Boxkite Tow Glider + Tow Plane: Easy and fun to fly! INDIVIDUAL DLS POSTED!

[pTrevTrevs]

It's been a long time coming, and while it isn't exactly the craft I wanted to build at the beginning, I think I've still managed to work wonders with it.

Introducing the Bristol Boxkite Glider!! It is based on the Bristol Boxkite, a pre-WWI pusher biplane and one of the first aircraft to be produced in quantity. Due to KSP's lack of a sufficient engine for biplanes this small, I have converted it into a glider, and used a KAS winch to tow it to altitude and fly it down to Kerbin.

The craft file comes with a tow plane based on the DC-3, but with several notable changes made to make it suitable for this job. A third engine has been added to give it the extra power it needs to haul a glider behind it, and small intakes have been installed on the wingtips to make it cooler.

Below is a flight album of the first successful flight of the Boxkite and tow plane with (hopefully) witty captions inserted by Yours Truly:

Alright, it's not so much of a beautiful day, it's cloudy, it's getting dark, and i haven't even had my morning tea. Let's do this!

It turns surprisingly well, considering that it has another plane attached to it's tail with a cable. I hope Felix is okay with breathing in all that jet exhaust in front of him.

Here's an interesting photo of the tow plane taken by Felix in the Boxkite. the glider kept bobbing and weaving around at the end of its cable, and getting this shot was fairly difficult.

Turning back towards land with the Boxkite still attached. Landing in the sea voids the warranty, and Felix's health insurance doesn't cover shark attacks.

Cable away!!! The glider will now begin a slow descent to the ground while the tow plane retracts it's cable and goes into a circular holding pattern around KSC before landing itself.

The glider only weighs 2.4 tons, and is essentially a giant pair of wings, so naturally, it flies like a dream. I couldn't ask for a more stable, easy to operate flying machine.

Front of the glider with Felix in the pilot's seat, very glad he doesn't have exhaust from three jet engines blowing directly onto his face anymore.

Slowly gliding... slowly, slowly gliding... It can stay at this attitude forever unless it hits the ground or something. I took this opportunity to switch to the tow aircraft and turn it around to keep it from going out of physics range.

Back over land again. If you look extra closely, you can spot the tow plane and it's contrails in the background.

Coming in close to the ground now. Slowing down isn't a problem, the Boxkite's regular flight speed is about 30 m/s.

Final approach, here goes nothing...

Touchdown and stop! It slows down fairly well, I didn't slam on the brakes because i was worried about it tipping over. Maybe it can land at the Island, maybe it can't, I'll have to test that.

Now it's the tow plane's turn. I love the longer physics range, without it, these guys would have been toast!

Gear down, engines at idle, final approach! The Boxkite is in the background, it's that small speck above the tow plane.

Ooh, yeah, look at that screenshot.

The tow plane rolls to a stop after several bounces. This thing definitely cannot land at the Island, and maybe not even at KSC's own Runway, it rolled forever before stopping.

Flight Instructions

1. Right after lloading the craft, extend the KAS winch to desired length. YOu may want to unplug and re-plug the winch in undocked mode so you can control the Boxkite separately. I used a 10 meter cable for takeoff, and extended it to 12 meters once I was in the air, but it ought to work with different lengths as long as the glider's wheels can touch the ground.
   
2. Ascend to desired altitude, keeping an eye on the Boxkite. You don't want it to smash into the ground.
   
3. Fly to desired landing spot, if you want to land at KSC, you can just fly out over the ocean a little bit and then turn around.
   
4. Point towards landing spot, but release the cable while still far enough away for a landing run.
   
5. Switch to glider, perform any desired aerobatic stunts.
   
6. Begin descent to ground. Keep the glider's nose pointed just below the horizon to keep enough speed to avoid stalls. If it starts to go too low, raise it up and climb a little bit.
   
7. Shortly before reaching ground, flare a little to get rid of any excess speed.
   
8. Try and land at around 20 m/s.
   
9. Use brakes as needed, but be careful not to tip it over, it doesn't have a fancy tricycle undercarriage.
   
10. Land tow plane. you may want to switch back and forth between the two during the glider's descent to keep the tow plane from going out of physics range. Remember, the tow plane doesn't have a tricycle undercarriage either, so be careful with the brakes.
    
11. Celebrate your magnificent flight and let me know what you think of it!
    

Download here: http://kerbalx.com/pTrevTrevs/Boxkite-Glider-+-Tow-Aircraft

Tow Plane without the glider (Stock): http://kerbalx.com/pTrevTrevs/AP-341-Super-Skytrain

Glider without the Tow Plane (Also Stock): http://kerbalx.com/pTrevTrevs/Boxkite-Tow-Glider

Make sure to give me some feedback and rep if you enjoyed!!

