SSgt Baloo

How would I know? This is the first time I've ever done this. I downloaded the file from Spacedock. Are there any dependencies I need to download before I unload this into Gamedata and start the game again?

Did you examine the log file before giving that advice? If it's CKAN fouling up the install, then they need to know, so they can correct the problem. ETA: Uninstalling and then performing a manual install, just in case.

I deleted the old log, reloaded all the game files, and then installed only scatterer and its one (sun flare) dependency and restarted the game. It's a much smaller file, now: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3L-ggK-tvpPQkFVVTJaTVJ5NVE Thanks!

Thanks for the instructions. I reinstalled scatterer, loaded the game, played a bit with a black sky, then exited. I didn't notice before, but the ocean seems to be missing, or, at the very least, it's surface seems to be absent. Kind of neat, if I was seeing this on some other planet. See? The log file itself is over 40 MB. How can I make its contents available for someone to view? I can't just cut-n-paste it here, and I don't know of any services that I could upload it to for others to view.

Not an expert, here. How do I check logs?

After unloading and then reloading a number of different mods (mostly Environmental Visual Enhancements and Stock Visual enhancements), I have finally determined that it's only when I load scatterer that the daytime sky appears black. Is there a setting I can change to fix this?

This guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Hu

Just grabbed. Thanks!

Whenever I try to download this most useful mod, using CKAN, I get the following message: "Failed to download "https://spacedock.info/mod/715/No Crew Requirement Continued/download/1.01" - error: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found." I don't know if it's a CKAN problem or if it's a problem with Spacedock or what. Who is(are) the correct person(s) to share this with, so they may fix the problem?

I was just getting ready to post my newest project, and now I see this. The C-57D? Dude, you rock! I was working on atmospheric saucers, and ended up making this: The upper and lower surfaces of the saucer are just procedural nosecones. The top half of the saucer was surface-attached to the cockpit, and maneuvered around using the move and rotate widgets (with the assistance of the Editor Extensions mod). Imbedded inside the saucer (and also attached to the command pod) are procedural wings, sized to occupy most of the inside of the saucer shell. The lower half of the shell was attached, node-to-node, to the upper half. Everything else was surface-attached to the shell and aligned to, and/or embedded in one of the shells. More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/Poor Mans Flying Saucer

I was inspired by the plane in this video to make the plane visible in the images below. I give you the Chickenwing! The Aerosport engine (~25 kn thrust) is from the KAX mod. I used a couple of RCS thrusters for the eyes, and only noticed the convenient "eyebrows" after I'd placed them. This actually flies extremely well. It isn't exactly an STOL, but it can land in a short distance, when you use the flaps. The flaps make too much drag on take-off, so I only use them for landing. I tried using them for take-off, but they made so much drag it took forever to get off the ground. Not the whole runway, but most of it. More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/Chickenwing

It was fun just seeing them actually lurch into the air. I'm finding that tandem-winged aircraft with pitch control both fore and aft can land softly at lower-than-I-was-expecting speeds. I just drop to within 10 meters of the ground, hold a steady pitch, and cut the motor*. The front elevator acts as an airbrake, slowing you down as you pitch up, so I vary the pitch between enough up to rise a little bit, to enough down to keep from getting too far from the ground when the lift runs out. * After lowering the gear, of course.

