Jump to content

Smallest plane (Season One)

TheGuyNamedAlan
 Share

Recommended Posts

TheGuyNamedAlan

TheGuyNamedAlan

Posted
Posted (edited)

Challenge:

You are to build the smallest plane(any engine is allowed and must be able to fly using wings) that will ACTUALLY fly(Must be able to travel to island airport).

Rules:

  • no mods are allowed other than kerbal engineer.
  • FAR is not allowed
  • no cheats or debug menu
  • photo or video are needed to prove your achievement.
  • to get on the leaderboard, you need to tell me the time to get to island airport(-1/min) and weight(-3/ton). you will start with 50 points
  • season 1 ends on 30/8/16 new season if there is 7 entrances. 
  • Season 2 begins on christmas!! that'll a nice gift for kerbal players :DDDD

Leaderboard:

  1. NightshineRecorralis-47.036pt
  2. CanOmer- 46.4317pt
  3. MissionController3134 - 46.063pt
  4. qzgy-44.121pt
  5. Quasar-43.285 pt
  6. GraviTykillz-39.493pt
  7. Cunjo Carl- 36.615pt
  8.  
  9.  
  10.  

Good luck

Badge:

Badge_4_smallest_plane_xigjg0.png

@CanOmer i want to use your plane as the background because ur at the top so far :)

Edited by TheGuyNamedAlan
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

Posted
Posted (edited)

Kicking this off with:

The Bat

1469581854596442.gif

 

Imgur hasn't been working on my system, so I'm trying something a bit different- LunaPic.

The Bat flies gently and quietly through the cold night air of the Kerbin shores. Appalled by the horrible glare of nighttime KSC, it roams by Laythe light in search of a better roost. Overjoyed, it finds the old airbase, complete with dingy metal caves and a single bright light for attracting bugs. It's been a good night.

The Bat weighs in at 655kg fully fueled, has a top speed of mach 0.9 and a bottom speed of 14m/s with gentle maneuvering. The basic fins, as well as being attractive, are 20% more efficient by weight than any other lifting surface. It can bank like a harrier and glide like an owl, which is a very silly thing for a bat to do.

Cheers!

Edited by Cunjo Carl
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

Posted
Posted

Shucks, thanks! Just like everybody, there's a lot left to learn. I've never even docked before! I happen to have done a lot of work on small planes lately, so this one was a fun application of some things I spent a lot of time learning and tinkering on. Anyways, thanks for the challenge!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

Posted
Posted

 

3 minutes ago, TheGuyNamedAlan said:

@Cunjo Carl isn't that the striped down version of the dragonfly you made?? 

Pretty much! I designed the bat from scratch for the challenge, but most of the design requirements wound up being the same. Just for kicks, the thought process for the bat went like:

I decided that "actually fly" could mean "goes to the old airfield", because that's a nice gentle test.
At this size scale, it's hard not to want the improved lift/weight of those basic fins. For propulsion, spark+fuel and a Juno+fuel+air wind up weighing about the same for a trip to the airfield. The only difference is the Juno gives better TWR, and the spark gives quicker thrust control. I needed the fast thrust control, because I wanted to operate the bat as a VTOL to eliminate unsightly landing gear. Clipped landing gear with an ant/spider would have worked nicely too, but I hadn't thought of that yet. The most important aspect was the control systems, and I opted to go for just the inline mini reaction wheel for look's sake, forgoing a tail fin. With the rest designed, given the weight of the craft, I decided to go for 24 basic fins, which look nice in the rows of three on the .625 elements. I totally forgot Dragonfly had that, too!
I crashed a few times getting the hang of the controls, but the bat wound up being a fine flier without any design itterations. Lucky for me, because normally I have to iterate like 20 times! Fail faster, as they say.

 

1 hour ago, foamyesque said:

Define both "plane" and "actually fly", please. :P

The nuances of these two questions have shaped the course of so many challenges!

 

@GraviTykillz, I love the snub-nose look! Those structural Cs look so far back-weighted. Are they on the COM?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
qzgy

qzgy

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yes. https://kerbalx.com/qzgy/Mosquito

Also, Craft weighs actually 1.604 tons, not 1.58. Score should be 41.22

I also made an improved version.

https://kerbalx.com/qzgy/Mosquito-3

Weight: 1.465 tons

Time to Island 2 min 58 sec = 2.966667 minutes

Score (I think) = 50 - (1.465 * 3) - (2.97) = 42.264

Edited by qzgy
Link to comment
Share on other sites
qzgy

qzgy

Posted
Posted
22 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

-snip-

I wanted to operate the bat as a VTOL to eliminate unsightly landing gear. Clipped landing gear with an ant/spider would have worked nicely too, but I hadn't thought of that yet.

