SSTOs! Post your pictures here~

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Goddamn, this is cool.

A old pic from 0.9... this thing pulled a ridicilous 182 tons to LKO and landed safe.

Must try again an top this load:wink:

http://i.imgur.com/0hcP0UA.png

[How2FoldSoup]

I whipped this thing together tonight because I had sudden inspiration on the wing design. It's still a little bit shaky and needs a LOT of refining. I didn't have the front pair of wings with any fuel in them so the TWR was higher(Because I'm lazy for testing purposes) so this was missing a potential 1200 units of LF for the nuke. I'm confident it can break the sound barrier because she flies like a dream lift-wise. It has a problem with wing flexing and giving you weird forces in certain directions but more struts or better control surface placement is in order. I could definitely have put a payload in this and probably take up anything that fits in the bay. My circularization burn was only 110 m/s and it felt like an old airhogger because I could just cruise at ~21km until I started losing speed then light the rockets and pitch up. It also needs some fuel flow fixes because I had to manually transfer into tanks the nuke could pull out of to get the total dV but I'm pretty proud of this for it's first official orbit/test flight. I REALLY like the aesthetics on this one. I'm considering a 2nd pair of rapiers just to make it snappier.

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I need to sleep now.

Edit: The first SPH screenshot isn't entirely accurate or up to date.

Edited November 2, 2015 by How2FoldSoup

[Jett_Quasar]

I whipped this thing together tonight because I had sudden inspiration on the wing design. It's still a little bit shaky and needs a LOT of refining. I didn't have the front pair of wings with any fuel in them so the TWR was higher(Because I'm lazy for testing purposes) so this was missing a potential 1200 units of LF for the nuke. I'm confident it can break the sound barrier because she flies like a dream lift-wise. It has a problem with wing flexing and giving you weird forces in certain directions but more struts or better control surface placement is in order. I could definitely have put a payload in this and probably take up anything that fits in the bay. My circularization burn was only 110 m/s and it felt like an old airhogger because I could just cruise at ~21km until I started losing speed then light the rockets and pitch up. It also needs some fuel flow fixes because I had to manually transfer into tanks the nuke could pull out of to get the total dV but I'm pretty proud of this for it's first official orbit/test flight. I REALLY like the aesthetics on this one. I'm considering a 2nd pair of rapiers just to make it snappier.

http://imgur.com/a/TVnQ8

I need to sleep now.

Edit: The first SPH screenshot isn't entirely accurate or up to date.

Hmmm I've seen something like that before, now let me think of where that might have been...

JR

[Signo]

Made a small interesting one lately, just 10.8t. There is a fair 600m/s d/v to spare in orbit. Docking capable. Express engineer to LKO.

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Video link below (if anybody could toss me a hint about how can I embed twitch highlights I will be grateful)

http://www.twitch.tv/signo1974/v/23715718

Edited November 3, 2015 by Signo
Video

[eddiew]

Love it Stubby little craft are so classy, especially when they can do a grand tour ^^

Not sure if it mightn't be more efficient with nosecones instead of heat shields though? (Unless it blows up without heat shields...)

[How2FoldSoup]

I added an extra pair of engines and filled up the other two wings with fuel and had improvement!

1970 m/s left in the tanks! I think I could push it a little higher I stayed a little low in the atmosphere for longer than needed so I think with better flying I could push another 50 or 100 m/s out of her. I'm pleased!

Hmmm I've seen something like that before, now let me think of where that might have been...

JR

I promise I hadn't seen your ships before this I saw someone elses with the wings just reversed and I thought about what would happen if I put one facing forward off of a deltawing(it's what's clipped under there). From there I thought they would look even cooler if I set a mirrored pair facing reverse! It worked out pretty well. She's amazing to fly and handles wonderfully. It takes off at a mere 40m/s and has no problems slowing down in the atmosphere because of high area of the wings and being extremely light when empty. The S turns work wonders on reentry and I was able to land with only using 1/4 of kerbin's atmosphere to aerobreak.

[Jett_Quasar]

I added an extra pair of engines and filled up the other two wings with fuel and had improvement!

http://i.imgur.com/w2Ms4Ji.png

1970 m/s left in the tanks! I think I could push it a little higher I stayed a little low in the atmosphere for longer than needed so I think with better flying I could push another 50 or 100 m/s out of her. I'm pleased!

I promise I hadn't seen your ships before this I saw someone elses with the wings just reversed and I thought about what would happen if I put one facing forward off of a deltawing(it's what's clipped under there). From there I thought they would look even cooler if I set a mirrored pair facing reverse! It worked out pretty well. She's amazing to fly and handles wonderfully. It takes off at a mere 40m/s and has no problems slowing down in the atmosphere because of high area of the wings and being extremely light when empty. The S turns work wonders on reentry and I was able to land with only using 1/4 of kerbin's atmosphere to aerobreak.

No worries, it's an awesome design. I like it when people are creative that's why I gave you the rep.

JR

Edit: this is one of my favorites and you're right having the wings forward like that not only looks great it flies awesome as well...

Sky Raider by Jolly Roger on Sketchfab

Edited November 4, 2015 by Jolly_Roger

[wraith0078]

I've been fooling around with this tonight.

Interstellar's Thermal Turbojets make SSTO easy.

[Interplanetary Engineer]

WOW

[Kirondoll]

Athena cargo ssto

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[david50517]

I feel SSTO harder to make

[selfish_meme]

Seaplane SSTO (SSSTO)

[DaMaster_Architect]

So, what do you all think is the impact of 1.0.5 on spaceplanes? Especially now since a silent patch fixed the body lift issue, did it become easier or rather harder to fly spaceplanes to orbit? I'd like to give 1.0.5 a go myself, but I'm holding off to upgrading until more mods officially support it. So I'm eager to hear your opinions.

