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Hi, I'm much more experienced in rockets than planes, but I wanted something to enter Laythe, look for landing place, land, and reach orbit. This thing just does that. It's really very very simple. Craft file is here: SP01 simple 01deg v2.craft It has wing AoA of 1 pixel rotation (is that a degree?), control surfaces and landing gear rotated back to 0°, very little clipping other than the pre-cooler which is offset into the adapter tank. It flies nicely. About 15 "presses" of elevator trim for takeoff and for the climb up to 9km. Down to about 8 presses of trim to hold a prograde angle of about 8 degrees on the start of the speed run, reaching 1450 m/s at 24km ready to switch to closed cycle and - then an only then - activating SAS. And for re-entry, maximum vertical trim keeps it at a decent angle. It makes LKO with very little spare LFOx remaining and about 100-160 LF spare for atmospheric flight. However, I can never, never get it to be "roll stable". I dislike SAS intensely, so I try to fly only with trim and fine control. And that works fine apart from the need to correct the roll every 4 seconds. Is there any way of getting a plane to fly straight without SAS? Are there any requirements for build order (i.e., place each wing part and control surface individually with symmetry, or build the whole wing and then place it as one piece with symmetry? I seem to remember there being a build order required for multiple engines and air intakes...)? Does the landing gear have an effect on stability (I'm pretty sure it is perfectly aligned, at least is gives no other problems on takeoff or landing)? I've tried using a rocket fin rather than the tail fin shown, but that didn't make any difference. I'm pretty certain the cargo is balanced. Help! Please!?!

"Complete the Ultimate Mun 6 Expedition" 6 words that meant pain and suffering for the last 2 days. I didn't read properly before I accepted so I missed a little 3 letter word in the mission description. "We need you to land on the Mun, Laythe, Eve, Ike and Minmus and finish on the surface of Kerbin using a single vessel." Basically for these "tour"-missions I use one of my spaceplanes and refuel it at every planet system, I have mining stations and/or space stations at Minmus, Ike, Gilly, Laythe, Bop and Pol so I usually really don't need multipart vessels. This time KSP got me. I didn't finish the mission yet since I will have to do it in between my other missions but I finished building and testing my vessel in sandbox mode (Thank god for Hyperedit). Since Eve is on the list I thought maybe I could build an Eve lander around one of my modified spaceplanes. I spare you the details of hours and hours of building, optimizing, tearing it apart, rebuild, optimize.... Here is what I came up with: Part count: 966 Weight: 6015.7 tons Price: 2,563,633 (Mission Reward is 4,122,260 + 618,030 Advance) Craft file: EVE-LanderJet.craft The Images are from 2 flights but I did it in one, the Jebediah flight landed in an Eve ocean though. This is the spaceplane I wanted to bring to Eve and back up: And this is what I needed to get it done: Since I cannot embed Imgur albums anymore here is the link for more images: http://imgur.com/a/bEkEs It looks like I'm stranded in Eve orbit now but in career mode i have a tanker stationed at Gilly that makes it there easily. This was pure Sandbox-proof of concept. Morale of the story: Never just click accept on missions.

Dear all, I'd like to create spaceplanes in RSS to achieve an orbit and stuff like that. What problems I found out by now using ksp-stock-sized related mods: ksp-fuels are way too dense --> spaceplanes don't produce lift enough at normal angles of attack (more angle - more lift - more dragg) ksp fuels are way too dense --> runway collapses jet engines and the rapier are adjusted for kerbin atmosphere and kerbin airspeeds Thoughts to come by these problems: using C7's Sabre Engine (2.5m) of the B9 pack and adjusting it to: use intake air / liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen in the correct ratio adjust it in size and weight to the planned sabre engine from Reaction Engines Limited adjust performance-values to work at mode switch conditons (~30km @ mach 5.x) Unfortunately I'm not a modder and don't know how to destroy adjust the configs correctly. Do you know: someone who created the piece of code I am looking for? a link to the modpack I am looking for? which values have to be adjusted? how to adust those values? do you know someone who is developing a jet-engine pack for RSS/real fuels? If you have other ideas to get a proper technical base for spaceplane engines, I'd like to read your suggestions. Thanks, Lukas

An X-15 replica-thingy. Disable the pitch on the canards until the last approach. Download: https://kerbalx.com/awfulhumanbeing/X-15-+-launcher