Edited August 25, 2015 by pTrevTrevs
Download posted

[Castille7]

Very nice crafts, love the tail engine design...neat!

[pTrevTrevs]

Very nice crafts, love the tail engine design...neat!

Thanks, maybe I'll release the tow plane as a separate craft.

I honestly expected more people to reply to this thread, since tow gliders aren't really that common around here. Oh well, back to the SPH...

[Majorjim!]

Give it time mate. Some threads take a day or two to pick up. Even the well known posters have ignored threads.

I really like this, partly for the great build and for the originality of it. I would love to try it but I am allergic to KSP mods so I will let someone else try it. Or if you upload just the glider I will test it.

[V8jester]

I second Majorjim. I have a thread with over 4K views but only 4-5 posts on it. A lot of people look but not post. Don't look so close at the posts that you miss how many people you're actually helping with ideas.

neet stuff by the way

[pTrevTrevs]

Thanks, I'll see if it picks up any today or tomorrow.

I can probably release the glider and tow plane as separate craft if people want.

EDIT: Hey! I made it to the Light Green Group! Thanks guys, it feels great!

Edited August 23, 2015 by pTrevTrevs

[Rune]

Nice! They look very cute, the both of them, tough I question the tow plane's landing gear arrangement. Have you tried a conventional tricycle with the rear wheels just behind the CoM and brake torque adjusted so they are the one doing the braking?

Rune. +1 to useless fun things!

[Majorjim!]

Have you tried a conventional tricycle with the rear wheels just behind the CoM

It looks as though that's exactly what he did. pTrevTrevs yes please, upload just the glider so we can test it. I will devote an hour or so to other peoples craft to test them.

[pTrevTrevs]

The CoM is moved pretty far back with that third engine, so a tricycle undercarriage would look ugly. Also, the way the craft is set up at launch (Boxkite attached to the end of the plane with fully retracted winch) makes it even more difficult to use a tricycle arrangement. I have tried several other methods, and launching them together is by far the easiest.

Besides, I was going for a DC-3 look with the tow plane, and that plane doesn't have tricycle gear.

[Starwhip]

I love this little thing.

What you did with the intakes for the engines looks great as well!

[pTrevTrevs]

People keep saying good things about the tow plane's engines, I guess I had better patent the design!

The separate craft files will be released as soon as I am able, if not today, then definitely tomorrow afternoon.

For those of you who want to test the glider without the cable, how do you plan on doing it? Do you plan on mounting in on top of a plane, Approach and Landing Test style, or stick some SRBs on the sides to get it in the air and try and glide it back down when they burnout, or some other way I haven't thought about?

[pTrevTrevs]

The individual downloads for the glider and tow plane are out! Sorry I took so long, real life must come first, after all. The DLs will be posted to the OP shortly.

When you test these craft, be sure to take some pictures and upload them here! I'd love to see other people's adventures with them. You may get your screenshot featured on the OP!

[Dr Farnsworth]

Slowly gliding... slowly, slowly gliding... It can stay at this attitude forever unless it hits the ground or something.

It's all fun and games until the ground hits you in the face.

[FlipNascar]

People keep saying good things about the tow plane's engines, I guess I had better patent the design!

The separate craft files will be released as soon as I am able, if not today, then definitely tomorrow afternoon.

For those of you who want to test the glider without the cable, how do you plan on doing it? Do you plan on mounting in on top of a plane, Approach and Landing Test style, or stick some SRBs on the sides to get it in the air and try and glide it back down when they burnout, or some other way I haven't thought about?

Docking Port and attachment wizardry...

- - - Updated - - -

Although, testing it, for me out of the box the tow plane doesn't work... (no control authority). However it may well be a KIS thing as mine is out of date. So I removed the winch, added a docking port and it still refuses to climb. I'm going to assume operator error here or that it's my install making a mess of things here.

[pTrevTrevs]

You have to put a Kerbal in the seat for control. I made it as minimalistic as I possibly could to make it such a good glider, so there isn't a probe core. There is a mod that allows you to directly spawn Kerbals in command seats, I would recommend using that. If you don't want to use any kind of mods, I would save the glider as a subassembly and attach it to the back of the tow plane, just like it is in the full version with the winch.

[FlipNascar]

You have to put a Kerbal in the seat for control. I made it as minimalistic as I possibly could to make it such a good glider, so there isn't a probe core. There is a mod that allows you to directly spawn Kerbals in command seats, I would recommend using that. If you don't want to use any kind of mods, I would save the glider as a subassembly and attach it to the back of the tow plane, just like it is in the full version with the winch.

Kudos for the box kite. She's a sweet lil' pea. I'm going to rep you for that.

I updated KAS/KIS. And tried again...

