high speed air craft

[Stormpilot]

HIGH SPEED ATMOSPHERE AIRCRAFT AIRCRAFT

(the bigger the better)

hello KSP players, large rockets are awesome but something just as awesome as a large big powerful rocket is a big graceful beautiful (and fast) airplane. my challenge here is to fly a high speed aircraft to the north pole (with out leaving the atmosphere). you have to go to a speed of at least 700 M/S and for bonus points carry at least 20 kerbals. if you do this please post pictures and the story of the flight in the comments section. as i write this im currently fling a large aircraft to the north pole with 36 kerbals on board.

good luck and happy landings.

(moar boosters will also make me happy)

 

[farmerben]

Fun.  I don't do these sorts of missions or use these parts often enough.  

 

 

 

With 22 Kerbals, It can cruise at around 1350 m/s above 14,000 m.  On the surface of the ice it can go about 311 m/s.  Doubling the engines would definitely make it faster.

 

 

 

[Stormpilot]

Good job @farmerben

[KingDominoIII]

My twenty-kerbal Polar Express:

Edited March 23, 2019 by KingDominoIII

[Dman Revolution]

I don't have any shots of if flying to the north pole, but this bad boy carries 40 kerbals at 1.4km/s 

Once at cruising altitude and speed it only needs the 4 rapiers to hold 1.4km/s

[Klapaucius]

I should probably make a larger passenger capacity version of this plane.  I call it Pythagoras.  It has a lot of range.  Anyway, 14 Kerbals to the Pole...

 

[farmerben]

I decided to go for over 100 passengers this time.  Technically 101 Kerbals if we count the pilot.  

 

 

It took a while to get things tuned to work around so many Mk2 cabins.  But when you can do an 90 degree immelmann straight off the runway, the balance is close to right.

 

[TheEnderman]

Does it have to be a plane? I can stick with jet engines but i would prefer not to try and build a plane.

[Tapeta]

I remembered that I have an aeroplane in my hangar, which could be used as a polar express. It is my first SSTO spaceplane. It can just barely get to LKO with 350 m/s left. It has seats for 2 pilots and 16 passengers.

 

3 Whiplashes lift the spaceplane into altitude of 20 - 22 km and accelerate it to 1200m/s and then I activated Vector engine, which raised apoapsis to 58 km. By leaving thicker part of atmosphere, it can cruise at 1900 m/s without melting like a candle.

 

Landing at north pole

 

see my imgur album:

https://imgur.com/a/3rq83na