SSTOs! Post your pictures here~

[Material Defender]

Introducing the Sharkwolfcat! An all-stock, orbit-capable SSTO spaceplane. No part clipping, no air hogging, and no mods required.

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I've been playing since 0.20, and by now I have a full networked infrastructure of stations and interplanetary shuttles to move Kerbals from the surface of any body in the solar system (except Eve and Tylo) to any other using small ships and many refueling stations, but I never could make a successful spaceplane without cheating a little bit.

Until now.

The Sharkwolfcat weighs in at 18.61 tons fully loaded and has a crew of one Kerpilot. The two turbojet engines require 75 units of liquid fuel to reach their effective flight ceiling of around 20k, and then the seven Rockomax 48-7S engines kick in to carry her to orbit. She has enough fuel left over to rendezvous with my LKO station at 80km altitude for refueling and crew transfer with a little over 100 units of oxidizer left in the tank.

Earlier versions were able to reach orbit slightly more efficiently with less drag from fewer and smaller lifting surfaces, but coming in too fast for landing was quite a problem. The Sharkwolfcat, however, lands like a Piper Cub and flies like a MiG-15. The extra lifting surfaces mean that the Sharkwolfcat can loiter as slow as 60m/s, making this SSTO also fully STOL capable. Touchdown is gentle as your mother's soul and takeoff is nearly automatic.

Now go get a hankie and wipe all that drool off your face.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Material Defender
Gallery updated.

[Deadweasel]

I get those NullReferenceErrors, and I don't have FuelTastic. The funny thing is, they aren't very regular. Sometimes I get them non-stop other times I wont see them at all.

Look under [iNSTALL FOLDER]/KSP_DATA/output_log.txt

Look through there for where the errors start. They will likely call out the offending module causing the trouble, in more detail.

[Exothermos]

In a Fit of clipping that would make your mama blush, I made 2 things tonight that are probably bound for the SSI catalog. The first is like a fat little egg plane A-wing:

I think it's cute

The goods:

It's also VTOL

The other is a Space Taxi based on some construction techniques I picked up around the forums, and wanted to try. Specifically the integration of the Lander Pods.

It's also VTOL.

[Clouds]

I think it's cute

D'awwww-*

It's also VTOL

OK, now you're just showing off.

[Sermor]

Here are some screen of my model of SSTO. The Jedi SSTO Drone "Aeris". Composed only of pieces stock, and built and did get into space without tricks (by clipping of ram intakes in the fuel infinity).

- Screen 1

- Screen 2

- Screen 3

- Screen 4

- Screen 5

- Screen 6

- Screen 7

- Screen 8

[inigma]

In a Fit of clipping that would make your mama blush, I made 2 things tonight that are probably bound for the SSI catalog. The first is like a fat little egg plane A-wing:

I think it's cute

The goods:

It's also VTOL

The other is a Space Taxi based on some construction techniques I picked up around the forums, and wanted to try. Specifically the integration of the Lander Pods.

It's also VTOL.

Mama's blushing. Sweet lil craft.

[RocketTurtle]

I think the first one needs like a little smiley face on the front.

[pinolallo]

SSTO and STOL

20 tons of very large Payloads.

Can bring up and down, undock and redock of EAVs ( Extra Atmospherical Vehicles)

Cheap tool to build and supply space station.

Very good flying in any load condition.

Short Landing and Takeoff.

Light: just less than 40tons empy and 60tons full loaded.

Very robust and rational overall setup.

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Edited November 29, 2013 by pinolallo

[Hodo]

My latest design, SVO-25. Able to take a cargo load of 5 tons, all I needed at that time, up to 350km x 350km with over 1000m/s d/V to spare.

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And like all SVO ships it can take off and land vertically. These pictures are of the test model, some minor changes were recently made to the current model.

[Sermor]

Introducing the Sharkwolfcat! An all-stock, orbit-capable SSTO spaceplane. No part clipping, no air hogging, and no mods required.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I've been playing since 0.20, and by now I have a full networked infrastructure of stations and interplanetary shuttles to move Kerbals from the surface of any body in the solar system (except Eve and Tylo) to any other using small ships and many refueling stations, but I never could make a successful spaceplane without cheating a little bit.

