Pinpoint landing from takeoff

[ruairiau]

Hi Everyone,

I'm working my way through career mode and I have to collect science from the badlands (I've just started unlocking some of 4th tier of the tech tree; the ones that cost 90 science). Until now I've been using a small agile plane that I've fitted with parachutes to collect science data; I'd just fly to the spot, slow down and pull the chutes. This has worked well for nearby biomes, but the badlands are roughly 800+km away from KSC. So I was hoping some of you smart folk could help me get the science out of it.

I see my options are as follows:

Build a plane - My current plane can travel about 300m/s. 0.3*60 = 18Km/min. 800/18 = 44min travel time + deviation and cruising altitude would increase this. This would be slow and boring, even with time acceleration.

Build a rocket - get into orbit, then deorbit over the badlands. This looks super hard and my manual flight skills suck. At this stage I don't have maneuver nodes, so it would be a lot of guess work. Also, drag from the atmosphere on re-entry would likely send me off course.

Build a rocket and (somehow) use my remote tech flight computer to chart a suborbital trajectory to land at or near my destination. I like this idea but I'm stuck. There must be a way to calculate the Delta V required, pitch and heading. Is there a way to figure this out? Can it be done? Is there any good mods for calculating this kind of flight path?

Any tips would be appreciated.

[Scarecrow88]

Personally I would build a faster plane. Much easier for precise landings.

[RCgothic]

Which isn't possible without Whiplash engines.

I'd do a hybrid. Stick a plane on top of a rocket and use your wings to pull out of the dive on re-entry and then fine tune in flight.

Unfortunately without a manoeuvre node you'll just need to guess and adjust during launch. I'd start out with something around the 2000dv mark.

Due to atmospheric losses, any detailed maths probably wouldn't be useful enough for the effort required.

Edited September 29, 2015 by RCgothic

[11of10]

How about a rocket plane? Central body with cockpit, experiments, and a rocket fuel tank, two side bodies with jet engine each, go high and fast?

[Belphegor]

i remember visiting some of kerbins biomes with a glider.. was a lot of fun and pretty accurate. just launch suborbital roughly towards the the biome you want to visit, detach the glider and correct your path once you re-enter the atmosphere.

or build a bigger plane with a larger range

[FLHerne]

Which isn't possible without Whiplash engines.

You can certainly get faster than 300m/s with Wheesleys.

This one does 700m/s in level flight, and can lob itself above 20km for those annoying high-altitude readings.

[TheGeekno72]

I've make a plane for a challenge (Micro Air Race) on the french forum it can faster than Mach 1.5 with just one Wheesley, I finished 5e with my Paper plane (It's the challenge link, look down the second picture of the group)

[Starhawk]

There is a tiny lake at the southern tip of the continent where KSC resides. This is just west of a small mountain.

The ridge of hills just north of the little lake is Badlands. Very easy to fly to.

Happy landings!

ETA: Also, welcome ruairiau and FLHerne to the forums!

Edited September 29, 2015 by Starhawk

[ruairiau]

Cheers guys. Some great suggestions. Here's some feedback.

I'm not sure I'll get 700m/s with fuel needed (approx 19 mins) plus science payload. I'm sure I could build a plane of some sort, but I'm enjoying the challenge of being inventive.

I can't build a bigger plane as I'm limited to 30 parts and I only have certain items unlocked.

Cheers for the closer badlands biome, but I'm determined to get to the main biome area. Call me stubborn.

Using a waypoint mod I've found the heading is 99.5 degrees from KSC. I've tried plugging that into the flight computer with various rockets and adjustments to pitch, thrust and delta v. No luck yet. What would Mark Watney do?

[RCgothic]

He'd spend eight weeks driving.