Hi all, I've run a few SSTO planes now and it occurs to me that I can probably do better, but I don't have the information I need yet. If anyone knows this stuff it'd be a great help. For SCIENCE! I'm using the latest Steam version of the game on PC (V. 1.1.3 I guess?) as I understand that makes a big difference to spaceplanes. 1) Would hacking the config file or something for KER to convince it to run on this version actually work, or would it just break stuff? Has anyone tried this? I would like to know my net delta-v but I'm too lazy to calculate it myself. 2) I've read that Kerbin's atmosphere is stacked in layers with hard boundaries between the layers; does anyone know offhand what altitude the cutoff points are (aside from the 70km cutoff to space)? I've noticed that my air intake tends to drop smoothly when I monitor it over 10km, so I may not even be asking a meaningful question here. 3) Does it still count as a spaceplane if the payload is the entire fuselage including cockpit? 4) I've noticed the sonic/reentry effects are sensitive to the craft's profile, and that heating effects are also sensitive to the craft's profile, but I read that drag effects are simply a function of the craft's mass times some co-efficient. Is that still correct for this version? 5) I noticed the shock cone weighs twice as much as the ramp intake, and the inline intake seems to just be all-around better than the pre-cooler, is there some reason that the shock cone and precooler are better parts for a spaceplane?

Hello there! I've been playing KSP for a while, but I mostly use rockets, since I like them most. I've built some planes but never a SSTO. At least a working one. So I started to learn a lot about this things. I've seen in many videos that they close intakes at certain altitude, near atmosphere limit, and the engines keep running (RAPIER). Also, they angle the craft almost horizontally once in atmosphere, and they fire the NERV really late. I would like to get some guidelines about this matter. Thanks!

Hi folks, I don't know if this is possible and I don't have an "entry", but I'm wondering if any of you have created low-tech spaceplanes before getting the last upgrades to the facilities. Restrictions on the plane: Must be capable of getting a payload to LKO. Small payloads are OK, large payloads are better. Realistically, 14 tons to orbit given the mass restriction would be fantastic. Must be capable of returning to the Space Center after deploying its payload. Doesn't have to be SSTO, but the less you drop the better. SSTO would be ideal. Doesn't have to take off on the runway, but c'mon, it's a spaceplane, not a rocket. I've already seen some very impressive SSTO rockets. No tech that costs more than 300 research to unlock -- that means NO: Rapiers, Whiplash, Aerospike, Ion (on a spaceplane?), shock intake, engine pre-cooler, or quad adapters (although bi-adapters are available and you can make a quad with 3 bi-adapters). That probably means Panther engines. Not more than 255 parts or 140 tons total weight. NO Mechjeb or WiseASS. The planes should be human-pilot-able, because hardcore stock If you really want me to score them, I will, but I'm honestly just wondering if it's even possible at this point. I am -working- on an entry but it decided to spontaneously fall out of the air at 6km and 600m/s just after the panthers started giving me 174kn thrust. And yes, that is two different flights with the wings and engines set up a little differently.

I'm trying to make a high altitude supersonic plane for a contract in Realism Overhaul. So far I am failing horribly. On the runway, once it picks up speed, the plane turns around goes butt-first along the runway until the engine stops it, as if the center of lift is in front of the center of mass. I am using FAR. Screenshots: As you can see in the last picture the plane lines up with the retrograde marker automatically, even with SAS on. Any ideas?

I give you my newest spaceplane, a self refueling SSTA (although, it most definitely won't come back from Eve). It's already done a mission to the Jool system and back stopping on Minmus, Duna, Ike, Laythe, Vall, and Pol (and then Duna and Ike again on the way back). It also includes an orbital scanner so you can choose the best landing spot for refueling. https://kerbalx.com/nestor_d/OSP-Mk31-Firebird Here's an album of the first half of the mission:

Previously I've tried to launch a SSTO but to no avail: you just can't seem to do that with low-tier tech. So I've decided to approach the problem with a different solution: a spaceplane on top of a reusable first stage. The design will be similar in concept to Dyna-Soar and Boeing X37-B.

Hi guys, I was trying to design a spaceship/spaceplane hybrid that is similar to Dyna-Soar. I've managed to get it into LKO, rendezvous with my space station and return to Kerbin. It survived the re-entry pretty well, but the issue came right after the re-entry: prograde pointed right towards the ground, and my ship started tumbling like a washing machine. Would really appreciate some help if somebody could guide me on what's wrong with the plane. (I've checked the COM and COL, COL is constantly behind the COM even when the tank is empty. Thanks!