I've been working on tandem-winged planes, using the most feeble motor in the game (The Continental engine from Lack's Stock Extension, producing a whopping 5 kilonewtons of thrust). There's the Pushmi (rear-engined), the Pullyu (front-engined). and the Pushmipullyu (both). I started with the Pushmipullyu, then decided to find out if it could fly with only one engine. The pusher, to my surprise, wound up being the faster single-engined plane, even though it has a weight penalty due to the ballast I put in its nosecone to ensure it wasn't tail-heavy. In the following image, the Pushmipullyu is in the back. It's unstick speed, when the wheels leave the runway, is about 25 m/s, at a distance of 407 meters from launch (mfl). Its top speed is just (barely) over 74 m/s. The one in the middle is the Pushmi. The Pushmi unsticks at 22.9 m/s at 925mfl, and has a top speed of 67 m/s. The Pullyu unsticks at 29.6 m/s at 966m, and has a top speed of 65 m/s. Except for the nosecone/tailcone that replaces the missing engine, each of these planes uses the same parts. The front and rear wings are identical, with the outboard elevons effecting pitch and roll and the inboard ones handling only pitch. The single-engined planes have half the fuel of the twin, with the Pushmi keeping the contents of its front 1m x 0.625m tank and the Pullyu keeping those of the rear one. All three, Twin on the left, pusher in the middle, tractor-engined one in the front. Pushmi in flight. Pullyu in flight Pushmipullyu flying. More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/23SEP2016

Another video of the same plane.

I still haven't figured out how I'm gonna model this in KSP yet...

Today I made seaplanes and flying boats. The first one carried only the pilot, and required at least 20 kilonewtons of thrust to take off from the water, so I used the Merlin from Lack's Stock Extension. The rest used motors from the Airplanes Plus mod. The red-and-gray floats are from the Firespitter mod (and can be scaled up or down), while the other floats are from Lack's mod and can't be scaled. The first was the only single-engined, single-seat plane in the series. I think all the cockpits I used were from Lack's mod, as well. If I'm wrong, let me know. I have a hard time keeping these straight in my head. It flies well enough (all of the planes shown can easily take off and land on land, and can duplicate those feats on water, though a few need maximum elevator authority to unstick from water. The next was a twin-engined, multi-passenger version of the first. I had to use a taller pylon to elevate it from the float, and, like the first, it flies well enough. When landed in water, it does tend to sit rather low, but at least it doesn't sink. Despite the power claims for the Cyclone engine (shown) this plane is just adequate. It's best virtue is that despite having two engines, its fuel consumption is still kind of frugal. Also, if you look at some of the images, you can see my efforts to put a water rudder on these two, by using a very small fin and a very small elevon. Still not sure of the water rudders were any help. Getting turned around on water works fastest when you have differential thrust to help slew the plane around. After the above plane, I wanted to see about making a flying boat, and discovered that the above floats could not be scaled, so I switched to the red-and-gray ones, which were. They also have more than one end cap, as one is a nose, while the other has a rudder (dunno if it works, though). The above plane had "adequate" rudder authority and flew well enough, but I thought I could do better, so I rebuilt it with a taller tail (and more rudder), a bit more wing (the rounded wingtips) and different engines, the Bumblebee from Airplanes Plus. It flies much better, unsticks faster, and can get airborne in a bit more than 300 meters, which isn't STOL territory, but it isn't bad, either. With the more powerful engines, this one can get places in a hurry. Most of the others can't exceed 300 MPH without the person flying it exercising incredible patience. Only the last one can climb at 50 m/s without slowing and stalling in a hurry. I still haven't wrung these out. I just checked to see if I could take off, land on water, get airborne again, and land back at KSP. They will perform all of these tasks without much difficulty, except for the few (all the twin-engine ones) that needed more elevator authority to get airborne from the water. More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/19SEP2016

I once met a scurvy pirate wit' a ship's wheel stuck within his trousers. I asked him what it was fer, 'n he answered "I don't be knowin', but 'tis drivin' me nuts!"

Arr!

TWIN FALLS, Idaho — Professional stuntman Eddie Braun successfully jumped over the Snake River Canyon Friday afternoon in an ode to his boyhood idol, Evel Knievel. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daredevil-rockets-over-snake-river-canyon-ode-evel-knievel-n649791?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

I think they're from SXT - Lack's Stock Extension.

