Highest altitude with jet

[Sivonen]

Let's do a quick and simple one.

Stock. No parts mods, Mecjeb, visuals, etc are allowed. No autopilots.

Highest altitude reached with jets wins. You can use as many air breathing engines and any other stock parts as you want. You may not use rapiers in closed cycle.

No need to land intact.

No need to have kerbals onboard.

Edit:

No cheats allowed.

The point is to get the probe core (or Kerbal) to go as high as you can.

 

Leaderboard with fair and square jet propulsion:

1. Sivonen 239,439m

2. sevenperforce 238,289m

3. Havocado 232,712m

4. Allen 224,618m

 

Leaderboard with thinking outside of the box; unfair but legit trickery might be involved:

1. Sivonen 248,413m (went high with jets and boosted the probe core even higher with decouplers)

Edited June 23, 2017 by Sivonen

[DrLicor]

 

 

 

[Sivonen]

I tried to find if this one is already done, but I didn't.

No level flight needed, no kerbal needed. Only the highest altitude reached counts.

Without much trying I got 165256m as an example.

 

 

[sevenperforce]

I'll try this.

[Gaarst]

From a previous similar challenge back in 1.2 (rules were about the same with a few additional constraints):

A few people have reached over 240km, while still keeping the pilot alive.

[sevenperforce]

This doesn't quite reach the top of the leaderboard from the old challenge, but it's not half bad for a basic entry:

Three RAPIERs, locked to open-cycle, crossfed to the center. There's a probe core under the fairing.

Only a bit of fuel in the core because booster burnout is very near the limit of what the RAPIERs can handle in open-cycle.

Liftoff!

Maximum altitude was 238,289 m. I'm sure I could do better, but...

 

Edited June 20, 2017 by sevenperforce

[Allen]

159672m

[Allen]

5 little rapiers!

224,618 meters! air breather!

[Sivonen]

Nicely done, guys. I'll have to start competing.

[Sivonen]

Single engine WIP

 

[Havocado]

Here goes nothing....

Landing Pad :

Space :

Fate :

Max. 232,712 m. pretty cool considering it looks like an Air-Breathing SRBs.

[Sivonen]

Not bad at all!

 

Also I edited the rules a bit, to allow visual and informational mods. I realised Mechjeb doesn't help at all, so why not use it.

[Sivonen]

239439m

[Sivonen]

And now when the limit (for me) is found at just under 240km, let's think outside the box.

248413m

 

[sevenperforce]

Hacking it with decoupler launching seems to me to be rather against the spirit of the challenge.

[Sivonen]

Rules are rules.

But yeah, I know what you mean. I'll add another category for gimmicks.

[Darth Jeb]

On 17/06/2017 at 8:57 PM, Sivonen said:

Leaderboard with thinking outside of the box; unfair but legit trickery might be involved:

1. Sivonen 248,413m (went high with jets and boosted the probe core even higher with decouplers)

That is what I thought as soon as I read the rules. Maybe I will try with some other plan ...