Operation: Locust, Yet Another Elcano Challenge

[spongey45]

UNITED KERBILIAN EMPIRE (could someone tell me if this name has been taken or not?) - PLANETARY EXPLORATION DIVISION presents you

(EXPECT BAD ENGLISH)

OPERATION: LOCUST

"We have explored the fastness of space, but yet, there is still many location at our homeland that lies unexplored, because of this we will send many brave Kerbals to explore the lands of Kerbin, and we are not going to do it next year or next month, WE WILL DO IT TODAY! WE WILL START WATER-BORNE CIRCUMNAVIGATION TONIGHT!"

-President of United Kerbilian Empire, Dave Kerman

The circumnavigation operation, named Operation: Locust made engineers at KSC working overnight to finish the craft A.S.A.P., after many trials that used the latest time-traveling technology to keep the trials from wasting time, the engineers made a breakthrough.

LOCUST ONE - PROTOTYPE NUMBER 01

Here is some photos of the aircraft's performance

Locust One, preparing for engine test

Applying 100% Thrust

Lift?

This thing could fly!

And now, for the performance on water

Locust One, getting ready to enter water, took a while to get it here from the other end of the runway

Look at that!

Current top speed...

As you can see, the front propeller easily destroyed by the water so I replaced it with an intake

The craft, weighing at 239 tonnes (if I'm not wrong) is very difficult to turn on land, but was unexpectedly it pretty easy to be turned on water

[spongey45]

LAUNCH - QUICK SAVE 1

_______________________________________

LOCUST ONE - MODEL DESIGNATION A

Changes from previous version:

-BDTD Scanner

-Replaced front prop with intake

-Tried to fix misaligned cameras by moving them, still misaligned (duh)

So, here it is...

Craft is being prepared for a long taxi to the shore, note those dishes are used to relay data between my craft -> RemTech Sattelite Constellation at KEO -> KSC and the other way around, for communication purposes of course!

After the long, painful taxiing, the craft finally meets with water.

FULL SPEED AHEAD!

Near The-Abandoned-Runway-On-An-Island Island

"Brace yourself, sunrise is coming" -Jeb

New top speed!

Stopping for enjoying snacks, sunrise, and quick saving

It also took a lot of time to slow down, fortunately, those jet engines could reverse its thrust, which is good... I think...

And there is one other thing, I just realize there is a continent with no water passing through it, which is the quickest and easiest way to circumnavigate it (besides from flying)?

Edited July 13, 2016 by spongey45

[Kerbinchaser]

wow. Good luck on this endeavor! I'll be watching this. 

[spongey45]

QS 1 - QS 2

___________________

I just realized that the reactor module I put on the ship was unneeded because 6 RTGs is enough to power the craft, so the reactor is useless and just adds weight that slows me down... But it is too late, so screw it!

Here we go again! It was a bit messy because I shut down the engine, I thought by shutting down the engines it will make it stop much quicker, I was wrong...

SUNRISE! Taste the heat in your skin!

And here we see the crew of Locust One enjoying the circumnavigation like they were on a holiday trip

L1: "Umm... Locust One to Kommand Center, it seems that we're running low on fuel"

KSC: "Uhh... Locust One, we doesn't have a refueling craft ready at the moment, we need to design it from scratch, just hang on over there."

"WE'RE STRANDED!"

So, in the next part I'll be showing about the refueling craft, the craft is a small boat with Jumbos that is going to be dropped from an aircraft similar to Locust One but with the unneeded parts removed. But first, I had to design it.

Few question tho, does Kerbin oceans have currents? And what is the shortest and easiest way to traverse the continent that has no water passing through it? Anyway here's the craft files if anyone like to tinker with it, https://www.dropbox.com/s/gxmwrtym9ahzqqn/Locust One.craft?dl=0

And also, this craft at high speed need SAS to be toggled on so the nose doesn't pitch downward and make the craft point directly to the horizon to increase its speed. Unfortunately, SAS isn't warp friendly... Could anything help me with these with On Site Retrofit that if possible will be delivered to the craft along with the fuel.

The craft carries 15.000 liters of Liquid Fuel, now I have to design a tanker that could carry that amount of fuel, thinking of orbital dropping....

USED MODS:
RemoteTech, KAS, KIS, RPM, ScanSat, KJR, Karbonite, Freight Transport Technologies

Edited July 13, 2016 by spongey45

[Geschosskopf]

 

18 minutes ago, spongey45 said:

Few question tho, does Kerbin oceans have currents? And what is the shortest and easiest way to traverse the continent that has no water passing through it?

Good luck!

Anyway, there are no water currents just as there are no winds in the air.

As to crossing the land.....  All major landmasses on Kerbin are actually part of  a single super-continent that's like a 3-fingered hand.  The palm of the hand is on the north pole and the 3 fingers drape down from there, one of which reaches the south pole.    As a result, there are no routes around Kerbin on any parallel or meridian that are completely land or water.  If you go mostly by land, you still have to cross some water.  If you go mostly by sea, you still have to cross some land.

