Hodo

1750hrs on Steam, older RO install off of Steam that I have another 400hrs in (estimate).

Well depending on how big the capsule that the passengers are in you could create a recovery vehicle to go get the whole capsule and bring it back to Kerbin.... I have had to do this before. But that was YEARS ago... and at the time I was running quite a few mods I am not running now, like Kerbal Attachment System. (there was no claw back then.)

To give you a real world example. Get in a car have someone else drive, sit in the passenger seat and stick your hand out the window with your palm facing the front of the car. While stationary you feel nothing. But once the car is moving you start to feel the air. When you hit about 50mph (80KM/H) you start to feel like something is pushing your hand back. If you continue to about 100mph you will feel like your arm is about to break, this is Max Q. The maximum pressure you can take before the craft fails.

Duna you have to treat like a zero atmosphere planet. The atmosphere is kind of a joke.. much like Mars in real life. Even with parachutes you could still be going supersonic on impact with the ground. So the best bet is retro rockets or some kind of decent rocket to slow your speed and let you land like a VTOL.

Thank you for the kind words. It is true, I am a bit SSTO plane crazy. I managed to build, test, and use one of the biggest FAR+DRE SSTO space planes ever used. And it was actually easy to fly. I have yet to try and build anything like that again... now I am going a bit smaller. Next goal is to get my tail landing rocket designs working and see if I can do a completely recoverable SSTO tail landing rocket without the assist of parachutes. Planes are easy... to me.

SSTOs come in two flavors... Single Stage to Orbit space planes and Single Stage to Orbit rockets. I used to only build planes.. but now that I have discovered the speed and new challenges of launching SSTO rockets it has become a new game for me. Where as before it could take upwards of 10-15min to get a plane into orbit and deploy the cargo... now I can do it half the time, and have a fairly easy to fly craft. With many more landing options. I am sure I can even modify the base design and use it as a lander on Duna or most other planets except Eve. I love the SSTO designs they often are far easier to use.

So I had been doing some research and I am going ask all of my FAR fanatics to help me with to test a theory. I was researching the British Electric Lightning.... I watched a story of the unlikely test pilot, interesting story I suggest looking it up. But I was reading about the aircraft design and how they went with an over-under engine design instead of a side by side like most twin engine fighters. This was to decrease the drag on the airframe. So I tested the design in FAR.... I built an aircraft using the MK2 fuselage that I set vertical instead of its standard horizontal and looked at the data. It had lower drag numbers and was faster at sea level and at altitude than the horizontal setup. But it had the glide slope of a brick. I dont have any current pictures of it but here is the basis for the design. I would love to see if the other engineering experts here can confirm that this is true in KSP+FAR.

Exactly. Problems you run into when doing this is the pros and cons of Delta wings or low wing loading designs, like the F-105, you end up with REALLY high landing speeds or low speed instability. I generally stick to cranked delta wing designs. This gives you a bit more control at lower speeds and a bit slower landing speed. While you do lose some high speed performance, nothing to drastic as to really matter.

Technically the X-1 is not a SSTO. It is deployed from an aircraft which would have been the first stage.

LOL a mission to Duna launched outside of the prime window, lets say launched the same day as this game launched... I think the mission would FINALLY be returning to Kerbin at this point.

Thank you for trying. I just rolled back my install back to 1.45. It makes life so much easier while I wait. I wish I could help you but I know nothing about coding.

I dont think BDArmory has been updated to 1.5 yet. You may have to wait for it to update before downloading and installing.

Swing wings in stock KSP would be pretty pointless as how the drag is calculated. I agree with @Raptor9 the Tomcat was famous for so many things other than its variable geometry wings. When I was making swing wing designs I actually had about a half dozen working variants for FAR.

all I did was revert back to the previous version so I can continue on my missions undisturbed.

It is odd, I have not had this issue. But I do run a modded KSP with BDA phyx extender. But I have noticed on some of my wheeled craft if I leave them out and jump to space center then back to them miles away on the other side of Kerben they jump.

Are you using the latest unofficial release from the Github? What errors are showing up in your crash log? What other mods do you have running? There could be a conflict. Because again I have NO problems with FAR currently.

My oldest picture, and the furthest I have landed a Kerbal. Landed on the moon of Duna, Ike. I have after 3 years never gone back.... And I still haven't made it to Dres. Been to Eve, Moho, Duna, Ike and all over Kerban.

The unofficial release works fine for me. What is your error log showing?

It really hadn't I just pointed out in my post earlier that it maybe different for me due to me running FAR and AJE. Which does bring jet aircraft more inline with realistic performances. It's all good.

Unfortunately I dont those are available in the FAR setup. I will check later when I get home. I have never bothered to look at it seeing as FAR has all of that information available for me in the assembly building.

I found there is kind of a "happy" medium in wide body aircraft designs. You have to rely on the bodies lifting properties to be your primary wing, and use a lot less wing than you would normally put on the craft. I mean you look at the F-16C as a great example of a blended wing lifting body design. Its wings are actually REALLY small for what you would expect out of craft of that size. But it is extremely fast for a fighter of its size and weight. AND it also is extremely agile. But when you start getting bigger start multiplying the drag exponentially.

I actually learned something the other day about that shape, it came when I was studying the Electric Lighting fighter. I found that wide flat shapes like the MK2 forms that create lift, also create a fair amount of drag. This is because when put simply lift = drag. But when I took that mk2 fuselage and turned it on its side, the drag issue pretty much vanished. Now I do run FAR with AJE, so my install maybe different than yours. I actually only like using the mk2 forms for planes that need the lift area because of small wings or long range or both. I rarely use that form for speed builds or anything that I plan on using as a SSTO plane now. Mainly because I have yet to get it to work.... but that hasn't been the focus of my current playthrough.

It is funny.... several years and still here.. still playing KSP... still making aircraft... and still finding new ways to challenge myself. Here are some of my current projects that are working in my game. My SSTOs have evolved from planes to actual tail landing and launching rockets... My fighter aircraft division is even up and running again... with the motto, simple is better. And my new light duty cargo planes have started to enter service.... They aint fast, but they can land and take off in very short distances. And my AWAC/Recon aircraft is also now in service... And everything works perfectly in FAR...

Been gone awhile but still working on new things... It is a tail landing, vertical take off SSTO. Completely rocket powered, no jets. Over 4k Delta V, on take off. Good solid launcher... landings are tricky but hey what isnt.

Dont they already get lighter as they burn off their solid fuel? And honestly the changes in weight is not that high on a AIM-120 or a AIM-9X. If he starts messing with those stats it may mess them up in FAR. Which would be REAL bad. I think tonight I will test a 80nm head on BVR engagement with a AIM-120 to see if it can actually reach its target in FAR.