The Roadrunner SSTO

[Wjolcz]

After the struggle of trying to make The Superbird space-worthy (or rather any useful), I decided to abandon the design and start from the scratch.

I present to you:

ROADRUNNER MKVI

This thing right here has none of those fancy RAPIERS. It's main power comes from Turbo Ramjets and Swivels only!

Here's the full album:

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And Sketchfab!

===========---------INSTRUCTIONS---------===========

Yeah, about those... To be honest, I didn't fly it in any special way, but I'll try to recall the most important parts of the flight:

1. Climb on jets to about 20km

2. Level your flight

3. Accelerate up to something about 1100 m/s, then pitch up

4. Watch the TWR and don't let it go down below 1.5 (You need KER for that)

5. When it reaches 1.7-1.5 TWR hit ACTION GROUP 1 (toggle Swivels)

6. When the jets run out of air hit ACTION GROUP 2 (toggle jets + intakes)

7. Rise the nose 20-30 degrees up and watch the Apoapsis grow.

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It's mainly used as a crew ferry to LKO, but I'm thinking about sending one of those to my future Laythe polar colony. I'm going to keep tweaking and improving it, so you can expect updates if there's enough interest in this project.

And here's the DL link: http://www./download/shy1ii91jy2ub09/Roadrunner_MKVI.craft

On KerbalX: http://kerbalx.com/Wilcz/Roadrunner-MKVI

Have a nice flight!

Edited August 12, 2015 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

Should I upload this to something else, like KerbalSutff? I think I saw people saying mediafire is bad, or something.

[ExplorerKlatt]

You could use kerbalx.com.

It is a good looking spaceplane. I'll have to try it out when I get home.

[Wjolcz]

You could use kerbalx.com.

It is a good looking spaceplane. I'll have to try it out when I get home.

Don't forget to let me know what you think about the performance!

Edited August 12, 2015 by Veeltch

[CaptainTurbomuffin]

1. Climb on jets to about 20km

2. Level your flight

Is that really working? Won't your jets flame-out if you don't level off before 14-15 kms? Even when arriving at 20km with ~1000m/s speed, my engines' performance will get miserably low due to the altitude.

I often level off around 8-10km, but accelerate in a 15°climb. Then, I will have enough vertical velocity to have an apoapsis high enough, in addition to my high horizontal velocity. I start losing thrust around 15.000m, and I start losing speed around 18.000-19.000m. Is it better if I level off at 20.000m? Or is it even working with turbojets?

[Wjolcz]

Is that really working? Won't your jets flame-out if you don't level off before 14-15 kms? Even when arriving at 20km with ~1000m/s speed, my engines' performance will get miserably low due to the altitude.

I often level off around 8-10km, but accelerate in a 15°climb. Then, I will have enough vertical velocity to have an apoapsis high enough, in addition to my high horizontal velocity. I start losing thrust around 15.000m, and I start losing speed around 18.000-19.000m. Is it better if I level off at 20.000m? Or is it even working with turbojets?

Should work with turbojets, though as I said: The instructions might be a bit off, because I don't keep the track of what I do while in-flight. Just watching the numbers and reacting to them seems to be enough.

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A new version is here! For those who haven't unlocked nodes beyond 550 science points!

ROADRUNNER X

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Changelog:

-Added and relocated some RCS ports.

-Got rid of one tail antenna (it was mirrored, now is asymmetrical).

-Replaced the shock cone intakes with standard ones.

-Replaced Elevon 5 with Elevon 2 (roll control).

-Added second RCS tank in the cargo bay. Now it has more Monopropellant.

It's a design adapted from MKVI to fit my needs for mid-tech, low-budget career SSTO. Roadrunner MKVI should be treated as a prototyope of Roadrunner X (although the performance of both variants should be the same).

The cost of a single orbital mission is only ~2,000 credits! Take 4 tourists! Let them feel weightless! Go back! Be rich!

The X version is available here: http://kerbalx.com/Wilcz/Roadrunner-X-KER-less

WARNING! Check action groups before flying this one! WARNING!

Edited August 23, 2015 by Veeltch

[CaptainTurbomuffin]

Wait... The icon at the botom left says winter owl. That winter owl who did the Starcaft 2 overlord-smoke screen?

[Wjolcz]

Wait... The icon at the botom left says winter owl. That winter owl who did the Starcaft 2 overlord-smoke screen?

I'm not gonna lie I have no idea what that is.

The KSP Winter Owl is a stock flag you can choose when starting your career save.

[Starwhip]

I'm in love with the tail design, reminds me of my big ol'

[Der Anfang]

How much delta-v is jsually lft over in your flights? Do you have enough for orbital rendezvous and deorbit?

[Wjolcz]

How much delta-v is jsually lft over in your flights? Do you have enough for orbital rendezvous and deorbit?

Oh, I didn't notice someone bumped my thread! Sorry! Uh, I would answer your question, but I don't remember even though I just finished another mission using the plane to save another Kerbal. About 450m/s in LKO IIRC? That's way more than enough to rendezvous and go back. But you need to remember not to be aggresive when docking, because it doesn't have much Monoprop.

I totally forgot to include that info, didn't I?

================EDIT================

Anyway, here's another mission. See how much fuel is left in the last pic. For some reason KER gets confused whenever I fly it, so I couldn't check the dV.

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Edited October 26, 2015 by Veeltch