The landmass that connects the north and south poles has 2 narrow necks, one at about 47^N and the other in the region between 5^ and 22^S.  If your goal is to minimize the amount of land travel, then the northern area is better because it's 1) shorter and 2) has a large lake in the middle.  But OTOH, the terrain up there is rough in places, especially at the eastern end.  The southern route entails more land but might be smoother.  I haven't been that way so don't now for sure.  The thing is, however, that using either of these places requires you to make a big detour if go the rest of the way at sea, so your total mileage will be over 1.5x Kerbin's circumference.

An alternative to this is to go NE-SW in the ocean east of KSC, crossing both poles.  This minimizes detours and the polar ice caps are pretty smooth.  But there's a big problem---in most places where the ice meets the sea, there's a huge cliff.  While several previous Elcano challengers have devised ingenious ways of climbing them, these are major impediments to most folks

 

[spongey45]

Still found no means to refill the craft's fuel. The craft need to be filled with 15000 liters of Liquid Fuel, that alone weighs about 100 tonnes. I tried to Orbital Drop the fuel, but it doesn't have enough delta-v to brake on reentry, so the chutes can't be deployed.

Tried to create a VTOL craft so I can sling-load the fuel. But, I find it difficult to balance lift and thrust.

Also tried to use the same craft design but with pontoons filled with fuel, can't takeoff.

The craft is also powered with large blimp engine from FTT that powered with electricity. So, if I missed, it could crawl to the fuel.

And the route, this is what I consider...

 

But, I didn't have Hi-Res Altimetry Data, so I think the crew needs to wait at the ocean for quite a while...

Poor Jeb...

[spongey45]

Due to school and life related stuffs, I can't post frequently. Expect infrequent updates.

About the refueling system, I'm thinking of a cargo aircraft. But, could I drop fuel tanks from the cargo bay through the cargo ramp? Could I put a drogue chute on the tank to pull it out from the cargo bay so a normal chute could deploy later?

[Geschosskopf]

On 7/14/2016 at 4:29 AM, spongey45 said:

Still found no means to refill the craft's fuel. The craft need to be filled with 15000 liters of Liquid Fuel, that alone weighs about 100 tonnes. I tried to Orbital Drop the fuel, but it doesn't have enough delta-v to brake on reentry, so the chutes can't be deployed.

Did you try the 10m inflatable heat shield?  That makes a very effective airbrake.  Plus put some regular airbrakes on the other end to keep it pointing in the right direction and slow down even more.  Also, maybe try doing it ballistic suborbital so you're not going so fast to start with.

 

On 7/14/2016 at 4:29 AM, spongey45 said:

And the route, this is what I consider...

 

Looks quite familiar   Because the only place you'll be on land is that little portage up there at 47^N, you don't really need high-res mapping.  I can tell you all about it, and you can see it when you get there.  I use max terrain detail so the terrain is at its worst, but it's really not so bad.  There are only 3 places of moderate difficulty.  The rest is fairly smoothly rolling plains (but it's up on a plateau) and there's a lake about 70km long in the middle that greatly reduces the amount of land travel.

The difficult places are (going from east to west):

• A fairly high and steep bluff between the beach of the big inland sea and the plateau.  This is best approached indirectly, running more SE-NW up the ridgeline rather than taking the slope head-on.
• The land around eastern end of the long central lake is rather lumpy and most of the lake shore is steep slopes.  However, there's a good beach in the SE corner.  To get there, you'll have to detour around several bumps and pits in the terrain.
• The west end of the long central lake is very similar to the bluff at the start of the portage.  But again, run the ridge line and you'll be fine.  From there on, it's a smooth descent down to the ocean beach.  However, the closest water is a lagoon separated by a small, low sandbar from the main ocean so don't totally punch it until  you're across that.

 

2 hours ago, spongey45 said:

About the refueling system, I'm thinking of a cargo aircraft. But, could I drop fuel tanks from the cargo bay through the cargo ramp? Could I put a drogue chute on the tank to pull it out from the cargo bay so a normal chute could deploy later?

Airdropping stuff out a rear cargo door is a bit tricky.  The dropped item of course needs a probe core so you can control it once it's free.  It's also a good idea to install guide rails for it to slide on in the cargo bay.  Otherwise, it'll usually slam into the walls or floor and explode something when you release it.  As for getting it out, a drogue will work but you might also experiment with decouplers and Sepratrons.  And also remember the range limit on multiple things in the atmosphere.

[spongey45]

So, today I went ahead and designed to design a carrier...

Now, how do I put stuffs in the cargo bay

[spongey45]

Just tested it today... ineffective... I could only create cargo plane that could carry a rockomax-64... totally ineffective.
Going to try orbital drop... or could someone teach me how to build a VTOL Skycrane

[Geschosskopf]

6 hours ago, spongey45 said:

Just tested it today... ineffective... I could only create cargo plane that could carry a rockomax-64... totally ineffective.
Going to try orbital drop... or could someone teach me how to build a VTOL Skycrane

How much of your vehicle is actually fuel tank and how much is empty flotation devices?  IOW, how much fuel do you need at once?

Anyway, if you want a VTOL, I highly recommend @allista's Throttle-Controlled Avionics.  Besides making it relatively easy to fly a conventional VTOL, this mod now has some really nice autopilot functions that allow spot landings from orbit.  However, suborbital ballistic shots using just your eyeball will work pretty well.  You should be able to come down within a few dozen klicks of the rover without much effort, so if you've got enough fuel left to go that far, you should be OK.