-snip-

What exactly do you mean by clipping landing gear with the ant or spider? Also, I like to use the i-beams as landing gear for small aircraft. Works fairly well and also loses the landing gear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, qzgy said:

What exactly do you mean by clipping landing gear with the ant or spider? Also, I like to use the i-beams as landing gear for small aircraft. Works fairly well and also loses the landing gear.

The plan was to use a spider engine (I realize now ants don't work well in atmo) with a single small wheel nudged mostly up into the fuselage for looks' sake. It turns out those little wheels can't be nudged up into the fuselage without "blocking" them and causing them to stop working for some reason. The setup still works fine without nudging it, but it looks a bit silly. Check out the top left pic! ^_^
 

I also just made a plane land on the island weighing only 0.385tons! It still had some fuel left, so even lower might be possible. The one-way trip took 13minutes even. Pretty pokey, but boy is it light! I present:

The Seagull

446.png449.png

Complete with silly wheel, the prototype majestically rolls in to the old airfield.                                          With no landing gear, the final design scrapes off the runway before climbing fast to cruising height.

 

450.png451.png

Thanks to its pre-tilted wings, the seagull cruises using only 40 pounds force.                                       The Seagull slowly drifts to the island. It's almost there, and there's still plenty of fuel left!

 

 

452.png453.png

   Raring to do another lap, The Seagull begrudgingly cuts the engines and glides on down.                       While shimmying and shaking to drop air speed, I fell off the runway :). Still landing success!

 

Imgur isn't working for me (is it just me, by the way, or is its CSS all screwy now?) so I'm trying out the built-in tables.

Edited by Cunjo Carl
Link to comment
Share on other sites
qzgy

qzgy

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

The plan was to use a spider engine (I realize now ants don't work well in atmo) with a single small wheel nudged mostly up into the fuselage for looks' sake. It turns out those little wheels can't be nudged up into the fuselage without "blocking" them and causing them to stop working for some reason. The setup still works fine without nudging it, but it looks a bit silly. Check out the top left pic! ^_^
 

I also just made a plane land on the island weighing only 0.385tons! It still had some fuel left, so even lower might be possible. The one-way trip took 13minutes even. Pretty pokey, but boy is it light! I present:

The Seagull

446.png449.png

Complete with silly wheel, the prototype majestically rolls in to the old airfield.                                          With no landing gear, the final design scrapes off the runway before climbing fast to cruising height.

 

450.png451.png

Thanks to its pre-tilted wings, the seagull cruises using only 40 pounds force.                                       The Seagull slowly drifts to the island. It's almost there, and there's still plenty of fuel left!

 

 

452.png453.png

   Raring to do another lap, The Seagull begrudgingly cuts the engines and glides on down.                       While shimmying and shaking to drop air speed, I fell off the runway :). Still landing success!

 

Imgur isn't working for me (is it just me, by the way, or is its CSS all screwy now?) so I'm trying out the built-in tables.

Ok. Also, cool plane. But is it worth the 13 minute travel time for the lightness? And I think imgur is being screwy with everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, qzgy said:

Ok. Also, cool plane. But is it worth the 13 minute travel time for the lightness? And I think imgur is being screwy with everyone.

Totally not worth it points-wise, but I kinda wanted to push the limits of low-weight. Points-wise, I think the optimal plane will actually be built with one or two Junos. Kinda like the stuff you see in @hempa2's Kerbal-carrying challenge. A panther burning in wet mode should make an exciting close second, though!

(Here's an example 2-engine Juno)

Spoiler

255.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Quasar

Quasar

Posted
Posted (edited)

My entry: Dartwing 1

5w7rPsx.jpg

Flies surprisingly well. Very sensitive, but it's a small plane so that's to be expected. Putting Valentina inside the air intake didn't have any negative effects whatsoever, contrary to what action movies would tell you.

uDp1xBo.jpg

It weighs 0.905t Unkerballed, or 1.005t including pilot.

CJ1vjwt.png

I managed the island run in 3 minutes 42 seconds. Could probably have shaved a few seconds off that if I'd blown the parachute lower. (would also have been faster if I could have started Valentina in the pilot's seat, but (shrug).

jRdBFYj.jpg

50 + (1.005 * (-3)) + (3.7 * (-1)) = 43.285

Edited by Quasar
Link to comment
Share on other sites
qzgy

qzgy

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Quasar said:

(would also have been faster if I could have started Valentina in the pilot's seat, but (shrug).

 

Ever heard of take command?

Also, good job!

Edited by qzgy
Link to comment
Share on other sites
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...