Chipmunk MKII spaceplane

[Dr Farnsworth]

Good news everyone!

We have rebuilt the Chipmunk for use with 1.1.3

The Chipmunk MK II can reach a 150km orbit and return without refueling. For it's size, that's pretty decent I think.
The craft struggles to break the sound barrier (it's shaped like a potato, so what do you expect) on assent so you may have to dip the nose a bit to help it.
Perfect for emergency crew recovery.
Action Groups:
Abort. Toggle cabin lights.
1. Toggle Rapier mode.
2. Toggle docking light.
3. Toggle docking port and toggle rapier.
4. Toggle elevator deploy for re-entry.

It flies reasonably well considering it's just a potato with a little bit of control surface added in for good measure.

 

Pick yours (like a hot potato) up today! 

https://kerbalx.com/Dr_Farnsworth/Chipmunk-MKII

Did I say Potato enough?

Edited September 9, 2016 by Dr Farnsworth

[Fearless Son]

Oooh, what a cute little potato!  

[CdrFuzz]

Interesting that you mention how it struggles to break the Mach barrier. I have a very similar craft, with a shock cone intake in place of the shielded docking port. It charged into orbit very easily, but when I tried to make a utility version with the docking port, plus radial intakes and RCS, I just couldn't get it to hit the magic 400m/s mark.

[Dr Farnsworth]

5 hours ago, CdrFuzz said:

Interesting that you mention how it struggles to break the Mach barrier. I have a very similar craft, with a shock cone intake in place of the shielded docking port. It charged into orbit very easily, but when I tried to make a utility version with the docking port, plus radial intakes and RCS, I just couldn't get it to hit the magic 400m/s mark.

The shielded docking port has mountains of drag compared to the shock cone. On a craft this small it's going to cause noticeable differences.

On the Chipmunk MKI I got around this by putting a jr docking port on the back of the rapier and having more aerodynamic parts up front. The jr port explodes now when I try it, so the shielded port is what I am stuck with until I figure something else out. 

 

[CdrFuzz]

I was inspired to fiddle around with mine today and managed to get around the drag issue by sticking the port on the underside of the craft. Thread's here if you want a look: 

 

[Zamolxes77]

You could switch out the shielded docking port for a more aerodynamic look. This is my version of your Chipmunk, although is twice as bigger and it services a crew of 4 !

But for something in the same spirit as the Chipmunk, here you go :

That's right, 2,000 dV in LKO - it can go all the way to Minmus, land, take off, come back and land with fuel to spare