Stock Turboprop Distance/Altitude Challenge

[Azimech]

Are you engineers ready for a new kind of challenge? We're going to the bronze age of aviation!

The challenge: build a turboprop airplane out of stock parts and try to fly as high/far as possible. You can download my previous model as an example.

Definition of a turboprop/turboshaft engine in KSP: combustion engines (jets/rocket) using their exhaust wash to drive a turbine, connected via a shaft with a propeller or rotor.

This excludes in any way jet or rocket engines attached to the shaft or blade(s). You don't see them in real life, you don't see them here. This also excludes any electric motors.

Rules:

Install V.O.I.D. It shows the distance from KSC, and we need it on the screenshot. You cannot use F3, or KSP will hang due to the special way a turboprop/turboshaft works.

Fly north(ish). At least we'll have an interesting scenery, and some moutains to take care of. Changing the orientation in the SPH so you'll takeoff from grass, is suggested.

Take (a) screenshot(s) the moment your engine cuts out, with the interface visible, and the V.O.I.D. Surface & Atmospheric window open.

Permitted and suggested: Pilot Assistant, Kerbal Engineer, Part Angle Display (for finetuning blower angle/propeller blades), Editor Extensions, No Offset Limits - if it at least looks like parts are connected in a realistic way i.e. no floating objects.

Clipping of engines is permitted and suggested. It's not cheating, see it as mounting more powerful engines. You'll have extra mass and drag as well. Drop tanks are also permitted. Clipping of fuel tanks is not.

Also not permitted: Jet/rocket engines aimed at something else than turbine blades. Electric motors. Part mods. Any mod that adds wind or alters gravity.

FAR is not permitted, if the concept works with FAR I will start a new challenge for it.

Points will be counted like this: distance x altitude / 100

Here's my entry:

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Points: 3028 x 106 / 100 = 3210.

Good luck!

Edited September 29, 2015 by Azimech

[FlipNascar]

This is now of course on my list of things to do...

But I need to finish the Grandfather Clock. And the autogyro.

Then I'll come play aeroplanes.

[Azimech]

Nice! Hurry up!

[Bubbadevlin]

Well i really dont want to have to install that mod, so can i just plant a flag at the KSC and see the distance? (Max view range is 100km)

[Azimech]

That's fine, but if your plane flies further than 100km, extra points won't be counted. And there's nothing wrong with V.O.I.D, really, I've been using it for two years, on every install. Besides, you can't properly develop a turboshaft/turboprop engine without rpm readout, and VOID is the only one that gives it to you.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Azimech

[Bubbadevlin]

Cool, thanks, so what units is your plane in, KM or M? I am guessing meters, but idk

Plus i am kinda just too lazy to get another mod

[Azimech]

Distance I calculate using km, altitude in m.

Here's the link: https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/253/VOID

Have fun! :-)

[TheGeekno72]

I'll make one of dat biplan with two stage of wings in the birth of the aviation

Google translated, of course.

[Bubbadevlin]

Ah thanks!, and 3000 km?!?! the bar is set pretty high...

[Azimech]

No no, 3000 meters!

[Bubbadevlin]

Ok, thank god... i dont think i could make a jet that goes 3000km..

[FlipNascar]

I've hit a lag wall... And I probably have too many engines. That can be optimized once flight has been achieved... Does anyone feel like teaming up on this bad boy? I can't really do anything more with it because I'm watching each individual frame...

Props are spinning between 25-30 rad/s. Obviously needs cleaning up and making it totally rule compliant. Has been known to explode on occasion. Holler if you're game. Somewhere around 220 parts. Wings are very fugly. But it's lagging me that much that I can't tell what its issues are... The turboshafts work. Although I have seen them explode at times, but I don't know if that's from the design or other issues.

Perhaps trying to keep it all so compacted isn't the best idea.... Maybe single engine isn't such a terrible idea?

[Azimech]

Wow, that's a very pretty thing, do you have more pics?

Those explosions, have you checked what part(s) lose it? Do you have turbine blade strike? Above 25 the blades really start to expand a lot, usually between 27 - 30 it's bingo for me.

The amount of blowers seem allright for me. You might want to kill the smoke, very easy edit:

Open this file in Wordpad:

GameData\Squad\Parts\Engine\jetEngineBasic\jetEngineBasic.cfg

And use // to edit out the smoke like this:

EFFECTS
	{		
		running_thrust
		{			
			AUDIO
			{
				channel = Ship
				clip = sound_jet_deep
				volume = 0.0 0.0
				volume = 0.05 0.4
				volume = 1.0 1.0
				pitch = 0.0 0.6
				pitch = 1.0 1.0
				loop = true
			}
			//PREFAB_PARTICLE
			//{
			//	prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_light
			//	transformName = thrustTransform
			//	emission = 0.0 0.0
			//	emission = 0.05 0.0
			//	emission = 0.075 0.25
			//	emission = 1.0 1.25
			//	speed = 0.0 0.25
			//	speed = 1.0 1.0
			//	localOffset = 0, 0, 1
			//	localRotation = 1, 0, 0, -90
			//}					
		}
		running_turbine

You'll probably have a much higher framerate after this.

[FlipNascar]

I tried that. Sadly, no joy.

I think that for some reason 52m/s is the speed that causes the explosion. It could be that at that speed I am getting rotation, and that as it rotates the physics takes out the nose? Problem is that I am still stuttering along FPS wise, and when it does explode it takes out KSP with it too, so I don't actually know what the root cause is. Pics, I have some from its first taxi tests. When I discovered that the trick wasn't add moar boosters, that it was take mass away from the props. You can see from the pics how simple the actual bearing part of it is, thank you no-offset limits.

- - - Updated - - -

I am cursing the lack of multithreading. I even turned down all my graphics to minimum... I got 16gb of RAM and a 2.5Gb RAM graphics card... Sadly only 2.3ghz per CPU core.

[Azimech]

One of the solutions is to build with a huge turbine radius. Fitting everything in a 3.75m doesn't work with these 1.0.x basic jets. Take a look at my airplanes, they use a 5m radius or more, just for the turbine. Con: it's ugly and gives a huge frontal area. Pro: you finally have a torque worth mentioning.