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Kerbin Circumnavigation 1.2 - Aviator Challenge Continuation


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12 hours ago, Yatsykon said:

Just a 1x circumnavigation, even overshot the runway on my way back and had to spend a few minutes heading back. Finding the airport in pitch black darkness made it a tad difficult, but my instincts turned out to be reliable.

https://imgur.com/a/6aADa

I love the simple, clean lines!  Nice job!  Take your badge with honor.

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Though I already have this badge for a long time, it never hurts to test a new plane for endurance.  

Craft used: K-57C "Tern"   https://kerbalx.com/haruspex/Tern-C  
Circumnavigations: 1
Time: 1:43:25

Assembly.

aEmET9Q.jpg

Launch.

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Peninsula east of KSC.

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The Canyon River.

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Dark Side of Kerbin.

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Sunrise over the Crater.

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The Great Desert, with the Pyramids beacon 80 km to the south.

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Shores of the home continent.

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KSC approach.

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Mission Success!

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Your pilot on this epic journey was Burgard Kerman, veteran of the Fifth Interplanetary Expedition to Jool! Thank you.

rlp3ux3.png

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  • 1 month later...

I decided id like a badge, so i gave this a shot. My aircraft nicked "Horizon-Heart" is a medium altitude, fast flying interceptor whose pilot just decided to throw it around the globe. 

yk4sk0t.png

You may notice it still has around 40% fuel left, so I might try another route or add just a little bit more fuel. Its a little too slow to beat anybody in the velocity challenge, but blows everybody out of the water in the basic challenge time. 

(Totally could have done the velocity division if it weren't for the MKI heating ugh)

Edited by Not Sure
realisation
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On 11/4/2017 at 2:03 PM, Not Sure said:

I decided id like a badge, so i gave this a shot. My aircraft nicked "Horizon-Heart" is a medium altitude, fast flying interceptor whose pilot just decided to throw it around the globe. 

yk4sk0t.png

You may notice it still has around 40% fuel left, so I might try another route or add just a little bit more fuel. Its a little too slow to beat anybody in the velocity challenge, but blows everybody out of the water in the basic challenge time. 

(Totally could have done the velocity division if it weren't for the MKI heating ugh)

That is indeed a very attractive craft!  Under an hour earns you a place on the Velocity leaderboard as well!  Is that a radiator panel I spy behind the cockpit?

With 40% remaining fuel after one circuit, it's very possible that you could make it around a second time.  I haven't played around a lot with Whiplashes, but when I did my really-long-distance runs, I found that getting up to cruise altitude and speed consumed 300 units of fuel in my 19-ton craft, but once I got there, the craft consumed <150 LF per circumnavigation.  Of course, this was using a single RAPIER at 25km altitude and 1600m/s, but I think the principles still apply.

Unfortunately, you'll need to abide by the rules in your submission--a screenshot at the beginning, one on the far side of the planet, and one at the end are required in order for the run to count.

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4 hours ago, zolotiyeruki said:

Unfortunately, you'll need to abide by the rules in your submission--a screenshot at the beginning, one on the far side of the planet, and one at the end are required in order for the run to count.

Ah alright, I've got the screenshots, must have just skipped over that bit of the rules. (Oh and there's a barometer on the tail because I wanted to test what pressure the Whiplashes preformed the best)

Edited by Not Sure
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Here are the Images as promised:

Spoiler

mq5cPGV.pngtn3Gl8D.png

So in conclusion, (im not the best with reading rules, oops) currently one circumnavigation, and it took me 57min and 27 seconds. Gonna aim for sub 50 or more than one circle next.

Edited by Not Sure
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17 minutes ago, Not Sure said:

TVDcw35.png


 __              __      ___ 
|__)     /\     / _`    |__  
|  \    /~~\    \__>    |___ 
                             
 

 

Crap happens. Dust yourself off, get some new pilots and try again.

+1 for the explosion. :)

Hey, does the author mind if I do this challenge in KSP 1.3.1 instead of 1.2?

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1 minute ago, GDJ said:

Crap happens. Dust yourself off, get some new pilots and try again.

+1 for the explosion. :)

Hey, does the author mind if I do this challenge in KSP 1.3.1 instead of 1.2?

