White Dart 1.05. Back to basics.

[Rune]

Hello there! If you have been following me for a while, I bet you already have an idea of what I'm about to show you... if not, know that the White Dart series has been with me since before we had RAPIERs. You could say it's my signature craft. Although it has had many iterations, from the beginning of the line it's distinctive characteristics have been to be light (and part-light, too), have incredible aerodynamics, and perhaps most important of all, look cool as heck. While I can attest to the first two points (55 parts, it has the easiest launch procedure I have ever done, and it can do "Kobras" on reentry!), I think you'd better be the judge of the aesthetics department... I'm too full of myself right now to be anywhere near objective.

And you know, just so it is clear how it easy it is to fly, let's just paste the entire flight manual here... such as it is.

Flight Manual (AKA: go to orbit in five steps without touching the WASD keys):

1- On takeoff, assume a 5º AoA over the horizon and engage the normal SAS mode.

2- At 7,000m, engage the prograde autopilot until you are again at 5º over the horizon, then back again to normal SAS.

3- When the RAPIER gives less than 50kN thrust, switch modes manually.

4- Once your apoapsis is over 50kms, go back to prograde autopilot until you hit your target Apo, then cut engines.

5- Circularize at desired altitude with a maneuver node.

So, real easy to fly. The actual performance is a bit more murky due to KER still being fried due to the update, and me being too lazy to run a simple calculation , but from the 200km test orbit with plenty of fuel to spare, I can already tell you it has quite a bit of range. Any LKO shouldn't be a problem even if you are not the most efficient kerbal rendezvousing. Similarly, there is enough RCS in there for even Mechjeb to dock for you. And before you tell me how long low TWR designs take to get to orbit... I timed it. 9 minutes until you cross the 70km mark, form the runway. So not that long at all, and with considerably less pilot input along the way!

Yes, that is the real trick of the design, low TWR. It is frankly anaemic until you go supersonic at 7,000m, but all that engine weight saved really helps with weight efficiency. And the aerodynamics are frankly, some of my best. Wing loading is ridiculously low, and the CoM/CoL barely moves at all during flight. It is in fact set up to be ever so slightly unstable when the tanks are nearing empty, so reentry "Kobras" (going to a >45º AoA to use the whole wing as a giant airbrake) are downright easy, but if you find her a bit jumpy just re-enable the emergency fuel tanks on the tail, or empty them pre-emptively into the main tanks: you will still be able to do Kobras, but it'll want to go back to pointing prograde on its own like a nice stable airliner, not a jumpy dogfighter. Oh, and one last confession: I cheated quite a bit on the aerodynamics department. Not only does it have my usual hidden canards, the main shock cone intake is attached to the rear node of the RAPIER and turned 180º... a dirty trick, I will admit, but it is for a good cause: the draggiest part of the airframe is the freaking fuel cell. You can't go much better than that... Fall like a feather, cut through the air like a needle.

Actually, one final note. See that picture up there? That is there to explain to you why the file you open will look slightly different from the one I give. See, from a few versions ago, the White Dart gained the feature of interchangeable mission modules. Now, I haven't had the time to properly build a few of them, and I'm afraid a VTOL version is probably out of the cards, but I still built a "science bay", and the build is made so changing form one mission module is as simple as chugging it away and plugging in a new one. Just grab the center tank and the whole rear of the ship will come off with it, and re-attach without issues once you have changed modules. My test 2.5mT crew cabin could be considered the maximum recommended payload... but I'm pretty sure it could lift up a bit more than that. I would very much like to see what you come up with, if you give it a go!

And with that, I leave you with the mission album and the usual download. Happy flying!

IMGUR ALBUM:

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DOWNLOAD:

http://www./download/y6wzn7bcvv4c8ab/SSTO+Mk+LXIV+-+White+Dart+1_05.craft

Rune. Going to orbit like a pro was never this easy.

Edited November 14, 2015 by Rune

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Awesome as always Rune. Say, have you used the name "Blade" for any of your spaceplanes? 'Cause I currently have an SSTO pending the name Blade, wanted to see if it was already taken.

-SPAddict

The White Dart is really the most recognizable craft you have, IMHO

[Rune]

Awesome as always Rune. Say, have you used the name "Blade" for any of your spaceplanes? 'Cause I currently have an SSTO pending the name Blade, wanted to see if it was already taken.

-SPAddict

The White Dart is really the most recognizable craft you have, IMHO

Thanks! And nope, obvious as it was in my "pointy objects" theme for SSTOs, I never thought of it! Retrospective is funny. I don't discard ever using it now that you have brought it up... But never fear picking a name "already taken". I don't think anyone has anything copyrighted here!

Rune. An my naming inspiration sucks, big time. Main reason I re-use names...

[Dman979]

We don't call it "reusing names," we call it a "new iteration of a proven design!"

And this is yet another wonderful iteration of the White Dart.

Dman979. I'd really like to see if the original still works. Am I doing the signoff right?

Edited November 14, 2015 by Dman979

[Bubbadevlin]

Cool plane, but you say in your description that the draggiest part was the fuel cell, how did you figure that out? Did you just use the f12 aero, or is there some other numbers i do not know about?

[Rune]

We don't call it "reusing names," we call it a "new iteration of a proven design!"

And this is yet another wonderful iteration of the White Dart.

Dman979. I'd really like to see if the original still works. Am I doing the signoff right?

As long as you feel right doing it, yeah, you re doing your signature right. And thanks for the kind words!

Cool plane, but you say in your description that the draggiest part was the fuel cell, how did you figure that out? Did you just use the f12 aero, or is there some other numbers i do not know about?

