HX-L Delta Clipper Mach 4.5 Supersonic Business Jet. New York to London in 60 minutes with 28 parts

[Goddess Bhavani]

HX-L Delta Clipper

The cutting edge of executive travel.

Download Craft File at KerbalX!

Stock, KSP 1.0.4, 28 parts.

Background:

Capitalizing on recent advances in supersonic aircraft development, the HX-L is a derivative of the fictional Royal Air Force TXR-3 global strike bomber concept.

Powered by a pair of de-rated Olympus II turboramjet engines, the HX-L resembles a tiny Avro Vulcan with an experimental Quiet Spike hypersonic nose derived from Spectrum's top secret

that defended Earth from the Mysteron threat decades ago.

In order to avoid self-destructing the aircraft with excessive acceleration beyond Mach 4.0, fuel flow for the HX-L's engines are limited to 72% of military power. Nevertheless, even with such restrictions, discerning executives can now look forward to soaring worlds' above the competition, dashing across Kerbin's vast oceans in 10 minutes flat with the new cutting edge of business jet technology.

[Major999]

Nice, I never thought to make a nose like that!

[Goddess Bhavani]

Update:

Thanks to the hard work of forumer Maschinenbauer to hand position all 6 air intakes to avoid asymetric flameout issues, flight development engineers have decided to remove engine thrust limits. Extensive flight testing on Reddit has also yielded crucial flight data that propose optimal cruise altitudes be raised to 20km due to higher than expected lift factor from the wings.

Caution should still be exercised as hypersonic flight attempts below 14km altitude will destroy the craft. Ditto for 'spirited maneuvering' which will make stock aero act like FAR and destroy the craft from fatal spins or over-G conditions.

The new optimized craft file with hand-positioned intakes replaces the old one (Use the same link in the OP).

Edited September 1, 2015 by pandoras kitten

[Maschinenbauer]

Thx for mentioning me

I had a lot of fun playing around with this plane. If you people are interested in some showcase and fixing, I recorded it:

Edited September 2, 2015 by Maschinenbauer
Broken link

[Goddess Bhavani]

Thanks for video and testing! Much appreciated