Until now.

The Sharkwolfcat weighs in at 18.61 tons fully loaded and has a crew of one Kerpilot. The two turbojet engines require 75 units of liquid fuel to reach their effective flight ceiling of around 20k, and then the seven Rockomax 48-7S engines kick in to carry her to orbit. She has enough fuel left over to rendezvous with my LKO station at 80km altitude for refueling and crew transfer with a little over 100 units of oxidizer left in the tank.

Earlier versions were able to reach orbit slightly more efficiently with less drag from fewer and smaller lifting surfaces, but coming in too fast for landing was quite a problem. The Sharkwolfcat, however, lands like a Piper Cub and flies like a MiG-15. The extra lifting surfaces mean that the Sharkwolfcat can loiter as slow as 60m/s, making this SSTO also fully STOL capable. Touchdown is gentle as your mother's soul and takeoff is nearly automatic.

Now go get a hankie and wipe all that drool off your face.

Beautiful !

I can take you to model your SSTO to make a "my" version (a version without crew)?

[Material Defender]

@ Sermor

Of course my friend! I'm glad you like my design. My goal was to make a simple, but well-handling small plane with no cheats and all stock. It's certainly not as dramatic as some of these other beautiful creations, but I know there's other people out there that appreciate the straightforward, vanilla approach.

[Exothermos]

I like your SSTO, Material Defender. However, I LOVE the name; It's killing me

Actually, "Straight forward" SSTOs don't get enough love around here, what with all the clipping and modding we do.

Here's my first reliably successful SSTO, "speedybox".

No clipping, no spamming of Ram Air Intakes. 2 Ram air Intakes per engine (exposed to airflow with believable paths to engines) and 3 radial intakes.

28k max altitude on Jet engines, the rest is on aerospikes.

It's pretty hard to do. If you have a straight forward SSTO, share it!

[Rune]

Well, I do have a SSTO without turbojets and with only a couple of radial intakes (which I already posted here, I think)... hard enough for you?

I did my first career docking with it, loads of fun but not very practical (it's basically a pure rocket SSTO that can fly up to 10km on jets).

And once I proved I can do it, I immediately went back to lots of clipped ram intakes, because you can do much more beautiful, much more practical SSTO's with awesome payload fractions.

Oh, and BTW, Exo, how's that cargo VTOL SSTO you were working on going? 'Cause I saw that and got a bit inspired, and now I'm mucking around with how to get half an orange tank to obit myself. So far the conventional landing version is in the testing phase, and I have some ideas on how to build the VTOL version. I freely admit the Aeon is a source of inspiration, though I'm limiting myself to short-range and delivery to LKO only.

Rune. But hey, respect, SSTOing is not as easy as it sounds at first.

[Sermor]

@ Sermor

Of course my friend! I'm glad you like my design. My goal was to make a simple, but well-handling small plane with no cheats and all stock. It's certainly not as dramatic as some of these other beautiful creations, but I know there's other people out there that appreciate the straightforward, vanilla approach.

Thank you!

The SSTO that of which I have posted some screen the previous page I created following the same criteria used you (pieces stock, and even without tricks construction as the clipping of ram intakes etc.).

Anyway here's the SSTO I made starting from your model:

Now I'm trying to build a SSTO as an engine that has a central nuclear engine, however, is becoming bigger and bigger as the fuel seems never enough. If I succeed I will post some pictures.

[Overfloater]

Airhog Lifter Mk-I:

Gets above atmosphere on jets alone. 100% reusable!

Launching a mini-apollo spacecraft.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Overfloater
Typo

[TeeGee]

Has anyone been able to create a ssto with realistic mods like real solar system and FAR?

[Hodo]

Has anyone been able to create a ssto with realistic mods like real solar system and FAR?

The principle wouldn't change much, just the d/V required. I know I have built SSTOs using FAR+DRE+Arcturas Thrust Corrector, which rescaled the power of the engines to the scale of Kerbin. My first SSTO was actually built with those three mods in place, and might work in the real solar system.

From several months ago, my SP-301 "Orca" it was built with FAR+DRE+Arcturas Thrust Corrector.

