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The Wrong Brothers - career mode done differently (pic heavy)


katateochi

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awesome flipmcf, that's a cool looking plane. At what stage do you separate the front section? once in orbit?

sorry I've not added to this thread recently, here's a little update;

Aircraft production has slowed down somewhat. The mad rush to reach for space has calmed down and the focus has turned to more refined designs. One evening while wandering around the RnD centre in the dark Jeb blundered into a load of paint cans, clearly left there from by the builders after completing the RnD centre. He was annoyed at first, but the it hit him; why not paint planes!!! (and so the Kerbpaint mod was added).

The first one to hit the tarmac was a new streamline jet, inspired by a dream that Jeb had about strange war-like beings and their special high-alt jet used for spying missions (a concept that is totally alien to Kerbals). But it looked just too darn cool Jeb and couldn't resist the urge to the SR-71.

The engine design was more complex than normal; to get the stream line design and also the power needed, 4 tanks with jet engines where set around a central girder and then rotated slightly so they overlapped each other. Then a rocket engine was mounted onto the central beam so it sat just inside the 4 jets. Inside the engines is a mess of fuel lines to ensure the fuel drains evenly from each tank.

The SR-71 from Jeb's dream about was able to fly at very high alts and was very fast, but Jeb knew he could improve on it. His SR-71B was able to fly into orbit;

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The only draw back of the SR-71 is its high part count (419 parts!) so it's not the most agile of craft. But even with that part count it still handles pretty well.

(apart from the paint mod, this SR-71 is pure stock).

Jeb's next idea was to make a plane that could fly right around Kerbin without leaving the atmo, so it only required air-breathing engines. This was much lighter and much faster than the SR-71 and with a much lower part count.

Jeb is proud to present the SpearHead (stock + paint);

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link to unpainted version

But flying at high altitude is all well and good, but the higher you go the less scary the high speeds seem. What Jeb was really looking for was a white knuckle ride; something that was super fast at sea level and very maneuverable. The DeadBolt (also stock + paint) hits around 210ms at sea level and at those speeds it can weave between the buildings at KSC or thread between jagged mountain passes.

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Jebs dream with the DeadBolt is to be able to fly it under the small bridge in the RnD complex. In a "simulator trail" he almost pulled it off, but clipped a wing on the way out. Would have been fatal if it had been a real life attempt! here's the pics from the simulated attempt

I'm planning to make some vids of these planes soon (job and RL permitting), I'll post them here when they're ready.

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awesome flipmcf, that's a cool looking plane. At what stage do you separate the front section? once in orbit?

Aww, thanks. I don't think it's as cool looking as some of the other stuff coming out, but hey... you work with you got on career mode.

This entire craft has not made it into orbit, but it gets very close. I'm not sure if it's because I have yet to perfect the accent flight, or it's just not capable.

On each mission, the front section detatches just before or near AP, which is around 80-90km - and will burn about 1/5 of it's fuel to put it into a LKO. The lifting stage returns with chutes, because it's just impossible to control and wants to fly upside-down and backwards, but it's at least recoverable.

I don't have pics (yet) but I just achieved the Mun landing with the new "Galliper" model:

It has delivered 3 probe landers so far: two for the Mun and one for Minmus, both transmitting surface science back home.

It's lifted Jeb for his historic first Mun landing

And after a small modification (moar fuel!), it is now capable of reaching orbit with light cargo, and has added 2 components to a space station / fueling depot, and deorbiting.

As the risk of a cross-post ban:

Inspired by the Wrong Bro's thread....

Jeb successfully landed on the mun via a sub-orbital spaceplane which undocked the lander at the AP.

He grabbed a handful of regolith and began his trip home. After escaping the Mun, he ran out of fuel and was stuck in a Kerban orbit. Pe=4Mm Ap=12Mm At the Pe, he had to EVA and push the craft retrograde with his to avoid a re-encounter with the mun, then sat and waited for rescue.

He also cursed the engineers when he realized in the rush to get the project moving, the engineers forgot to install solar panels and parachutes on his lander. Carrying a huge resentment, he sat in his high orbit and waited....

Eventually, a probe docked with the lander, carrying a few drops of fuel, a few solar panels, and 6 parachutes that were obviously thrown on at the last minute, and he was able to burn to lower his Pe to the atmosphere. The parachutes deployed and luckily did not decouple the docking port when the craft decelerated at 6G's He's now safe at home and refuses to talk to the engineering team.

Jeb took a walk over to the management offices with a thick red marker. After stomping around the halls, refusing to talk to anyone or show his security credentials, he found what he was looking for: A cork board with a big blue title posted at the top which proudly proclaimed "Goals and Milestones". Scanning the many post-it notes and memos, one suck out to him that was titled 'kerbal mun mission'. Taking out his marker, he wrote in huge red permanent ink at the bottom of the page "AND RETURN HIM TO KERBAN". Capping the marker, he realized he still wasn't smiling. Something was still missing. After careful thought, he uncapped the marker again and started writing on the cork board itself. He drew a large, rocket shaped oval on the board. Then he added two circles on each side of the bottom of the rocket. He added a finishing touch by adding what looked like small debris coming out of the top of the rocket.

Jeb was now smiling and ready for the next mission. Management got the point.

I'll be putting pics up of the "Galliper" Aptly named due to it's tendancy to occilate up to 15-degrees in yaw and roll during it's accent above 10km, but remain under control.

Again, re-entry landing is very, very hard, and has yet to happen. All re-entries end up with an abort and cockpit landing with chutes. I'm having major problems there.

I have one craft that that has done 3 orbits and landed, on it's wheels, at KSC. However, it carries no science and is still just a proof-of-concept plane for experimenting with accent profiles, landing, and very high altitude air-breathing acceleration.

Edited by flipmcf
MOAR
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I'm getting there. Transmissions from Minmus surface gave us some new ideas on how to use wings.

The Galiper 2 brought another lander up. Unfortunately, it was far from reaching orbit and had to decouple at 40k. While accelerating the Minmus lander into orbit, tracking was lost on the Galiper. Bill is Missing - but I think he knows how to pull the eject button, (if he didn't panic) so we'll probably be hearing back from him.

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Galliper 2 has been completely overhauled. Who knew that Center of Thrust was so important?

Also, I had a nasty quicksave issue that reverted me quite far back, before any manned landings occurred. This is a good excuse to build the lander from lessons learned (add chutes, add solar panels, don't panic)

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