Yup, careful observation of the F12 drag arrows. Though there is a lot of info in the right-click menus if you unlock it in the cheats menu, if you want to go more sciency about it. If you look out the back withthe aerodynamic overlay on, it's the one thing that immediately catches you attention... basically because the arrows leading out of the RAPIER and the wings are so tiny in comparison.

Rune. Cheaty aerodynamics FTW!

Edited November 14, 2015 by Rune

[ryan234abc]

You've remade this more times than I've had hot dinners! This is the most aesthetically pleasing of the lot though; I love the mk2 drone cores.

Still, with the new hydrodynamics I'm anticipating the coming of Sea SSTO's. A hard task, but you're boss enough for it, I'll bet. In fact, I bet you'd go one better. We'll be swimming on Eve and partying in orbit at the same time, mark my words.

Well, YOU will be.

[Zucal]

I don't think it looks quite right without a cockpit, I'll be honest.

[Cupcake...]

I don't think it looks quite right without a cockpit, I'll be honest.

I agree, even a fake one will be good! Fantastic looking craft apart from that though.

Cupcake...

[Rune]

You've remade this more times than I've had hot dinners! This is the most aesthetically pleasing of the lot though; I love the mk2 drone cores.

Still, with the new hydrodynamics I'm anticipating the coming of Sea SSTO's. A hard task, but you're boss enough for it, I'll bet. In fact, I bet you'd go one better. We'll be swimming on Eve and partying in orbit at the same time, mark my words.

Well, YOU will be.

Actually, no Mk2 drone cores in there... I made do with my favourite probe, the Steadler, the lightest thing will full autopilot and decent thermal rating.

And SeaSSTOs... a challenge for sure, to make them float loaded... but hey, I'm sure something can be worked out. Still, Eve might be a tad too... impossibly hellish? Just finding out SSTOing it was indeed now possible got me pretty wide-eyed.

I don't think it looks quite right without a cockpit, I'll be honest.

Yeah... tell me about it, then go and yell at Squad. It looked much better like this:

But since I'm not the king of Squad, I guess I'm stuck in the minority that doesn't think everything porkjet does is perfect. Don't get me wrong, the guy does cool stuff and is a genius with textures, but he focuses waaaay too much on the plane-y side of things, and we want more rockets and sci-fiish goodness to use in, you know, space.

I agree, even a fake one will be good! Fantastic looking craft apart from that though.

Cupcake...

If the aerodynamics allowed... sadly, putting such a drag nightmare as is a custom unshielded cockpit would probably screw the design beyond what it can take, the main reason it breaks Mach is because of the extreme streamlining... and it might even make it unstable in flight, too, since the CoM/CoL are so close (and squad won't show us the drag center). I could do something with a shroud, bu tthen it would probably throw some kind of silly "can't X while stowed" error or something like that. Or maybe I just got a reflex to not use shrouds in case heat bug or something. Besides, part count...

So I bit the bullet and after experimenting with the Mk1 inline cockpit, decided as a drone it looked cool enough, and I really couldn't improve if I was going after performance. I was pretty close to leave it with an inline cockpit sunk into the front fuel tank... but that thing looks too rounded. I want my pointy Mk1 cockpit back!

Rune. And nobody is even crusading for it like the ROUND-8...

Edited November 15, 2015 by Rune

[CitizenAerospace]

That's a pretty nice looking spaceplane!

Yeah, I miss the old cockpit... Really, they should of just made this new cockpit a separate one, and done a slight retexture of the old Mk 1 (It did need a little work I think). This new cockpit is very much plane-orientated... Maybe they could of called it the Mark 1-B or something? Idk, but I'm missing the old one too... It would be easy just do add it back in right? Maybe they'll do that when they get 64 bit and a bit more performance to work with.

Hopefully.

[Majorjim!]

Hi Rune,

I know you like to save weight and all that so by changing the mk2 crew cabin with the short mk2 cargo bay with four seats will save you nearly 1.75 tonnes!!

[Tangle]

Majorjim said:

Hi Rune,

I know you like to save weight and all that so by changing the mk2 crew cabin with the short mk2 cargo bay with four seats will save you nearly 1.75 tonnes!!

We don't need no pressurization...

 

...Apparently, people don't know songs. That was a joke. 

Edited January 23, 2016 by Tangle

[Majorjim!]

We don't need no pressurization...

Sigh.. I hope you are joking.

in any case, the cargo bay when closed could easily be 'pressurized'. And the Kerbals will have helmets on anyway, so where's the beef?

My point is as follows, Rune puts performance first in his craft so I made a valid suggestion that would save him over a tonne of weight.

Cheers.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Majorjim

[Demonsnail1]

Link appears to be broken.

[Rune]

3 hours ago, Demonsnail1 said:

Link appears to be broken.

Link is in mediafire, so due to the ban, the domain name is removed. Kind of lazy to change it now, what with 1.1 around the corner and everything. Just re-add the domain name in the URL manually, and it should work perfectly fine.

 

Rune. A domain name is something like google.com, but I won't write the one you have to add because the forum would censor it... pretty obvious, tough.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Rune

[Demonsnail1]

15 minutes ago, Rune said:

Link is in mediafire, so due to the ban, the domain name is removed. Kind of lazy to change it now, what with 1.05 and everything. Just re-add the domain name in the URL manually, and it should work perfectly fine.

Interesting, what was the reason for the ban? 

Sorry, I'm a little new to the forum so I don't know much about it's history and stuff. 

 

[Rune]

Just now, Demonsnail1 said:

Interesting, what was the reason for the ban? 

Sorry, I'm a little new to the forum so I don't know much about it's history and stuff. 

 

Apparently they were serving inappropriate adds to some users, and this forum is family-friendly. Being in love with AdBlock myself, I never noticed, but I do understand why the step had to be taken.

 

Rune. What are these "ad" things people keep talking about?