tricycle gear; this one is under 30 parts and takes off quick and easy (just keep the nose pitched up and hit full throttle) and lands easy too as it has a low stall speed and doesn't need flaps; it was my first plane in KSP and I'll admit it took an hour or two before I figured out why my early designs weren't working); BTW the V tail was because I couldn't get a vertical stabilizer to attach properly to the tail section it works well though taking the place of both vertical and horizontal stabilizers; it floats too and can go 20m/s in water  :

[Wjolcz]

They could be repurposed to something like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_landing_system

[OHara]

Re-purposing the lights as glide-slope indicators is a very good idea.   It would help new players greatly, without needing documentation if it is recognizable as the standard lights, reducing the the frustration of learning to land without reducing interesting part of the challenge.

If Squad decides to make the wreckage of those lights sufficiently low to the ground, players who smash the lights can simply choose not to repair the runway, and leave them out of the way.

People have tried to make VASI (or PAPI) lights with stock parts, and in the form of a mod.