Then there is the Bison which was also built with those mods and it worked, barely.

[Hodo]

After ignoring my SP line for far to long, I decided it was time for a BIGGER lifter. So I built the SP-406.

Capable of lifting 108 tons into an orbit of 100km x 100km. That's 3 orange tanks!!!!

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[Material Defender]

I like your SSTO, Material Defender. However, I LOVE the name; It's killing me

Thanks Exothermos! One of my earlier designs looked like the old Bearcat, but each subsequent redesign looked less and less like the WW2 naval plane... so the name changed gradually. And gorgeous plane too my friend! I love the simple designs, I just might have to steal that one. How does she handle at low speed? Any fuel left over once at LKO?

@ Sermor: That's a sweet plane buddy! I'm stoked that I was able to inspire you.

I've also been trying to make a version with a nuclear engine, but it's been too heavy and I've always failed. If you succeed please post it and show me how!

UPDATE:

Took the Sharkwolfcat and gave her a facelift: added rover wheels and a docking clamp for refueling (as well as designed a refueler that works) - these mods were copied from Brotoro's design of his BirdDog with the intention of making the Sharkwolfcat Laythe-capable

(here, visit Brotoro's mission pages, they're a great read and inspired a lot of my designs: http://www.mindspring.com/~sportrocketry/ksp/ )

Anyway, to test out these changes the new spaceplane, redubbed the Mark 99 (yeah... she may have been my 99th redesign...) needed to be put through it's paces, so i looked up in the sky and decided "to the Mun!"

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(read the image descriptions in order for the full story )

Edited December 1, 2013 by Material Defender
added storytime!

[Exothermos]

Oh, and BTW, Exo, how's that cargo VTOL SSTO you were working on going?

Good! It's almost there. I'm just tweaking fuel flow stuff and other minor things. I have to do a couple more missions with it to shake-out any issues. Technically, it is not really VTOL, or rather it is only VTOL on the Mun. It takes off and lands conventionally on kerbin, and delivers payload on the Mun vertically. This allows the payload to deploy with out crazy acrobatics, or wheeled payloads and loading ramps.

Thoughts on big VTOL SSTOs: I found that VTOL on Kerbin with a Cargo capable craft is really just too expensive from a weight standpoint. Creating a greater than 1:1 TWR vertical engines with a full payload is silly when you can have wings do the lifting for you, and then you aren't carrying a bunch of gimmicky dead weight for 95% of the flight in conventional forward motion. In this case 4 light LV-909s are all that are needed to provide 1:1 TWR on the Mun. I suppose a True atmospheric VTOL would have good use on Laythe to avoid eventful landings, but for descent parachutes would really be the way to go (something like my Aeon). Then, once lighter after delivering the payoad, vertical engines could eliminate a need for a bouncy takeoff run. The other way to approach the VTOL issue is what we see in Cupcake's cool dropships. With using the same engines for vertical and horizontal flight and translating the whole vehicle one can avoid two sets of engines. However, when lifting heavy loads, a LOT more Jets and liquid fuel would be needed when compared to a winged aircraft. These are just dead weight in the upper atmosphere and space, of course, so there is added inefficiency there. I like little VTOL SSTOs for the coolness factor alone, but when it comes to these more demanding Lifting SSTOs, it is just too inefficient.

Thanks Exothermos How does she handle at low speed? Any fuel left over once at LKO?

Eh... it's not going to win any awards for maneuverability on full tanks, but it can hold it's own.

Plenty of control authority, and rotation is about 100m/s. Once the rocket fuel is burned it is, naturally, a hot rod: Stalling at 35 m/s at sea level.

As far as fuel concerns at orbit here is the shot above with all the HUD info. So at nearly 150km it has over a third fuel left for orbital maneuvers. It isn't going to the Mun or anything, but it's got plenty of LKO DV.

Overfloater, your lifter is really cool. Thinkin' out side of the box!

Edited December 1, 2013 by Exothermos

[Sermor]

@ Sermor: That's a sweet plane buddy! I'm stoked that I was able to inspire you.

I've also been trying to make a version with a nuclear engine, but it's been too heavy and I've always failed. If you succeed please post it and show me how!

Of course!

