Helicopter race to the island runway

[Pds314]

Race a helicopter to the island runway.

What is a helicopter?
A helicopter, for the purpose of this challenge, is any aircraft where lift, control, and propulsion are derived primarily from vertical lift rotors or tail rotor stabilization, but there is no separate forward source of propulsion. Single rotors, Coaxials, bi-rotors, multicopters, helicopters with bladetip jets, etc are all considered helicopters. Autogyros and thrust-powered rotorcraft are not.

What can I use in my helicopter?
1. You may use any method to generate the rotational torque for the rotors.
2. You may not use any source of forward propulsion separate from the rotors.
3. You may have small control surfaces well behind the center of mass for the purpose of assisting in stabilization, but pitch, roll, and yaw authority should primarily come from the rotors.
4.  No KAL overclocking.
5. No large wings. (To clarify, this means you probably shouldn't be able to glide with them. Autorotate with the blades, sure, but glide on wings, no).
6.  You must disable all reaction wheels on the craft.
7.  Your craft must be capable of VTOL.
8. Your craft must include a Kerbal, who must survive the ordeal without bailing out.

How does this race work?

1.  The timer starts when you take off.
2. The timer ends when your pilot is alive in a cockpit or chair on the island runway at under 1.0 m/s.
3.  Lowest time wins.
4. No quicksaving. Fly the whole flight in one go.
5. Discarding parts is allowed but deliberately discarding the helicopter itself is not. You should at least attempt a landing.

What's the current record?

1nd.  OHara, 3:31 in a quadcopter facing nearly parallel with the ground.
2nd.  Ralanboyle, 11:03 in a Mk3 traditional turbine-powered helicopter.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Pds314

[ralanboyle]

Okay, I figured I'd put one up for a pace time. I'm not sure where you want to count the landing but whatever, its less than 3 minutes. 

 

[Pds314]

5 hours ago, ralanboyle said:

Okay, I figured I'd put one up for a pace time. I'm not sure where you want to count the landing but whatever, its less than 3 minutes. 

 

I like the basic idea but I don't think it is primarily controlled or stabilized by prop blades unless you can show otherwise. It looks to me that thrust is achieved by prop blades but lift and control is achieved by conventional control surfaces and pretty decently sized non-rotary wings. So sorry but I don't think this fits the letter of the challenge and it definitely does not fit the spirit. So it's not so much a clever loophole but a gatecrash entry. I can see that for example one of the problems with the design is the clear lack of any pitch/yaw/roll control on the prop blades. Again, it appears to be 100% controlled by and lifted by wings and conventionaly control surfaces once in horizontal flight.

Also again, I think you could glide at a pretty slow speed on those conventional wings, which IMO makes them too large/too centered for a helo.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Pds314

[ralanboyle]

Got it, my bad. 

[ralanboyle]

Alright, 

I've never attempted a legit helo in KSP so this was a first for me. I pulled out all the stops a made a big, heavy, traditional chopper. I realized that the MK3 cockpit has a huge reaction wheel in it so I showed it before during and after the flight to show that is was off. I'll try again with one that's more optimized for speed. 

 

[Pds314]

6 hours ago, ralanboyle said:

Alright, 

I've never attempted a legit helo in KSP so this was a first for me. I pulled out all the stops a made a big, heavy, traditional chopper. I realized that the MK3 cockpit has a huge reaction wheel in it so I showed it before during and after the flight to show that is was off. I'll try again with one that's more optimized for speed. 

 

Wow. That thing has a pretty respectable top speed.

[ralanboyle]

4 hours ago, Pds314 said:

Wow. That thing has a pretty respectable top speed.

You just mean, "... for a fat boy." Right? I assume an average speed over 200m/s is possible for this challenge. 

Question: Are tilt-rotors acceptable if they do not have wings? 

[OHara]

On a conventional helicopter in KSP, the receding blade loses all airspeed and stalls when the craft speed is about 55m/s,  so tilting the disk of the main rotor(s) does seem to be the only way to go much faster.

The rules seem to allow quadcopters, and these have enough pitch and yaw authority to tilt the whole craft
(so long as the blades bite with AoA below 4°). 

This quadcopter (KerbalX link) can fly as fast as a propeller plane.  The aerodynamic centre tends to be very near the rotors, so I needed an arrangement where the centre of mass is centred between the rotors.    Landing involved slowing down while keeping forward airflow through the rotors, involving an upward swoop, then a slow descent.  (It might be quicker to land upside down on the nose, but flying backwards  to land would take much more practice.)

[Pds314]

On 5/27/2021 at 6:06 AM, ralanboyle said:

You just mean, "... for a fat boy." Right? I assume an average speed over 200m/s is possible for this challenge. 

Question: Are tilt-rotors acceptable if they do not have wings? 

Yes if they don't have wings and it's the main, lift-generating rotors tilting.

17 hours ago, OHara said:

On a conventional helicopter in KSP, the receding blade loses all airspeed and stalls when the craft speed is about 55m/s,  so tilting the disk of the main rotor(s) does seem to be the only way to go much faster.

The rules seem to allow quadcopters, and these have enough pitch and yaw authority to tilt the whole craft
(so long as the blades bite with AoA below 4°). 

This quadcopter (KerbalX link) can fly as fast as a propeller plane.  The aerodynamic centre tends to be very near the rotors, so I needed an arrangement where the centre of mass is centred between the rotors.    Landing involved slowing down while keeping forward airflow through the rotors, involving an upward swoop, then a slow descent.  (It might be quicker to land upside down on the nose, but flying backwards  to land would take much more practice.)

Wow that thing is fast.  3:31 is the new record I guess. I will specify that it is a quad in the record.