FAR Three Kats

[Nansuchao]

Many times ago, I saw the mighty "Draco" from the Interstellar Quest of Scott Manley. A spaceplane able to reach every planet or moon in the Kerbol System. I tried many times to achieve a similar result in a more stock(ish) way.

After days of hard work and nights of projecting, I'm here to present to you the mighty "THREE KATS"

He can deliver great payloads in LKO, Eve, Duna and probably also Laythe. Be careful, in case of landing on one of those planets, you'll be probably unable to return.

Requested Mods:

Tweak Scale: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/112693-1-0-2-TweakScale-v2-1%28May-2%29-recompile-new-Stock-part (for the wings)

Instell Incorporated Experimental Technologies: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119735-1-0-2-Instell-Incorporated-Experimental-Technologies (the very useful Scramjet engines)

Spacey Heavy Lifter: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100408-1-0-2-SpaceY-Heavy-Lifter-Parts-Pack-v0-13-%282015-05-09%29 (the cluster of Ramjet engines)

Fully compatible with FAR and the new version of DRE.

Flight Plan: Engage the Ramjet with the AG 2, take off and go very steeply to a high pitch (50/60°), while throttle down the engines. From 5/6 Km of altitude, reduce your pitch at 15°, throttle up until you reach 400 m/s, enable the Scramjets with the AG 3, maintain a pitch of 10/15°, reached the 700 m/s, engage also the nukes with AG 1.

Congratulations, you're in orbit with 75% of fuel in your tanks.

Ship Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2l96an3mcy1eorw/Three%20Kats.craft?dl=0

Edited May 12, 2015 by Nansuchao

[8bitsblu]

It's great to see people taking interest in my mod! I just added a new electronic engine if you wanna try that too, I bet you could find a good use for it.

[Nansuchao]

Very good. I'll try it very soon.

[Sterbehilfe]

Tried it. Liked it. Some ideas:

- you should point point out TAC fuel balancing is also mandatory, the nuclear engines get fuel deprived quickly without it

- it flew kinda jittery, without SAS i can't really hold it still. Using the s fins as wings? Nice

- at the edge of the atmosphere it started veering/yawing. I think you need to move those tail fins more to the outside of the craft, it works like this because you have fairly powerful reaction wheels for a vessel that size

- rcs aid points out your rcs thrusters are not suitable for docking/precision maneouvers, not balanced around CoM

- due to my veering problem i didn't manage orbit, just a high ballistic flight, also one of the scramjets had a flameout (do i need to TAC balance air intakes?) so i had only nuclears left, not enough thrust to accelerate past gravity

- reentry was very nice, though, again, had some veering

EDIT:

Did a second flight with all TAC balancing enabled. Managed orbit this time. Although i have to ask: How balanced is that Houdini engine? It still worked at 0.01 atmosphere. I don't think actual scramjets work with that little air.

Lets see here ... mumble mumble NASA scramjet 70,000 feet mach 5 ... earth atmosphere density at that height is 1.39 / 23.77 = 0.05 .... huh. Maybe?

Edited May 13, 2015 by Sterbehilfe

[Nansuchao]

Thanks. I know it's not still perfect. I used intake for nukes cause I hate to spam intakes all over a ship.

With the nuFAR if you want to manage supersonic speed is mandatory to avoid excessive wing area, that's the reason for the fins used as wings, they're not so huge as area and have good control surfaces.

TAC Fuel Balancer is highly recommended as you said for the nukes and for the balance of the ship.

I put RCS to help stability during re entry, cause the ship is pretty manageable, but it can happen to yaw and roll.

Houdini seems pretty balanced, for that high speed requested.

I was able with that configuration to reach Eve easily and also Laythe, but short with fuel.

An issue with that ship for the moment is the low TWR for orbital maneuvers. But I'm not sure about another couple of nukes...

If you have some ideas, feel free to suggest, I would like to improve this design, it seems promising:-)

[8bitsblu]

Tried it. Liked it. Some ideas:

- you should point point out TAC fuel balancing is also mandatory, the nuclear engines get fuel deprived quickly without it

- it flew kinda jittery, without SAS i can't really hold it still. Using the s fins as wings? Nice

- at the edge of the atmosphere it started veering/yawing. I think you need to move those tail fins more to the outside of the craft, it works like this because you have fairly powerful reaction wheels for a vessel that size

- rcs aid points out your rcs thrusters are not suitable for docking/precision maneouvers, not balanced around CoM

- due to my veering problem i didn't manage orbit, just a high ballistic flight, also one of the scramjets had a flameout (do i need to TAC balance air intakes?) so i had only nuclears left, not enough thrust to accelerate past gravity

- reentry was very nice, though, again, had some veering

EDIT:

Did a second flight with all TAC balancing enabled. Managed orbit this time. Although i have to ask: How balanced is that Houdini engine? It still worked at 0.01 atmosphere. I don't think actual scramjets work with that little air.

Lets see here ... mumble mumble NASA scramjet 70,000 feet mach 5 ... earth atmosphere density at that height is 1.39 / 23.77 = 0.05 .... huh. Maybe?

Do not question my mad scramjet-math skills young grasshopper:cool:

[Kagame]

Indeed. Scramjets are f%&^$ awesome. (Though, honestly, they do require at least 0.02 atmo density to function... except at OHMAHGAWDSTOPYOULLKILLUSALL velocity. (Mach 7-9-ish))

On the plane: Nicely done, pleased to see how little fuel you used to get into orbit. Imma go download Instell now, I just looked up scramjets for something totally unrelated and couldn't stop thinking "Gee, if I had this in KSP, this would make orbital flight a lot easier..."

[Nansuchao]

A little update. Now I saw some Dr. Jet Chop Shop engines that seems very useful and can replace the NERVA in Vacuum. If I can try the right mix of engines and parts, we'll have a SSTE MK3 with more and more Delta/V than Three Kats.

The Scramjets are really great, and necessary for this plane and for others projects I'm working on. 8bitsblu did a really good job.