[Could it be that the version of the tow plane you uploaded was different to the final version?]The tow plane however, needs work. Out of the box, it lacked elevator authority and wouldn't even climb for me. Heck she just lumbered along the runway and only got airborne once we got to the end. Then, well it was a short flight to visit Davy Jones' locker. She seems dangerously underpowered for her weight, far too much fuel. I get the design and the desire to go DC3-esque theme. But it's not quite there.

Some more power and control authority. Then this curmudgeonous reviewer will be satisfied.

Edited August 25, 2015 by FlipNascar

[pTrevTrevs]

Funny... The tow plane climbs fine for me. What are the settings on the control surfaces? The ailerons on the wings should be set to roll only, and the elevators on the tail should be set to pitch only. What problems are you having with KAS? Is it missing certain parts, or is the winch just being really buggy? The undercarriage on the tow plane may be adding length to the takeoff run, maybe tricycle would perform better. Regarding power, I haven't seen any problems with it, the plane performs like an airliner. It's not supposed to be very maneuverable, but it gets up to a fairly decent speed when it tows the Boxkite.

If you're using the stock versions, the problems may lie there. It has occurred to be that a hard connection (docking ports, decouplers, etc.) may mess up the aerodynamics of the aircraft, maybe that's what's wrong.

Send me some photos of the problems if you can. They might help.

[FlipNascar]

Using the original combo download (even did a fresh download of it after I updated KAS/KIS) into a fresh save.

So I tweaked the tow aircraft - removed some fuel, removed monoprop, adjusted the angle of the wings, doubled up the rear control surfaces. Now she's like you'd expect... Still a bit too "lumbery", but nimble enough that it can fly. To truly achieve a decent landing performance I think you'd have to add more elevators. It runs out of pitch authority too soon. Or I'm being to greedy with the slowness of my airspeed. I know you've put the LF/O in the rear adapter for balancing reasons, but that seems superfluous as well.

Also, just to clarify, if I come across as a .... - sorry. My intention isn't to poo-poo your work. Even though I am... This is what I would do with it, if it were mine. I love the kite. Did I tell you yet that I love the kite? I am going to take it to space. With a winch.

Again full control input, less speed yet we get lift off.

But more importantly, because sharing is caring...

Here's the file I took from KerbalX - the original.

Here's the version with my tweaks.

Those contrails... Maybe this glider can go to the Mun one day?

Edit: Needed to add more glider pr0n...

Edited August 25, 2015 by FlipNascar
More glider pr0n

[pTrevTrevs]

Hmm, there is one thing that I may have forgotten to mention. When I launch the plane and glider for a mission, I always have the glider pilot disconnect and reconnect the winch, but in the "undocked" mode. This way, it counts the glider and plane as two separate craft, and control input on the tow plane will not affect the glider at all. I don't know exactly how this would help, but it's the only other thing I can think of.

Thanks for the help and the pictures. I also thought about sending the glider to space and attempting to land it from orbit. I bet it would make an excellent Duna glider as well!

[FlipNascar]

....I always have the glider pilot disconnect and reconnect the winch, but in the "undocked" mode....

Please accept my apologies. Having tried it like that, it works straight out of the box. This is probably why I shouldn't wade in on other people's creations... !

For it to work I just set it to Undocked through the GUI. Didn't unplug or anything like that, no need to get out of the chair.

[pTrevTrevs]

Please accept my apologies. Having tried it like that, it works straight out of the box. This is probably why I shouldn't wade in on other people's creations... !

For it to work I just set it to Undocked through the GUI. Didn't unplug or anything like that, no need to get out of the chair.

No need to apologize, I don't think I mentioned it in the OP. I will try your modified tow plane though. One can never have too responsive controls.

Well, I guess you can, but the tow plane can certainly be more responsive.

How's that Boxkite To Mun project going? I want to see how it turns out!

[FlipNascar]

How's that Boxkite To Mun project going? I want to see how it turns out!

That's on the list of things to do... May be a while. But I'll keep you posted when I get that far.

[Miravlix]

I had sent everyone else to work off KSP, so only Jed and a rookie was left at home, so they decided to take this for a spin.

 

Rookie got the honor of the Boxkite and it took off as the Tow plane was building speed, but then disaster struck, with no directional input the tow plane sweared right and keeled over, the lag monster got the better of me, so before I could hit the release for the winch the Tow plane exploded killing Jeb and with the Boxkite still attached to the exploding plane, the rookie took a nosedive, but surprisingly managed to survive the crash and almost complete destruction of the Boxkite.

I guess 1.0.5 or Pilot Assistant had its wicked way with the Tow Plane.

 

Love how the Boxkite worked like a kite flying up after the "running" tow plane. Too bad the death of Jeb has left me short on manpower to try again, hmm, oh, I'm going to make the tow plane a probe perhaps. The fun isn't over until you run out of Kerbals!