Lol thanks, im in the air again with my backup pilot.

Also my last run was accepted and it was in 1.3.1 and there are so few differences to 1.2, I doubt it matters to him.

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So, if I'm going to be in the velocity devision, I'm going to be in the velocity devision. 

So, here it is, the (NS) Smokes-Blade

(ignore the destroyed fuel station in the back, it totally wasn't a failed landing that influenced adding a drogue chute and totally isn't the last image I posted haha)

nEHxQt1.png

I looked over some other people's crafts and used my own style to get a time of 38 minutes and 44 seconds. 

rHIUwXF.png

la59fZi.png

Some bonus eye candy (you may notice the similarities with my brand new PFP :wink:)

Spoiler

C5RYg1L.png

n1QgyVM.png

Thanks for this awesome challenge!

Edited by Not Sure
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18 hours ago, Not Sure said:

So, if I'm going to be in the velocity devision, I'm going to be in the velocity devision. 

So, here it is, the (NS) Smokes-Blade

(ignore the destroyed fuel station in the back, it totally wasn't a failed landing that influenced adding a drogue chute and totally isn't the last image I posted haha)

Ha, bring it on!  That's pretty smokin' fast there.  You've officially moved up a few places on the leaderboard!

On 11/7/2017 at 9:43 PM, GDJ said:

Hey, does the author mind if I do this challenge in KSP 1.3.1 instead of 1.2?

Yup, 1.3.1 is just fine.  It's actually a teeny bit harder, because reentry heating is a bit tougher now.  It's harder to maintain 1,600m/s for multiple circles without overheating.

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Yeah, it's a bit harder for sure. So far my best time is 40:45 with a gentle landing. Top speed was peaking out at 1750.51 m/s with a single RAPIER engine.

Got some work to do.

Edited by GDJ
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Wanted to try for the multiple circularizations, but I can't get to the speed and altitude that you do @zolotiyeruki. Also I didn't rebalance the plane after removing a fuel tank from the back to get higher and fly more efficient, so the landing was REALLY hard, like a leaf, that flies in the wind... managed to land it on the gear though after the fifth attempt or so and then drove it over to the strip to stick it.

https://imgur.com/a/i2BmB

49,000+2,000 = 52,000 Km

Once round I calculated was about 8500Km

52/8.5 = 6 times around in the end.

I may try again, but it takes an awful long time to do this at 1x, my respect for managing to take it around 14 times!

All done in version 1.3.1 BTW.

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6 hours ago, hoioh said:

Wanted to try for the multiple circularizations, but I can't get to the speed and altitude that you do @zolotiyeruki. Also I didn't rebalance the plane after removing a fuel tank from the back to get higher and fly more efficient, so the landing was REALLY hard, like a leaf, that flies in the wind... managed to land it on the gear though after the fifth attempt or so and then drove it over to the strip to stick it.

https://imgur.com/a/i2BmB

49,000+2,000 = 52,000 Km

Once round I calculated was about 8500Km

52/8.5 = 6 times around in the end.

I may try again, but it takes an awful long time to do this at 1x, my respect for managing to take it around 14 times!

All done in version 1.3.1 BTW.

One time around is about ((600+25)km * 2 * pi = ) 3925km.  You can't trust the distance in the F3 menu, as it appears to include the rotation of Kerbin.  At 1600m/s, that's a bit over 40 minutes per circle.  Your flight was about 270 minutes, which means you made it around 6 times.

So your answer is correct, but your math needs some work :)  Congratulations!

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On 11-11-2017 at 5:12 AM, zolotiyeruki said:

So your answer is correct, but your math needs some work :)  Congratulations!

You are absolutely correct in your way of calculation and it's probably the more reliable method, but I'm quite certain my math is sound as well because it includes any kind of deviation the F3 menu produces:

In order to determine my answer I did the following: after I made it twice around I checked the F3 menu and devided the distance mentioned by 2, that's how I got the 8500. After that it's just a matter of dividing my final distance by that number. So no matter what kind of deviation the F3 menu produces, it's already accounted for this way.