I have been avoiding talking about using seperatrons in the builds I am making because once they are used, they can't easily be reset and used again (if at all). It's the same reason I haven't been equipping these planes with drag chutes. What if you want to take off and land more than once in the course of a mission? Also, adding rockets to a plane can make it that much more complicated. As my age advances, I find myself getting a more and more of a head start on befuddlement without even trying, so I want to keep the operation of these things pretty simple and straightforward - just like any other plane except shorter take-offs and landings. Not that there isn't a place for rocket boosters and drag 'chutes. Until KSP gets steam catapults, there are few other ways to "throw" a high-performance plane into the air in a short distance, with enough force to make it stick. Likewise, we don't have arresting gear either. Anything intended to land in a specific small space (such as a seagoing vessel smaller than your local airport) needs drag chutes. I have also noticed that my favorite propeller engine for going fast and high (the Bumblebee, from the Airplane Plus mod) doesn't work as well, in this application, as the Kraken from the KAX mod. I guess it starts producing more thrust sooner, even if the other engine gives the plane a higher top speed. I couldn't get either of these guys airborne in as short a distance with the Bumblebee (about 250 meters with that one, I think). Now to experiment with single-seaters.

I've been experimenting with STOL planes. After finally deducing that speed at unstick wasn't a good metric, I figured out that distance from the starting point at the moment of unstick (when wheels leave the ground) is more important, so I pause and hit <F3> to find out how far it's travelled when I see that the wheels have left the ground. So far, these planes have done the best. They use all the same parts, but the biplane shifts one of the wing sections down to the same level as the flaps on the monoplane. Both manage to lurch into the air at just over 50 meters from start. I did it in 42 meters (once) with one of them, but after unsuccessfully trying to duplicate that result, I think it takes luck or skill (or both) to make it fly that soon after brakes-off. The tailplane is elevated slightly by mounting it on a (very) small wing or fin to keep the vertical stabilizers and rudders from dragging when landing on uneven terrain. More here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/16SEP2016

Well, after much experimentation, these are my two greatest successes. Both can take off in less than 60 meters, and I've gotten the biplane version off the ground in less than 50, but that was only once and I have not been able to duplicate that stunt since, so just over 50 seems to be the limit. The monoplane version has its L/G and engines suspended at the ends of the FAT 445 elevons I'm using as flaps for these. Each wing half consists of one type C wing connector at the root, and two wing connector type Bs, with a rounded wingtip that came with one (or another) Aircraft parts mod pack. Ailerons are also FAT-445s. Each horizontal stabilizer half consists of two type E wing connectors with FAT-445s as elevators, and the end caps are also type E connectors, with Elevon 3s as rudders. The Biplane version moves one Type B wing connector to replace the FAT-445 flaps, and places those flaps on the wing's trailing edge. Otherwise, these planes are almost identical. While I put ladders at both the front and rear of each plane, they aren't much use for climbing down, as I can't figure out how to align them with the invisible ladders on the doors when they EVA. The rear ladders are actually useless, since they can't be used to climb down or up. The front ladders can be used to get close enough to the front doors to board, so if they need to get out and do something, they just have to jump down and climb back in later. If anyone has tips for how to place the ladders so they don't block, but facilitate the downward climb from the cockpit door, please share. More images here: http://s28.photobucket.com/user/SSgtBaloo/slideshow/16SEP2016

fourfa: Editor extensions redux is turning out to be a great help. Thanks! I have figured out that speed upon unstick is less important then distance traveled until then. The slowest flyers I've made so far take way too much distance before leaving the ground, and they don't climb with any enthusiasm. One of my best efforts thus far has unstuck less than 100 meters from the launch point (99, to be exact), but I don't know if that's good, bad or mediocre. When I notice the wheels leaving the surface, I hit <F3> and see how much distance the plane covered. I forgot to take pictures, but thanks for sharing, everybody. Lots of good ideas to stea..., er, I mean, benchmark.

I think I'll give Editor Extensions Redux a try. It sounds as if it'll do what I want, once I figure out how to use it.