W-Wing SSTO space plane around the Mun (and back)

[kalevi]

Hey everybody!

First post, been playing for a week now, totally addicted, projected school performance deteriorating rapidly.

I present to you the W-Wing, a revolutionary space plane designed by the honored Kerbal principle of "aesthetics first". As a result of repeated ski-fi (sic) movie viewings our underpaid and opressed engineers came up with the K3-C SSTO. After several tragic incidents related to such disputed concepts as "mass" and "center", the W-Wing was optimized to deliver acceptable performance while maintaining the crucial visual "oomph" requested by prominent Kerbal politicians. Second seat incorporated for navigator or wealthy space tourist.

Center of mass moves backward slightly during jet fuel consumption providing pitch control at higher altitude ascent, while full depletion of rocket fuel returns CoM forward for stability during landing glide. Officials refuse to admit this was accidental.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11536263/Stock%20K3-C%20SSTO%20%22W-Wing%22.craft

Test drive with basic ascent instructions

Control groups:

1 for jets

2 for rockets

3 for center jet cutoff

4 for lateral jets and intakes off

7-10 toggles each pair of intakes

It flies perfectly fine without mechjeb if that's your cup of tea.

What do you think?

[Ohm Machre]

Looks very beautiful. I like the two-man cockpit combination. I've tried to experiment similarly with that, to no success, so it's good to see it work here. ;P

[KissSh0t]

Very interesting wing configuration...

[neoblacksmith]

awesome! i gotta get better so i can build things like this

[kalevi]

Thanks guys! Here's a few more pics of the W-Wing in action.

Kemini program: rendezvous and Mun landing