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I've been looking around the forums at real life counterparts of KSP engines, and all the lists mark the Thumper as "generic." I think that I have found the real life counterpart of it. It comes from the Titan series of rockets from the late 1900's. More specifically, the UA120 from the Titan III series. The only difference I can really see here is the nozzle is not slanted. (BTW I'm talking about the revamped version, not the original.) Just thought it was interesting.

This should be a nice simple challenge. Build an airplane, powered only by solid rocket engines, capable of taking off from the SPH runway and landing on the island runway. Rules: Solid rockets are the only propulsion allowed. No jets, no liquid rockets, no RCS, no infiniglide. Aerodynamic control surfaces only. If your command pod has reaction wheels, they must have torque turned off. Rolling takeoffs and landings; you can't use dedicated solid thrusters to lift off or anything messy like that. No staging, no damage. What takes off must come down in one piece. Kerbal it! You've gotta have a pilot; no probes. Is there scoring? Well, sort of. All submissions must be able to take off from the SPH runway and land on the island runway (velocity = 0) but there are leaderboards for different capabilities within that set. Your plane only needs the capability; you can get the following achievements/challenges on a separate run. I'll make a rockin' awesome badge if I get enough buy-in. Achievements/challenges: Speedrun. Take off, come to a full stop on the island runway, return, and come to a full stop on the SPH runway, in as short a time as possible. Shockwave. Reach the highest possible airspeed (below 60 km altitude). No recovery required. Endurance. Travel as far as possible from the SPH and make a successful rolling landing. Spaceballs. What's the highest altitude you can achieve? No recovery required. Featherweight. What's the lowest-mass solution you can manage? Replication. Make your solution look as close as possible to a real-life aircraft (I'll judge). More achievements/challenges may be added based on demand.