I'm still curious though as to how you managed 14 times around. I can't get my speed very much over 1600m/s, I need to keep an angle of 1 to 2 degrees to level (which I think is slowing me down, but angling the front and tail wing-strakes doesn't seem to help with that) and as a result my fuel usage sticks close to .3 and eventualy drops to close to .2, but it won't drop to the 0.04 per engine you seem to manage, which is less than half my best so far. Would you care to elaborate on that achievement? Because I'm thinking I could manage similar performance, but I'm missing something you're not.

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15 hours ago, hoioh said:

I'm still curious though as to how you managed 14 times around. I can't get my speed very much over 1600m/s, I need to keep an angle of 1 to 2 degrees to level (which I think is slowing me down, but angling the front and tail wing-strakes doesn't seem to help with that) and as a result my fuel usage sticks close to .3 and eventualy drops to close to .2, but it won't drop to the 0.04 per engine you seem to manage, which is less than half my best so far. Would you care to elaborate on that achievement? Because I'm thinking I could manage similar performance, but I'm missing something you're not.

I'm happy to share.  Here are the things I did differently from you, from what I can see:

  1. Lift: All horizontal lifting surfaces have a 2-3 degree tilt upward, compared to the fuselage.  Any lifting surfaces that aren't providing lift are dead weight.
  2. Weight: mercilessly minimized.  That meant a single smallest-possible control surface for pitch control, and a second for yaw control and stability.  I actually forgot to empty the capsule of monopropellant (75kg worth! argh!), but that's another step.  The lightest crew capsule that would fit in a 1.25m form factor.  A single RAPIER only.  Only wet wings (free extra fuel capacity means less weight in eventually-empty fuel tanks).  The smallest landing gear that would hold up.  No extra batteries or anything else.  I don't remember how I maintained roll control, to be honest--that was a long time ago.
  3. Drag: Only 1.25m parts allowed.  Mk2 parts are very pretty, but also very draggy.  The 2-3% tilt on the wings meant that once I was at altitude, I could point the nose prograde (or, if using Pilot Assistant, set it for 0 pitch), and the parasitic drag was minimized.  Because of the way KSP drag model works, drag is significantly reduced when parts shield each other from the atmosphere.  Having an intimate understanding of the KSP drag model was a big factor. Did you know that wings in KSP don't have parasitic drag (or at least, they didn't back when I did the 14x flight)?
  4. Balance: I made sure that the CoL and CoM were lined up at takeoff, and that the CoM would not shift during flight.  Or alternatively, arrange so that once you're past the initial ascent, your CoM lined up very closely with your CoL, and then stays there.  Deflecting control surfaces add drag.  Also, finely-tuned balance reduces the need for larger control surfaces, so there's a weight savings there, too.
  5. Altitude: higher altitude means less air density, which means less drag.  It also means you're getting a bit closer to orbital velocity.  That means your craft requires less lift, which means less induced drag.  Number 1) above will help with that.  Also, because of the lower air density, fuel burn drops.
  6. Speed: higher speed means more lift and more altitude.  Also, you're getting closer to orbital speeds (see #5).  Also, the RAPIER's thrust drops pretty quickly once you get over 1,600m/s, so higher speeds will net you a significant fuel economy improvement.

So, in short, low drag and low weight lead to high speed and high altitude.  High speed and high altitude lead to crazy low fuel consumption.

Also, the last time around, I typically cut off the engine while over the desert on the continent to the west of KSC.  There's enough altitude and speed that I could coast something like 75 degrees worth of longitude without burning a drop of fuel.

 

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On 10/27/2016 at 6:54 PM, zolotiyeruki said:

4. 38:35 Eidahlil
5. 38:51 Jarin
6:.38:44 Not Sure

Not to be nit picky but I just noticed that I may be a place behind where I should be.

Edited by Not Sure
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Here's my entry. One circumnavigation with a heavy passenger jet.

https://kerbalx.com/sh1pman/Albatross

F3 screen bugged out and showed the distance doubled for some reason. Flight time: 3:34:21.

Spoiler

C2qtjXV.pnglXh2DN2.pngYd1Dyaw.pnglyGI7dP.pngve0YD4R.pngfRGfbiT.png

UPDATE: I actually managed to complete 2 circumnavigations on this airplane. 

 

Edited by sh1pman
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