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VTOL longevity challenge


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This one is simple challenge of flying VTOL as long as you can, without landing or crashing it.

 

Rules:

1. No cheating, no debug menu, no physics exploits. Electric engines are allowed and counted as honorable entry.

2. There will be a main mission and several missions to show capability of your craft. Any landing or takeoff in any mission should be vertical.

3. The scoring will be based on the mission time from the main mission. Your craft should maintain altitude under 5km overall, and you should not touch any ground in the meantime.

 * Mission time is the time from the craft takes off to land.

4. Your craft should be able to land on VAB, and take off again. (Proof needed - these capabilities can be done on the separate mission)

5. Your craft should be able to reach the island runway. (Proof needed)

6. Do not stage. Disposal of any part is prohibited.

6. Air-to-air refueling is allowed, provided you can. Refueling time is subtracted from total mission time. All other types of refueling is prohibited.

7. If your craft is stable and maintains altitude well, then you can add (Remaining Fuel)/(Fuel Consumption Rate) to the mission time and recover the craft.

 

Score:

Base score is the mission time you flied the VTOL during the main mission

There are multipliers based on capability of your craft. Proof needed, can be done on a separate mission.

X1.1 (multiply) if the craft can land on SPH.

X1.1 if the craft can fly under R&D bridge.

X1.2 if engine section of the craft is either ducted or secured in cargo bay.

X1.2 if the craft can land on R&D bridge.

X1.5 if the craft can reach orbit.

X1.6 if the craft can circumnavigate under 5km of altitude.

X3 if the craft can land on Duna intact.

X4 if the craft can land on Laythe intact.

X1000 if the craft can get to and land on Laythe and back. (Don't panic, the multiplier will be x5 once this is proven to be possible)

X10000 if the craft can get to and land on Tylo and back. - This alone is a challenge, isn't it?

 

Leaderboards:

1. 65,405 seconds, @sevenperforce , with great tiltplane VTOL SSTO capable of Duna! Judging from the pictures it also seems to have great manueverability,
                                                              which is hard for a SSTO(especially long-range one).

2.

Edited by Reusables
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52 minutes ago, overkill13 said:

Is transition to forward flight permitted?  The term VTOL does not, itself, prevent this.

Yes, of course. Actually I encourage this, as it tends to be more challenging and fun.

But every landing/takeoff should be vertical.

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5 hours ago, MarvinKitFox said:

By the current ruleset, any SSTO rocket that is adaptable enough to land on-target, can get an infinite score.

Oops. I'lll add a rule that it should be in atmosphere while counting mission time.

EDIT: more strict rules. Now you should maintain altitude overall.

Edited by Reusables
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What about using mods to assist with controls? I have a craft that I for some reason cannot get to take off perfectly vertically with just SAS and thrust vectoring, but if differentiating thrust were involved, then it would be a different story.

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9 minutes ago, drtricky said:

What about using mods to assist with controls? I have a craft that I for some reason cannot get to take off perfectly vertically with just SAS and thrust vectoring, but if differentiating thrust were involved, then it would be a different story.

No problem :)

The purpose of the challenge is not focused on just making VTOL. It's focused on making an efficient one.

EDIT: Modded jet engines are not allowed, for sure.

Edited by Reusables
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Do you have to do any of the the multiplier challenges during the same run as the timed run?  Obviously some are mutually exclusive (can't get to orbit but stay under 5km).  Circumnavigating during the missions sounds like it has to be one run.  But not sure about the rest, like flying under or landing on KSC buildings.

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On 2017. 6. 8. at 11:10 AM, Aegolius13 said:

Do you have to do any of the the multiplier challenges during the same run as the timed run?  Obviously some are mutually exclusive (can't get to orbit but stay under 5km).  Circumnavigating during the missions sounds like it has to be one run.  But not sure about the rest, like flying under or landing on KSC buildings.

Only circumnavigation should be done during the mission(timed run). Other than that, separate mission is fine. (And recommended as well)

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Interesting challenge... there are a couple of unclarities in the rules though:

1. So there is the main mission to determine the flight time. Are there an infinite number of attempts to get the multipliers or just one single extra attempt?

2.  In the main mission, do you have to complete rules 1 to 7 in the same run (particularly rule 2 and 3)?

3. Are you allowed to remove the oxidizer/monoprop from your craft for the main mission, and add these again for the multiplier attempts later? Or do you have to use exactly the same fuel load every run?

 

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6 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

3. Are you allowed to remove the oxidizer/monoprop from your craft for the main mission, and add these again for the multiplier attempts later? Or do you have to use exactly the same fuel load every run?

Since someone can simply burn off monoprop and LOX at the beginning of their mission, it should definitely be allowed.

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The scoring system is no good. A RTG powered helicopter will be able to fly for infinite time under current rules. Also, by allowing transition to forward flight this becomes basically a forward flight challenge, because forward flight is much more efficient.

My entry, swap the payload for RTGs and it will fly forever.

