Seaplane Base for Laythe

[Zosma Procyon]

I'm trying to build a flying base w/ two labs, two full sized drills, and a full sized ISRU converter, that can takeoff and land from the seas of Laythe. I've built a half dozen big planes that can fly well enough, but they can't take off from the water. Does anyone have a craft file that can help me in this quest?

[AeroGav]

8 minutes ago, Zosma Procyon said:

I'm trying to build a flying base w/ two labs, two full sized drills, and a full sized ISRU converter, that can takeoff and land from the seas of Laythe. I've built a half dozen big planes that can fly well enough, but they can't take off from the water. Does anyone have a craft file that can help me in this quest?

Nothing ready made that fits those requirements - they are pretty specific.

Perhaps you can get help with converting an airplane to a seaplane ?  I've only built two,  going the hydrofoil approach.   I manage to take off from water with TWR of 0.7,  but perhaps better hydrofoil design can get than down - or just use plain floats?       On LAythe of course, with less gravity, perhaps it is easier. 

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Puffin

...the Kerlew hasn't flown in recent KSP - https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/K133--Curlew

The trouble with hydrofoils is that there is no info in the editor about lift and drag in water,  it is pure trial and error.

[Zosma Procyon]

10 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Nothing ready made that fits those requirements - they are pretty specific.

Perhaps you can get help with converting an airplane to a seaplane ?  I've only built two,  going the hydrofoil approach.   I manage to take off from water with TWR of 0.7,  but perhaps better hydrofoil design can get than down - or just use plain floats?       On LAythe of course, with less gravity, perhaps it is easier. 

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Puffin

...the Kerlew hasn't flown in recent KSP - https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/K133--Curlew

The trouble with hydrofoils is that there is no info in the editor about lift and drag in water,  it is pure trial and error.

Do hydroplanes work in KSP? I'll look into that.

[bewing]

A little more detail, please. I have to assume that it needs to be able to travel to laythe in the first place? Are you willing to launch it as a SSTO spaceplane from Kerbin? Do you demand that it be an SSTO spaceplane on Kerbin?

Does it need to have wheels?

(And yes, hydroplanes/hydrofoils work in KSP.)

Hmmmm. The basic problem is that this plane (with all the required goodies) masses about 50 tonnes when full of fuel. And to do a decent water takeoff, you need a takeoff speed of maybe 60 m/s -- which is hard to attain with a plane this size.

Edit: Yeah, I had to use hydrofoils to make mine work, too. But it would get to laythe and meet your specs!

Edited September 22, 2018 by bewing

[Zosma Procyon]

3 hours ago, AeroGav said:

Nothing ready made that fits those requirements - they are pretty specific.

Perhaps you can get help with converting an airplane to a seaplane ?  I've only built two,  going the hydrofoil approach.   I manage to take off from water with TWR of 0.7,  but perhaps better hydrofoil design can get than down - or just use plain floats?       On LAythe of course, with less gravity, perhaps it is easier. 

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Puffin

...the Kerlew hasn't flown in recent KSP - https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/K133--Curlew

The trouble with hydrofoils is that there is no info in the editor about lift and drag in water,  it is pure trial and error.

Hydroplaning worked. I added canards to the floats, and up it went.

[Aeroboi]

@Zosma Procyon You can build them extremely large.

The trick is to only use parts that hit the water that have a high crash tolerance like landing gear, cargo bays and the large mk3 crew cabin in my case. As long as any of the other parts stick out above the water you can make very fast landings. Sometimes I use a engines at the nose inside a small cargo bay which I can fire to pull the nose up so that I can get airborn at a much slower speed if my design can't get up to enough speed.

That's usually caused by deep draft creating a lot of water resistance. Some parts like crew cabins, cargo bays and empty ore tanks float better but you can't always use that in any design at the bottom of your craft so then a engine at the nose is a option if you have to much draft.

My craft on the link below can hit the ocean hard and is 101.1 meters long, 938 tons and hold 1048 kerbals. I also used alot of wing incidence so you can land with the fuselage horizontally compared to the surface at 90 m/s with little to no decent rate at all. Don't make hard turns above 140 m/s or wings might fall of due to part clipping.

https://kerbalx.com/Aeroboi/Kilobus-A1080

It does use mechjeb, I hope you don't mind.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Aeroboi