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Do the mobile science labs float? And if they do, how much of them sticks above the water? I'm not at my home computer and will not be able to test this for some time. If someone could drop a lab in the sea and post a screenshot, that would be great. Also, could you take a similar length of the new structural tubing of the same diameter as the lab, capped by "Rockomax Brand Adapters 02s" at both ends, that would also be great. I strongly considering sending a sea plane base out to Laythe, but I am not sure how to build a craft carrying the required (for me) two science labs. But if I can use the labs as part of the floats, might be easier. I already know I'll need to build massive wings and between 4 and 8 jet engines (depending on the model I use). So if anyone isn't doing anything (I'm ADD-ing in a lecture on the basics of MS Word), some you mind dropping some things in the water for me?

From the whimsy department, presenting Long Umpire, the flying boat. It won't go to orbit, but then why would you want to go to orbit with a boat? It's fun to fly, is fully amphibious, ditches and takes off water easily, and has a handy ladder in case the pilot wants to take a dip and get back on-board, and a cargo bay with a ramp in case she wants to pack a lunch, or a rover, or something else that can be rolled on, or off. Passenger variants with Mk 3 passenger modules are also feasible, I tried. To ditch, slow down to 100 m/s at 50 m altitude, then hold wings and nose level until you notice that you've stopped. Completely no-drama and very forgiving, it doesn't mind if you plop it down a bit nose-first, or fly it down a bit fast; I've made touchdowns at well over 100 m/s without any issues whatsoever. To take off, hit full power, waggle your wings to get the floats out of the water, hold attitude horizontal until you're going at 50 m/s or so, then pull up. If somebody flies a practical mission for this, I'd be curious to know what it is. Craft: https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/Long-Umpire (Named after the most iconic flying boat of all, the Short Empire, although the looks are more Caspian Sea Monster.)

Hello everyone! I bring you my latest design! It is a seaplane that I have spent a lot of time designing especially for its weight and power, it was difficult to me to get the right balance so I could take off but at last here it is! Tell me what do you think! Its perfect for rescue Jeb from the middle of the ocean https://kerbalx.com/Kerbalyst/PBY-5A-Catalina More Crafts! https://kerbalx.com/Kerbalyst/craft

One day I decided to build a seaplane. Water Cruiser 52 parts Mass: 15,8 t Dimensions: H: 5,8 m W: 14,3 m L: 17,4 m Action groups: 1 Toggle engines 2 Reverse thrust 3 Deploy/retract flaps Designed for landing at sea (Landing gear for dry land included) Extremely stable (4 SAS modules) Will most likely pitch up slightly without any control input Flying slowly (~60-70 m/s) is enough to land safely, works without the flaps as well To take off from the water, gather some speed and lower the flaps... the plane will take off by itself DOWNLOAD (Dropbox) Feedback is appreciated!

SEAPLANE TO ORBIT - THE 1.3.X PARTY THREAD This challenge is a revised and updated version (with permission) of @Mikki's Seaplane to Orbit 1.05 challenge. UPDATES ****CHALLENGE CREATED 03.07.2017**** RULES - PLEASE READ THESE BEFORE ATTEMPTING THE CHALLENGE The Seaplane to Orbit challenge is inclusive and I'm usually willing to have rules stretched to the nth degree, so get creative and join the party board or gatecrash: 1. Stock and Modded are permitted (Modded is defined as using modded engines, lifting parts, fuel tanks etc). 2. The craft may not lose any parts in flight (unless the award category allows it) 3. The craft run must start from water, reach orbit (PE > 70km) and land intact on water or land. It is accepted that you load your craft on the runway. 4. You may not cheat in any way - Test my leniency sure, but no classic cheating please. 5. All missions require either an album showing each stage of the flight, or a video showing all stages of the flight. 6. Once you have completed a mission, please post your proof in this thread for my review including a breakdown of your score and some basic information about your craft including mods used. AWARDS - IF YOU DO SOMETHING WORTHY I WILL ADD A NEW AWARD CATEGORY AT MY DISCRETION Use modded parts - Nonconformist Use stock only parts - Purist Decouple landing gear after launch from runway - Footloose Submerge and become an submarine - Crashdive Park your seaplane in the KSC Pool - Poolguest - blame @WhiteKnuckle Transfer from water to land after orbit - Beached Use only Liquid fuel (Rocket) engines - Sponsored by Kerbodyne Use only SRB's - Light that candle Have an Engineer inspect your vessel by swimming - Wet Have an Engineer inspect your vessel by foot - Booty Smallest seaplane by weight - Minimalist Largest seaplane by weight - Maximalist Visit another bodies orbit - Traveler PARTYBOARD MK1 SEAPLANES MK2 SEAPLANES MK3 SEAPLANES GATECRASHERS Get your badge here