Kerbals are on a Mission to the Jool System, but because of the newest recession of Kerbin's economy, the Space Program couldn't afford to lose a single tank or engine, so it was decided to use a self reuelling SSTO spaceplane, which made the journey very, very long because the constant need for stops along the way (7 and a half years so far, stopping at Minmus, Duna, and Ike). The first intended landing site atthe Jool System was Vall, but the dwindling fuel reserves made Laythe the only viable because of the possibility of either an unpowered descent or sporadically using the much more efficient air breathing engines on the plane. After a refuelling stop on Laythe's surface, landings on Pol and Bop are planned. Tylo is, of course out of the question as it would mean a permanent residence there for the Kerbals and their ship.

My latest and greatest. A nice looking, MK2 SSTO SpacePlane that has over 5K DV remaining after launch to LKO. Room for 2 crew, docking port and full RCS make this a very practical and useful ship. I flew to Minmus, then to the Mun, then back to Kerbin with no refueling. Album of mission and video of launch to LKO below. https://kerbalx.com/g00bd0g/MK2-Space-Plane-4xR-1xN

My last challenge (Kerbin Atlantis) didn't go so well but I have another idea. In this one, you have to launch a spaceplane to Jool and circumnavigate its atmosphere with it. (I'm not sure if someone has already made a challenge like this or not. Keep in mind that I am relatively new to the site.) The spaceplane can be launched by a rocket or takeoff from the runway. Refueling is allowed on any difficulty. Easy: launch a spaceplane and enter Jool's atmosphere. Minimum crew: 1 Medium: launch a spaceplane to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 2 Hard: launch a spaceplane to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere, land on Laythe, and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 4 IMPOSSIBLE: launch an SSTO from the runway to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere, land on Laythe, land on Duna to refuel, and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 6 Scoring System The scoring will be based on the mass of the spacecraft. There will be a winner for every difficulty mode. Make sure you show me evidence on doing this by showing me pictures ora video. Make sure to include the mass of the ship in your submission. The only mods banned are the Alcubierre Drive mod and HyperEdit. The due date for submissions is 7:00 pm US Central Time on June 24. Any craft submitted after the due date and time will not be scored and will not be able to win. Good luck and happy travels! -The Raging Sandwich Edit: I am extending the time limit to the end of July. Now that I look back at it, it was really short to begin with. Leaderboards: Easy: N/A Medium: Teilnehmer- 11.962 T Hard: N/A Impossible: N/A

No pictures, sorry. Use your imagination dangit. So forever ago I made a plane that could go 1400 m/s. It was mk2 part size and had 4 ramjet engines. It has to have a heat shield on it because it goes so fast... Later I slapped a mk2 cargo bay in there thinking... "If I could get this into a suborbital flight, then if I just release a small probe with a lot of speratrons then I could get it into orbit." So I did. I got to about 52,000 meters, the majority of the atmosphere gone, and released the probe. Albeit The Evil Kraken attacked the original probe design, so I couldn't get a perfect orbit but it was an amazing achievement. The plane then re-enters near another large landmass... and you can turn the engines back on to control you landing... or crash like I did. Anyways, it only took about 250 units of liquid only fuel to get up there, and then maybe 12 seperatrons to get the probe into orbit. That is pretty cheap in my opinion. Getting the entire plane into orbit is a little tedious and fuel intensive. Finally, the heat shield on the front of my plane is NOT aerodynamic... it would be nice to have aerodynamic ones so you can make a fast plane, and still be protected.

So I've built my first successful SSTO tanker! Two flights under its belt now (first did not return so well, but some adjustments to CoL fixed that nicely for the second), and I'm pretty proud of it! Thanks to @bewing @AeroGav and @mk1980 for the general spaceplane advice. As a first design, it's obviously going to be less than optimized, so now I'm hoping for some advice in refining it. craft file here Current outstanding issues, aside from just general efficency... it wobbles like hell, especially when low on fuel. I suspect this is due to the wing design? Also, I think I'm getting extra drag, with each wing segment adding its own drag rather than being obscured. I had them separately attached to the center for stability, but maybe I should have the wing components attached front to back to eachother? Fuel percentage to orbit varies widely on how well the ascent went. Flight profile (also open to suggestions): run out the end of the runway and probably end up drifting down towards the water as you accelerate. Build speed at sea level 'till 500m/s or greater, then start to climb. Make certain your TWR and thrust are going up, otherwise level out and accelerate more before climbing. Shallow climb, aim for 1200/1300m/s before the engines start to drop off. Kick in the Skipper before flameout. Once the Whiplashes die, hit 5 to close the intakes and let the rapiers autoswitch. Push your trajectory up to 40-50km then hit 2 to kill the rapiers and follow orbital prograde to desired AP with the skipper. When delivering fuel, keep the very front nosecone full (minus a bit of ox if you want) and empty the rest. Re-entry: PE to 30km over KSC (if using trajectories mod, just put the X on KSC). Standard 15-20 degree inclination to slow. Main thing to watch is overheating the RCS, but it's not too troublesome. Feel free to invert and pull "up" towards the ground to avoid overshooting KSC. I've was screaming over the mountains at 1700m/s and still had no trouble bringing it down with inversion and airbrakes. Final approach at around 100m/s, then pop the brakes and settle lightly to the runway at 50 or less. I think the wings are my biggest issue here, but I don't think I can reduce them in size, as I'm already pushing my limit on getting into the air when fully-loaded. Other designs attempted: all whiplashes and all rapiers. The first couldn't push the AP out of the atmosphere on the skipper alone, and the second gently nosedived into the ocean for lack of thrust.

