Duna landing and return, Lander or Plane?

[royying]

Plane is cool and save lot of fuel, but take long time and difficult to land it. Lander is the opposite.

I want to know which one is more popular on Duna

[invision]

i prefer landers but mostly because planes are pretty much useless once in space, you dont save much fuel for the amount of time  spent there and the trip of pushing the extra weight to the planet. plus you can liftoff from duna using the nerv engine as long as the lander isnt huge.

 

[katateochi]

I've done glider landings on Duna in the past, but the only reason for doing it that way was "because it was possible" and it was an interesting and different way to normal. Traditional chute and/or powered landers are way easier/more efficient, especially if landing on a specific spot is a factor.

[Foxster]

You only waste a lot of fuel with a lander if you design it that way. It is quite easy to design a lander that uses just a little fuel at the last minute if you include air brakes to slow down enough to enable chutes to be deployed early. 

Planes by contrast are a pig to land on Duna, gain nothing in terms of making orbit and have lots of bits that are unused during space flight. 

[Slam_Jones]

The amount of aerodynamic surfaces (wings, etc) required for Duna is exorbitant.  The mass required will cost you more in dV than you would save by gliding in.

In the past I do partially-powered landings -- powered deceleration plus airbrakes until I'm into the atmosphere, then deploying chutes and continuing the powered landing, since chutes really don't do all THAT much on Duna.

 

TL;DR - Powered landings are best for Duna, IMO.

[Vanamonde]

This question about how to play the game has been moved to Gameplay Questions. 

[invision]

so i was curious and build 2 different planes and sent them to duna...both smashed into the ground from lack of air to grip the wings and the engines didnt start until just above the surface, this was using 4 air intakes.

 

[invision]

[AeroGav]

Always with airplanes.     Designed with a lowish landing speed on Kerbin to start with (30 m/s or less at landing weight) then some vernor thrusters in the belly over the CG.    With the Vernors you can land at 60 m/s or so on Duna.      What's the advantage over lander?   I guess if you want to fly around and biome hop.  For short distances taxy,  longer hops take off again and fly like an airplane - uses less fuel than doing it like a rocket.

Also the views you get while gliding down the canyons are stunning,  you have to experience it.

 

Edited August 24, 2017 by AeroGav

[Spricigo]

7 hours ago, royying said:

Plane is cool and save lot of fuel, 

Can't argue about the cool factor. But in regards to fuel consuption the Lander is far superior. 

Putting wings in your craft will increase drag and weight. Your engines will need more fuel to overcome it. And you'll need a lot of wings  in Duna to get a reasonable lift, which means more weight, thus even more fuel.

Planes are interesting at Kerbin, where you can use super-efficient jet engines.* But at Duna's atmosphere there is no oxygen to feed jets.

So I'd chose a lander. But a spaceplane to put the lander and the transfer in Low Kerbin Orbit is an option to consider. 

 

[qzgy]

6 hours ago, invision said:

so i was curious and build 2 different planes and sent them to duna...both smashed into the ground from lack of air to grip the wings and the engines didnt start until just above the surface, this was using 4 air intakes.

 

ummmm last time I checked, jets don't work on duna. This might be related to your problem. The number of air intake doesn't matter.

Nukes though. Works pretty well, considering how little of an atmosphere there is.

[invision]

2 hours ago, qzgy said:

ummmm last time I checked, jets don't work on duna. This might be related to your problem. The number of air intake doesn't matter.

Nukes though. Works pretty well, considering how little of an atmosphere there is.

i took the question as he would try to use air intakes with the "saving fuel" statement as having the plane lift off from the ground and switch over to rocket mode once air was used up. i could have taken it completely wrong. but i was just showing how crappy air intakes and wings work there in general.

[mk1980]

i've done a single stage spaceplane from kerbin to duna (and back) for some forum challenge a while ago. it worked all right. the wings of the plane are useful during the aerocapture maneuver and landing. you need a lot of wing to actually fly on duna, though. my plane didn't have that much wing surface, so i basically just used the wings to slow down enough for parachutes to open safely.

an unpowered landing does have its advantages, but you can also achieve that (or close enough) with a combination of drogue chutes and normal chutes on a simple lander can without the need to slap on wings and make it a plane.

 

it's a bit of a shame that duna doesn't have oxygen. i think it would actually be fun to zoom around the planet in a jet plane with a silly amount of wing surface and air intakes.