My first continuous flight around Kerbin - Titan stratospheric plane

[lajoswinkler]

As I've been occasionally toying around with high altitude planes going faster than 3 mach, I've decided to try out a trip around Kerbin. Funny, but I've never tried that.

Go big or go home, it's said, so I've used the largest parts, all stock.

Mind that I'm using Realistic Atmospheres and my reentry heating is set to maximum of 120%.

 

There are six R.A.P.I.E.R. engines, each has its own Ram Air Intake, and there's an additional one at the nose, for a good measure.

 

It takes off at around 60 m/s and takes few minutes to reach upper troposphere.

 

At that point, I use full thrust to get to the 20 km mark.

 

When the plane reaches those parameters, thrust is set to 40% or lower.

Flight is stable, going in a sine wave between 25 and 20 km for the most part. Speeds range from around 3.5 to 4.6 mach and parts reach some 80% of their critical temperature. As Kerbin is rather small and this thing goes very fast, it's necessary to lower the nose every couple of minutes to follow the curvature properly.

 

Entering new day and sunrise.

 

Flying over the large crater lagoon.

 

Few seconds after one hour of mission duration, Titan plane reaches the space center.

 

Fuel tanks are still almost 40% full.

[Human Person]

Wow. How do you make it fly straight? My planes always nose down on their own without continuous control input.