What's the most common one you use on your designs / what'd you recommend for a NEWB? All RAPIER Pros - fully reusable, fuel always drains evenly, good (best?) payload fraction to LKO, high thrust weight ratio Cons - low ISP in space , not optimal for missions beyond low orbit 2 RAPIER 2 NERV Pros - fully reusable, can fly to space without oxidizer. Symmetrical layout. Decent delta V. Once fuel type for air breathing and rocket engines. Cons - one nerv can only lift 15 tons whereas a single rapier can do twice that, at a pinch, so you are carrying one more rapier than you really need - and those suckers are heavy. 2 tons each. Also the NERVs drain fuel front to back of the stack like a rocket , so won't take from wing tanks and try their hardest to mess up CG 1 RAPIER 2 NERV https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Astrojet-Citation Pros - fully reusable, can fly to space without oxidizer. Symmetrical layout. Good Delta V Cons - poor performance when subsonic, hard to bust through the sound barrier. Swapping RAPIER for Whiplash improves this at the expense of a little delta V though lower airbreathing max speed. 1 RAPIER 2 NERV 2 disposable panthers (coupled to rear of NERVs) Pros - solves the poor subsonic performance of the above layout, nice controllable climb not as banzai as a pure RAPIER/Whiplash design at high speed. Cons - not fully reusable, though Panthers are only a third of the price of a RAPIER and enable to sort of missions you'd need a pretty big rocket for. https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/K211-Tundra-Goose NERV + disposable whiplash on decoupler behind NERV Pros - very high delta V, can go to Duna and back, since you're not dragging the dead weight of air breathing engines once they outlive usefulness. Cons - not fully re-suable, though still only 2000 kredits a pop https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/whippynerv NERV + disposable RAPIER https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Astrojet-Citation-X The last word in performance. Re-using engines is for peasants.

Fly a plane around the world, Submit the mission report (F3) also show the plane you made it in, but the catch is, you have to stay below 14 kilometers ASL

I finally managed it, a spaceplane that can SSTO to Duna and back. https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Astrojet-Lancer It started life as a replacement for the Astrojet Citation, which worryingly vulnerable to aerodynamic heating with its airliner wings. Using a larger amount of smaller wings means we can no longer afford to run fuel ducts, so it's manual transfers into a feeder tank scenario. The game is confused by multiple transfers, necessitating a single core/engine design. note - i have GPOSpeedFuelPump installed but am not using it for this flight. note 2 - you have to stop the transfer before the tank fills completely, or it will drain unevenly from the wing tanks and make inbalance. note 3- it took almost 28 minutes to raise our AP out of the atmosphere. It was also somewhat reluctant to cross the sound barrier, i don't think you could increase the fuel fraction much more than this. Finally in orbit. The calculated dV is wrong because we still have all this fuel in the strake tanks the nuke cant access, it's not being added to the total. After landing on Duna, we take off to orbit again. This time our fuel reserves are small enough to all fit inside the fuselage tanks, which means the dV reading is accurate. It's enough to get us back to Kerbin though, if you're any good with launch windows

Hello good colleagues'm having a serious problem and that my land aircraft are not totally uncontrollable if the latest version that has come or if they changed some of the physics of the game, tell them. I have in my career five planes than in previous versions were flying with some difficulty taking off but at least flew and even some the could to land, now my planes can not even take off as always go to the left and so the plane ends up turning as if a truck leaves the route. I said well maybe they did not test well then I go and do four planes from scratch, if completely zero but the result is worse than the last. So the big question is. Me or touched something of the game that makes this happen is a bug or what? If this happens someone else to comment. If anyone wants to test my planes me know and leave you save so you can see what I'm commenting.