This is not the thread for SSTO seaplanes; that one is at But we could use a thread for non-spacegoing just-plain-seaplanes too, so this is it. Does it fly on wings, splash down and take off again from the water? Post it here. For starters: Mid-tech science explorer aerobatic flying boat. Nothing higher tech than the Panther. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uvzg7jokxi9l3z/Oceanographer.craft?dl=0

Sector 7 Space Laboratories Beech Model S7-MJ & S7-MJW This craft was inspired by the Beech Model 18 Craft and by MajorJim! The first flight testing wasn't going well because I used the VAB to begin the build then finished the design at the SPH. Because a cockpit was not used the craft was difficult to control. The Photovoltaic Panels were my first choice for windows then later I decided on the flood lights. The Seaplane version was not lifting off the water so Vernor Engines were added to the nose which works great. The craft is a little slow and reminds me of the B25 Mitchell, they look and seem to handle similar. Seating is accommodated with a theater to relax while flying. Photo Album Design Work Photo Album Beech Model S7-MJ Parts: 326 Mass: 43.713t Height: 7.2m Width: 28.0m Length: 20.7m Beech Model S7-MJW Parts: 350 Mass: 40.068t Height: 8.1m Width: 28.0m Length: 20.7m Flight Operation At takeoff full throttle is working fine for both craft, RCS & SAS are not necessary, although I've been using SAS for extended flight. Warp 4X is not a problem when using SAS. Landing is working great at half throttle during your approach then reduce speed as necessary but I recommend staying close to level and above 60 m/s. The MJW Model has reduced fuel for water landings.

Hey all, I've just learned that reading contracts thoroughly can make things easier the hard way. All I had to do was mine 1200 Ore on Minmus and land it back on Kerbin. By land, they mean land, not splashdown... So, as my contract did not register, I put together a (particularly) ugly seaplane and dragged the precious payload back to KSC. Today I've sailed 45km through Kerbin's ocean at 20m/s just to bring back a juicy amount of funds... and that was worth it, because it paid for permanent mining outposts on both Mun and Minmus, both associated with orbital fuel depots, equipped with lightweight landers for wealthy tourists. Those investments will pay very soon...

@EVA_Reentry/Strangelove II asked me to release this craft file so I thought I would create a thread in here for it as I am actually rather fond of the creation. It started with knocking out a few much smaller sea planes based around Mk1 and Mk2 components, but the Mk3 seaplane always evaded me until one day trawling the web I found the Beriev Be-200ChS amphibious plane and decided to have a crack. OK so it's not exactly the same (pure stock) but I think it serves as a reasonable replica, and it is absolutely thoroughly functional in game. The Beriev Be-200ChS Goliath features room for crew and 16 passengers, with ample fuel for long range flying. The engines are mounted above and behind the wings to prevent massive water intake into the turbines, but also to prevent damage to the engines on landing. As a result, and as long as you are careful, you can land the Beriev at atrociously high speed. It's equally at home, however, gliding in and landing as softly as you like. Forgot hitting the water and slamming to an immediate stop here too - the clever hull design makes for a landing as if you were on tarmac. Once you've deployed the airbrakes (double as water brakes ) you can open the cargo bay and if required transfer fuel through the ballast tanks to flood the wet bay, allowing for use of the included personal water craft (Beware is liable to take off) which is very happy undocking and redocking to move to another location. Once you've finished with the water craft simply re-dock, drain the ballast tanks and throttle up the Goliaths. You'll soon hit your water takeoff speed of around 70m/s and cruise into the air when you pull back on the stick. The landing gear also allows you to transfer from water to land and vice versa with ease. Here's a gallery running through some stats: All set up and ready to download on KerbalX - The action groups are already set up too so download it here and have some fun! SM