OzQL5Uy.jpg

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20 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

Interesting challenge... there are a couple of unclarities in the rules though:

1. So there is the main mission to determine the flight time. Are there an infinite number of attempts to get the multipliers or just one single extra attempt?

2.  In the main mission, do you have to complete rules 1 to 7 in the same run (particularly rule 2 and 3)?

3. Are you allowed to remove the oxidizer/monoprop from your craft for the main mission, and add these again for the multiplier attempts later? Or do you have to use exactly the same fuel load every run?

Good catch!

1. You can do as many attempts as you want to satisfy the conditions - as there are no restrictions with it -, except for the circumnavigation one. The circumnavigation should be done during the main timed mission.

2. No, you just need to show that your craft has the capabilities. No need to do it during the same mission.

3. Yes you can adjust the fuel load.

9 hours ago, goduranus said:

The scoring system is no good. A RTG powered helicopter will be able to fly for infinite time under current rules. Also, by allowing transition to forward flight this becomes basically a forward flight challenge, because forward flight is much more efficient.

My entry, swap the payload for RTGs and it will fly forever.

As I've got used to those electric engines, I made these rules with them in my mind.

Good luck maintaining altitude with electric engines! It will count as honored entry. (Out of scoring system)

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8 minutes ago, goduranus said:

Maintaining altitude, how? 

weight it down so it can't exceed 5 km

erm... if a craft hasn't got enough TWR to gain altitude at 4,999m, it definitely doesn't have enough to lift off the ground at sea level.

@Abastro where do u stand on parasails?

Edited by The_Rocketeer
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1 hour ago, goduranus said:

That's an easy problem, just weight it down so it can't exceed 5000 and use rockets to get off the ground.

Your misconception here is that weight can make lower altitudes possible yet higher altitudes impossible. Gravity (and therefore weight) decreases as altitude increases, so assuming equivalent thrust, any vehicle that can hover at 1m can definitely ascend at higher altitudes.

Using rockets to get off the ground would boost TWR, but once they've done their thing the rotorcraft will either fly up, up and away (until the air is too thin for aerodynamic lift), or descend and accelerate back towards the ground.

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11 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Your misconception here is that weight can make lower altitudes possible yet higher altitudes impossible. Gravity (and therefore weight) decreases as altitude increases, so assuming equivalent thrust, any vehicle that can hover at 1m can definitely ascend at higher altitudes.

Using rockets to get off the ground would boost TWR, but once they've done their thing the rotorcraft will either fly up, up and away (until the air is too thin for aerodynamic lift), or descend and accelerate back towards the ground.

What you talking about dude? The air is thinner at higher altitudes, the wings you are using as blades lose lift as you ascend, so you lose your vertical thrust.  Now blades spin faster, but you are also forced to change to a higher angle of attack with the blades (  lsome of the blades will have to be control surfaces ), which will limit your spin rate.

You are just goading me onto actually building the infinite scorer aren't you.

Edited by goduranus
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45 minutes ago, goduranus said:

What you talking about dude?


In a word: gravity.

It's weaker the higher you are, and that is a one-directional change. At no point on the way up does gravity increase (unless you started underground, but that's another point).

Therefore anything that weighs 1 ton on runway weighs less than 1 ton at 5000m, not because it burned fuel but because there is less gravity.
Therefore anything that has a Thrust-to-Weight-Ratio (TWR) = x and can lift off from the runway will have a TWR > x at 5000m.
Therefore if a rotorcraft can take off on its own rotational lift, it can definitely climb above 5000m.

Weighing it down will only work to keep it below 5000m if it stops it from actually leaving the ground.
Using rockets to get around this would result in a flight that either returned to Kerbin's surface at destructive speeds, or that eventually reached equilibrium somewhere in more rarefied atmosphere above 5000m.

Now you're right to say that the air gets thinner at higher altitudes - in fact I said that myself last time around, and I just said it again - but the point at which aerodynamic lift fade off kicks in enough to seriously affect rotorcraft TWR is a lot higher than 5000m.

But by all means, prove me wrong if you can :D
 

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Here's an infinitely hovering helicopter.

Easy to build and stable to hover. Altitude controlled by either with ailerons or amount of roll input. Unsteerable of course.

There are nuclear reactors inside the structural fuselages.

J2KE99q.png

Edited by Sivonen
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10 minutes ago, Sivonen said:

Here's an infinitely hovering helicopter.

Easy to build and stable to hover. Altitude controlled by either with ailerons or amount of roll input. Unsteerable of course.

There are nuclear reactors inside the structural fuselages.

J2KE99q.png

Hm, I didn't thought about this.

Because.. you need to be capable of VAB landing. This is interesting, Please let me know if you manage to do it!

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it can carry regular engines for controlled landing on the VAB or the Island Runway. Doesn't have to be entirely flown as a helicopter.

Also, can parts be separated and reattached later? Some helicopter designs  on KerbalX will keep the fuselage stable, but undock the helicopter rotor, which is confined in a fairing, and redock it after landing.

Edited by goduranus
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