Project: SSTO Seaplane to Laythe

[gilflo]

Laythe being mainly covered by oceans, i design a Seaplane SSTO to join Laythe. Goals were the following:

-Bring a reckon satellite to analyse and scan Laythe

-Drill and refuel on Laythe for the return flight.

-Visit Laythe

-Make science.

-Take off from Kerbin runway and ditch to Laythe sea

-Land from sea to any island to drill ore

-Liquid fuel only

After many test i design an modded SSTO, an OPT SSTO HydroShuttle, able to carry the reckon satellite, science stuff, big drills and ore converter, a small Jet engine OPT plane able to refill on the seaplane, to land on islands and able to fly around 3000kms.

Here is the 1028T baby, carrying the small jet on his roof. The roof of the Shuttle is the take off runway of the small jet. The small jet is equipped with a KAS refueling port and the seaplane with a KAS fuel line.

There a lab behind the cockpit and here are the holds with the Reckon Sat, the science stuff accessible via ladders and the drills and converter with their Ore tanks.

View from the roof with the explorer jet. For take off, The Seaplane is launched on sea at full throttle,  and around 120m/s 2 small decouplers free the small jet and the Seaplane engines are shut down.

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2 additionnal Wheels allowed balanced flight to orbit, the Seaplane is stable in yaw and pitch up to altitude 64km and 2400m/s and do not require RCS, teste with Correct COL mod and in real flight.

11 gears on each floating tanks allow take off from Kerbin runway and land from sea to island

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Initial climb to orbit. 2 J61 Starwaster Ramjet engines 3.3m at the rear and 2.25m at the front. Orbital engines are 2 MRS Quad nukes 3m at the rear and 2.5m at the front

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Many RCS vernors allow clean re-entry on radial position (cobra). Additional vernors on cockpit side and rear wing side help for turns while navigating in sea.

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For landing as there is not so much clearance between water and back J61 engines Vertical speed must not be above 3.5m/s. It's a little bit touchy, and for take off from sea, rotation must be slow.

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Ditching

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Take off from HydroShuttle roof

Hydroshuttle at full throttle

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Decouplers explosion and HydroShuttle engines shut down. absolutely no damage for the seaplane despite the big flame!

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Rotation for take off

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airborne

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And a small vid that show the take off. all tests seems to be ok, so next goal is the flight to Laythe

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Re-entry and ditching vid

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Edited June 26, 2017 by gilflo