As someone who spends the majority of their time in the Spaceplane Hangar, i personally can say that this craft turned out better than expected. As you probably saw in the title, this is a Do-226 replica. It's not one to one, but a very close approximation. It's armed with 3 .50 caliber turrets (BDarmory) and seats 3. Reference picture:

Sector 7 Space Laboratories - Marine Division A Seaplane named SeaDog with a twin seat watercraft named Jet Ski 105, it's a combo of a Jet Ski - VTOL - Underwater - Sportscraft. The Video does not demonstrate the VTOL capabilities of the Jet Ski so please be advised that it is also a VTOL Craft and handles very well. SeaDog & Jet Ski 105 SeaDog Jet Ski 105 Craft Files Special Note: When at the runway change the control over to the SeaDog Cockpit. SeaDog & Jet Ski 105 Jet Ski 105

So, seems that i have again found the limits of what KSP physics and Infernal robotics can handle. And here it is then, a project that started out as a MK-4 cargo/passenger rover and what then turned into one of my most challengin builds so far. And it is the S-Tornado, a VTOL/ seaplane/ cargo-plane hybrid that is big and i mean BIG. You need to be a real professional to fly this thing. The design believe or not actually flies, but it's stupidly unreliable witch makes it pretty much useless. And here are the main issues: The size itself isn't an issue, it's the size of the engines. The size and mass of the engines causes them to be very wobbly and loose at all times. Aka the engines want to be at an angle at all times witch causes stability issues. And the problem is that it is physically impossible for me to make them point straight. 1. Because of how infernal robotics works, the only things that will make the part to witch the rotatron is added and the part that is added to the rotatron collide with each other is landing gears and landing legs. Landing gears worked "ok" for me, they made the engines point more straight, but because i can't use mirroring it's very hard to get them to be mirrored, since even the slightest miss alignment will cause the engines to point on different directions, witch in turn causes the aircraft to go off course and crash (happened to me at one point but i fixed the problem later on). Even at this point they don't make the engines point straight enough. I was able to fix all the stability issues, but because of the looseness of the engines they tend to explode (only the back engines do) and take a chunk of the aircraft with them. 2. And again because of how Infernal robotics work, i can't strut them up of they will be stuck. 3. I wanted to use powered hinges on the back engines (none of these problems would have existed), but for some reason they pretended to be pistons (either it's a bug or they just don't like to be pointed the other way around) and just broke my engines before moving even one degree down. And yes that was me flying in a straight line. I guess i just made a more modern version of the Heinkel Grief (Nickname: "Flying Zippo") witch was a WW-2 german Heavy bomber whose engines (two per propeller) would randomly catch fire mid flight. Even altough i said to myself that i'm not gonna give up that easy, That pick above was the point in witch i just gave up. If it can't fly in a straight line without exploding there's no chance that i could make it any better since i tried pretty much every trick in my book. All and all, it works but it's a hit or miss. Anyway, i hope you enjoyed looking at this beast of an aircraft. Mods used: MK-4 fuselage pack, Infernal robotics and Nebula decals. Download link: Unless you guys really want it, i won't be putting up a download link.