Hola colegas bueno estoy teniendo un problema serio y es que mis aeronaves terrestres son totalmente incontrolables no se si es por la ultima versión que ha salido o si le cambiaron algo de la física del juego, les cuento. Tengo en mi modo carrera 5 aviones que en las versiones anteriores volaban con algo de dificultad al despegar pero al menos volaban y hasta algunas las podía hacer aterrizar, ahora mis aviones ni siquiera pueden despegar pues siempre se van hacia la izquierda y el avión termina volcando como si fuera un camión que se sale de la ruta. Me dije bueno tal vez no les hice un test bien entonces voy y me hago 4 aviones de cero, si totalmente de cero pero el resultado es peor que el anterior. Entonces la gran pregunta es. Soy yo o tocaron algo del juego que hace que pase esto es un bug o que? Si a alguien mas le pasa esto que comente. Si alquién quiere testear mis aviones me avisa y le dejo el save para que pueda comprobar lo que estoy comentando.

Hi all - I think have a decent SSTO space plane - I am trying to determine when I should cut my engines to coast to my desired apoapsis (Ap). When I observe that I reach my desired Ap I cut off the engines to coast to the Ap point. When I cut off engines and coast the Ap drops (many times significantly). I believe this is due to drag created by my space plane design. Is their a way to determine the optimal coasting point so I can minimize delta-v (dV) need to stabilize my orbit? Thanks!

So, I've tried spaceplanes without too much success. I've gotten to LKO a couple times with barely enough dV to deorbit. This time, I started out with the turbojet/ramjet/aerospike and once this latest career got to the point where I had rapiers, I replaced all that with a pair of rapiers. My problem is this: my results are very inconsistent. One time, I'll get it to 80K without enough dV to circularize, the next I can't seem to get to out of the atmosphere. I'm sure it's the profile I'm flying. And, honestly, my profile is not really thought out. I'm tired of not getting to orbit. Can someone help me out?

I've been trying to design a SSTO space plane to ferry crew and fuel to the small station I recently put in orbit around Kerbin. I can do it with rockets, but it just seems much more viable to me to use a reusable SSTO. I've read most of the good guides out there and I watched all the up-to-date youtube videos on the topic (More or less up to date, most of them were in version 1.0.4). Following all of the tips and instructions given to me I made a basic space plane with ~9km of DV. However, no matter what I try this thing won't get into orbit. My TWR is good, I accelerate fine, but when my jets cutoff, I don't have either the DV or the thrust to get into an orbit with more than 100 m/s of DV to spare Here are some screenshots of the craft, with kerbal engineer readout included My flight pattern is as follows Take off Immediately point to a 45 degree angle and climb O2 gets low at about 22-25 km and I switch over to rocket power Burn straight prograde 1 of 4 things happens after this. A. I run out of fuel and never make it above 40 km B. I burn up due to the extreme speeds I'm going at while still in the atmosphere C. I make it out of atmo but on a sub-orbital trajectory without enough fuel to both stabilize the orbit and then come back. D. (RARE) I make it into a stable orbit with enough fuel to come back, but not enough to perform an orbital rendezvous. No matter what flight pattern I try or what I tweak about my engines, wings, fuel, and cargo, I either can't get high enough, can't get fast enough, or just can't get up off the runway in the worst cases. If anyone should care to give me some pointers or better yet, a complete, up-to-date guide with the new heating and aerodynamics I would be very appreciative.

Hello good Kerbal folk! I made a rather nice Mk2-based space shuttle in 1.1.2 (goo.gl/oP0Wt2). On Kerbin reentry the cockpit (Mk2 Standard) heats up way faster than anything else and explodes every time. I tested a shallow reentry profile with PE ~40km from a near-circular 87km orbit and it still cooks off at 33.5km (goo.gl/msjzfL). I'm using MechJeb just to keep AoA very close to zero for this test; my understanding is that an AoA of zero minimizes the stress on the craft (but does it minimize the heating?). After the cockpit explodes the centers of lift and mass are backwards, and the craft whips around violently, but it stays together and no other parts explode (I've run this test several times). You'd think that the cockpit - with poor Jeb and Bill inside - would be more resilient, or at least as resilient as the Mk2 storage and fuel parts, plus wings and landing gear etc. To me it's a bit unrealistic like this. Am I expecting too much of the Mk2 cockpit? Am I making an error I hadn't thought of? Or is there maybe a case to make the Mk2 cockpit a little less reentry-sensitive? Cheers, all. (goo.gl/c1LHLW)