Unpowered Landing challenge

[herbal space program]

2 minutes ago, DualDesertEagle said:

Doesn't the big heat shield also add a whole lot of drag and reduce the falling speed alot? Just curious, coz if it does and u STILL need so many "rotor blades" to slow down to a reasonable touchdown speed then it becomes clear that this thing is HEAVY

 

Absolutely. Those heat shields reduce terminal velocity down low from something like 200m/s to something like 38m/s. Without them, it would be pretty hard to slow down quickly enough with just the rotor blades. However, once I've slowed down, the blades alone are enough to hover near the ground. I was even able to do it with fewer, but the more blades you have, the slower you can spin, and consequently the easier it is to land. As I said in my album post, the original ship had landing gears on hardpoints arranged in a circle around the base, but I accidentally ejected those in orbit. I'll probably try again a couple of times tonight to see if I can "stick the landing" and come to a rest upright on the wheels, perhaps even on the runway/pad!

[Scarecrow]

Any bonus for landing back on the runway at KSC, as that is where I aim to put most of my returning SSTOs?

[DualDesertEagle]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow said:

Any bonus for landing back on the runway at KSC, as that is where I aim to put most of my returning SSTOs?

Nope, not here. Land anywhere u like.

[DualDesertEagle]

No one else here?

 

I might aswell put the heli-type landings in a separate category, it seems they scare the other potential participants away.

I might also try one myself, maybe I just did it wrong on my first attempt.

[goduranus]

I wonder if asteroids are still indestructable, if so my strategy would be to drop an asteroid. Maximum score for this method: about 5,000,000,000, with a class E asteroid being 1,000,000 kgs and reaching speeds about 5,000 m/s.

 

Not a proper entry but I did something like this for another challenge requiring high speed landing.

 

[DualDesertEagle]

8 hours ago, goduranus said:

I wonder if asteroids are still indestructable, if so my strategy would be to drop an asteroid. Maximum score for this method: about 5,000,000,000, with a class E asteroid being 1,000,000 kgs and reaching speeds about 5,000 m/s.

Not a proper entry but I did something like this for another challenge requiring high speed landing.

Why the hell is everyone thinking HIGH speed???

The LOWEST speed on touchdown wins here, not the HIGHEST!!! READ THE OP!

Edited July 28, 2017 by DualDesertEagle

[goduranus]

Ohhh, I might have been drunk.

In that case I think the winning strategy could be an RTG-powered electric gyrocopter for infinite score with a touchdown speed near zero. 

 

[invision]

pfft planes....parachutes.....amateurs

 free fall landing

 

[DualDesertEagle]

12 hours ago, invision said:

pfft planes....parachutes.....amateurs

 free fall landing

Pics removed from quote

Can't see any weight in any of the pics, but for calculating the score I need to know that!

 

Working on my own entry now...

[qzgy]

My entry. Its real ugly but it works.

1033/1/12.9 = 80.07

Edited July 30, 2017 by qzgy

[DualDesertEagle]

4 hours ago, qzgy said:

My entry. Its real ugly but it works.

 

 

1033/1/12.9 = 80.07

Sry to break it to u but u skipped a zero at the end of the mass number. Not only is that visible in ur readouts, but also the Cockpit alone weighs over a ton. The rest of the parts would have to be made out of helium to make the aircraft weigh what u used in the formula.

But that correction actually makes ur score ten times bigger, so be glad I found that error:

10 330 / 1 / 12.9 = 800.77

Edited July 30, 2017 by DualDesertEagle

[qzgy]

3 hours ago, DualDesertEagle said:

Sry to break it to u but u skipped a zero at the end of the mass number. Not only is that visible in ur readouts, but also the Cockpit alone weighs over a ton. The rest of the parts would have to be made out of helium to make the aircraft weigh what u used in the formula.

But that correction actually makes ur score ten times bigger, so be glad I found that error:

10 330 / 1 / 12.9 = 800.77

Oh, oops. Actually its fine that I scored higher than i thought. Thanks for double checking.