I've been dinking around with seaplanes ever since 1.05 came out and have begun to form opinions of what works and what doesn't when it comes to general design characteristics. I'm wondering if my thoughts are generally in line with those of others so here goes.... Part Breakage: What causes part destruction in the water is a huge mystery to me, and this unknown lurks under all my observations, casting doubt on my conclusions. Horizontal speed seems irrelevant. I've had boats reach 250m/s without damage but on various runs, sometimes parts (even those apparently above water) die at lower speeds. I'd really like to know what it is that destroys parts in the water these days. Water Takeoffs: Provided your CoM is slightly aft of the center of the parts that are touching the water, taking off from the water will eventually happen or become possible with elevator input once you build up sufficient speed for your wings to lift you. If your CoM is forward of the longitudinal center of the wet parts, you probably won't achieve flying speed. Achieving high speed on the water seems to depend on natural planing, the whole plane lifting slightly and the nose lifting more than the tail, thereby reducing the surface area in contact with the water, and this only happens if the CoM is far enough aft. While up pitch can force the nose up into a planing attitude if it won't come up by itself, this almost always results in a decrease in speed due to deeper immersion of the tail plus the drag of the deflected control surfaces. But all in all, water takeoffs are much easier than water landings. Water Landings: At any reasonably SANE landing speed (say less than 100m/s), part breakage is rarely if ever an issue. What IS an issue is fliipping over. This is apparently caused vastly increase drag happening at the tail upon contact with the water, with the plane's forward momentum causing the nose to drop sharply. The further below the plane's CoM this point of 1st contact is, the more leverage the sudden drag has to flip you. So you want to land as slowly as possible to minimize your momentum, and you don't want too much vertical space between the part that hits the water first and the CoM. Also, once the nose hits the water, its buoyancy acts against the nose-down moment, and the longer the nose is, and the wider it is, the more buoyancy and leverage it has to keep you from flipping. But even designing the wet parts to conteract the flipping, I still find about 50m/s to be the safest possible landing speed---slower is better. General Design: There are 2 main options here: A realtively conventional plane design with pontoons of some sort stuck on below, or a flying boat where the main fuselage itself is in the water and small pontoons under the wingtips. Taking the above points into consideration, I see some general guidelines for each type. Pontoons: The design of the plane itself is pretty much the same as normal, which simplifies balancing lift, CoM, and thrust. However, if the pontoons are too far below the actual plane, they cause severe flipping tendencies on landing, to reduce which they should extend out ahead of the main fuselage nose. The pontoons also need to be relatively large diameter compared to the fuselage to provide the necessary buoyancy to float at all, and also for the all-important counter to the flipping tendency. Flying Boat: You need to keep as many parts out of the water as possible to minimize water drag, so you can gain take-off speed. This typically means a shoulder wing configuration, intakes on top of the fuselage, etc. All this complicates proper balancing of CoM, CoL, drag, and thrust, which can cause problems in flight both in the air and in space (if this is an SSTO). Also, the main fuselage should be pretty long (as in zero or few radial fuel tanks), so the buoyancy of the nose has the most leverage to prevent flipping on landing. Mk2 fueselage makes the best flying boat IMHO due to its width and built-in lift, both of which tend to prevent flips on landng. Given the need for some sort of pontoons, either to hold up the whole plane or just the wingtips, all seaplanes will have more aerodynamic drag than landplanes so will need more thrust to do the same jobs. They also have more mass so need more wing to stay in the air at the same speeds, so need more thrust for that to reach the same speed as well. And they also need enough wing and/or flaps to land and take off at 50m/s or less, which again means more thrust. Acceleration during water takeoffs is slow, which means a longer, less efficient burn just to get airborne, so more fuel is needed, which means more mass, which means more wing, which means yet more thrust. So any sort of seaplane will therefore be bigger and more expensive than a landplane to do the same flight, and somewhat more difficult to make SSTO. Comparing pontoon planes and flying boats, it seems to me that pontoon planes have less drag in the water (due to less wet surface area) so are easier to get airborne (shorter takeoff time and distance with less thrust needed) but more overall mass and more drag in the air due to have essentially 3 fuselages. Plus they're harder to keep from flipping on landing. However, they';re easier to design and fly. The flying boat has fewer extra parts added to the bare necessities it needs to fly so is lighter and has less drag in the air, meaning it's easier to SSTO (at least on paper). It's also safer to land. But it can be a bear to get airborne so needs the most thrust of the 2 types, and present some tricky design and possibly flying challenges. Overall, therefore, there doesn't seem much to choose between the concepts. What do you all think?