[david50517]

Rocket SSTO 5

[stardog573]

Updated mine for 1.0.5. Thanks to new parts, it looks better and works beautifully.

[Rune]

So, what do you all think is the impact of 1.0.5 on spaceplanes? Especially now since a silent patch fixed the body lift issue, did it become easier or rather harder to fly spaceplanes to orbit? I'd like to give 1.0.5 a go myself, but I'm holding off to upgrading until more mods officially support it. So I'm eager to hear your opinions.

So far I find them actually a bit easier. I don't know if it's the atmosphere or the thrust curve of RAPIERs, but I think I can get to orbit with slightly lower TWR. And the ascent is more intuitive, too. You stay subsonic, but only just, in the first atmospheric bar, go transonic and do the speed run on the second and run out of air in the third and switch to rockets. And both atmospheric steps are best done at quite shallow AoA's, around 5-10° or so, letting it pitch up on its own once you go supersonic to build vertical velocity for the rocket run. Very realistic!

Rune. And practically without pilot input!

[eddiew]

Rune. And practically without pilot input!

You mean it... follows a path dictated by aerodynamics?

[Rune]

You mean it... follows a path dictated by aerodynamics?

I usually have to correct pitch slightly downwards in the intersection of the first and second atmospjeric bars, usually just switching autopilots, and of course I have to take off and set the initial climb.. But yeah, once you go supersonic moving almost horizontal, let Kerbin curve below you as you go in a straight line to orbit! It works beautifully, AoA increases more rapidly the faster you move, so you end up switching to rocket mode at about 15°, and with some very respectable >200m/s in vertical velocity. Mind you, YMMV a lot depending on your TWR, I usually keep mine at about 0.6 on the runway (slightly more than one RAPIER per 20mT).

Rune. Considerably less inputs than rockets, although they take more than twice the time to orbit.

[david50517]

SSTO 16

[Sean Mirrsen]

Recreated my "Space Harrier" SSTO from way back in 0.18.1 with new parts. The name is non-indicative - it isn't VTOL. But it is SSTO.

[Interplanetary Engineer]

 

Have to rebuild this tough (wich maybe isn't that bad) because of some accidentally deleted saves (wich is very sad),

could be able to upload the craft if there are requests for it

Edited November 30, 2015 by Interplanetary Engineer

[Ozzallos]

The Starscream VSSTO... Because space planes hate me.

In any case, a vertical launch single stage to orbit vehicle featuring 8 Rapiers, 8 Whiplash and a single cone for more economic orbital maneuvers. She's 81t @ launch with a 2.4 TWR and 1880kN stationary output. Once the ramjets are properly fed, the Starscream continues to accelerate up to 23km, topping out at 5g and cranking out 1,300ms before stalling and forcing the Rapiers to turn over to rocket mode. Once circularized, she has enough dV for modest orbital operations.

The original intention was a fully reusable vertical launch system that would refuel in orbit and proceed to its destination. Once refueled, it would easily be Mun capable, or could be docked and ferried to its destination. For atmospheric reentry, the Starscream could pop chutes, land and be fully capable of a direct vertical ascent, repeating the process. At least, that was the theory. Now that I've gotten her into orbit, I need to work a safe reentry profile because those Whiplash nozzles are kinda fragile.

Through the shock zone.

Heat? Feh. More throttle.

8x8x1

Reentry. Didn't need those Whiplash nozzles anyway.

Forgot to mention that the command module is capable of emergency separation in case of shenanigans like the last pic.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Ozzallos

[Overfloater]

testing some spaceplanes:

a useless, small cargo plane :D
[img]http://i.imgur.com/9HkjmBt.jpg[/img]

later launched this crappy atomic SSTO:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/aUEVwkW.jpg[/img]

It has a bit more delta-V than needed for a minmus trip. I guess some of its fuel could be exchanged for cargo capacity... of a few milligrams.



A few days later.... 11.5t cargo plane :-)

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Vb9gMxb.jpg[/img]

...for making this highly sophisticated interplanetary ship design:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/KNF6dtx.jpg[/img]

By the way, did u know that while time warping, u could do this??? O.O

[img]http://i.imgur.com/9FjygiH.gif[/img] Edited November 20, 2015 by Overfloater

[Majorjim!]

[quote name='Overfloater']testing some spaceplanes:

a useless, small cargo plane :D
[url]http://i.imgur.com/9HkjmBt.jpg[/url]

later launched this crappy atomic SSTO:

[url]http://i.imgur.com/aUEVwkW.jpg[/url]

It has a bit more delta-V than needed for a minmus trip. I guess some of its fuel could be exchanged for cargo capacity... of a few milligrams.



A few days later.... 11.5t cargo plane :-)

[url]http://i.imgur.com/Vb9gMxb.jpg[/url]

...for making this highly sophisticated interplanetary ship design:

[url]http://i.imgur.com/KNF6dtx.jpg[/url]

By the way, did u know that while time warping, u could do this??? O.O

[url]http://i.imgur.com/9FjygiH.gif[/url][/QUOTE]

I eagerly await the return of your SSTO masterpieces! I know some naysayers proclaim that the new drag model killed those designs but that is quitter talk!

[Hodo]

So, just messing around with my SSTO program, performing contracts and general exploration. One mission takes my program to the south pole with VIKs.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/CnW4zbM.jpg[/img]

Great picture with the sun and the moon rising.


But managed to get my UAV SSTO program working also.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/CdzGUwD.jpg[/img]

And of course it is a VTOL
[img]http://i.imgur.com/NKeDhoa.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/luJiTsP.jpg[/img]