After various tests both balancing of 'SSTO that the procedure to go into orbit here SSTO with a nuclear engine made ​​by me:

Obviously, made exclusively with stock parts and assembly without tricks like the clipping of ram intakes etc..

The SSTO I realized that weighs 37.57 tons, and to have a stable orbit around Kerbin the procedure is similar to the plane stock Aeris 4A.

The small difference is that with my half before going with the conventional propulsion must come to about 23,000 m at a speed of 1350 -1400 m/s with jet engines.

[Rune]

Good! It's almost there. I'm just tweaking fuel flow stuff and other minor things. I have to do a couple more missions with it to shake-out any issues. Technically, it is not really VTOL, or rather it is only VTOL on the Mun. It takes off and lands conventionally on kerbin, and delivers payload on the Mun vertically. This allows the payload to deploy with out crazy acrobatics, or wheeled payloads and loading ramps.

Thoughts on big VTOL SSTOs: I found that VTOL on Kerbin with a Cargo capable craft is really just too expensive from a weight standpoint. Creating a greater than 1:1 TWR vertical engines with a full payload is silly when you can have wings do the lifting for you, and then you aren't carrying a bunch of gimmicky dead weight for 95% of the flight in conventional forward motion. In this case 4 light LV-909s are all that are needed to provide 1:1 TWR on the Mun. I suppose a True atmospheric VTOL would have good use on Laythe to avoid eventful landings, but for descent parachutes would really be the way to go (something like my Aeon). Then, once lighter after delivering the payoad, vertical engines could eliminate a need for a bouncy takeoff run. The other way to approach the VTOL issue is what we see in Cupcake's cool dropships. With using the same engines for vertical and horizontal flight and translating the whole vehicle one can avoid two sets of engines. However, when lifting heavy loads, a LOT more Jets and liquid fuel would be needed when compared to a winged aircraft. These are just dead weight in the upper atmosphere and space, of course, so there is added inefficiency there. I like little VTOL SSTOs for the coolness factor alone, but when it comes to these more demanding Lifting SSTOs, it is just too inefficient.

Oh, that makes total sense. VTOL in Kerbin is mostly just a "because I can" thing. And don't discount a low-gravity rocket VTOL capability, it can also ensure low-speed, survivable landings on Duna without parachutes, making a SSTO capable of operating in all places a SSTO can be operated. I may also go that route, it's the one I ended up taking with the White Dart (see the Duna edition), and the Bat'leth, which are definitely my most advanced SSTO's.

I would say, though, that you don't get out of the cargo offloading issues in medium-to high gravity worlds like Duna or Laythe, so the solution you implemented on your Aeon is still very valid (and cool, BTW ). Still, I have another one in mind on my next project... (Hint: I'm liking high tails lately)

Rune. Oh, and congrats on making thread of the month!

[Hodo]

Good! It's almost there. I'm just tweaking fuel flow stuff and other minor things. I have to do a couple more missions with it to shake-out any issues. Technically, it is not really VTOL, or rather it is only VTOL on the Mun. It takes off and lands conventionally on kerbin, and delivers payload on the Mun vertically. This allows the payload to deploy with out crazy acrobatics, or wheeled payloads and loading ramps.

Thoughts on big VTOL SSTOs: I found that VTOL on Kerbin with a Cargo capable craft is really just too expensive from a weight standpoint. Creating a greater than 1:1 TWR vertical engines with a full payload is silly when you can have wings do the lifting for you, and then you aren't carrying a bunch of gimmicky dead weight for 95% of the flight in conventional forward motion. In this case 4 light LV-909s are all that are needed to provide 1:1 TWR on the Mun. I suppose a True atmospheric VTOL would have good use on Laythe to avoid eventful landings, but for descent parachutes would really be the way to go (something like my Aeon). Then, once lighter after delivering the payoad, vertical engines could eliminate a need for a bouncy takeoff run. The other way to approach the VTOL issue is what we see in Cupcake's cool dropships. With using the same engines for vertical and horizontal flight and translating the whole vehicle one can avoid two sets of engines. However, when lifting heavy loads, a LOT more Jets and liquid fuel would be needed when compared to a winged aircraft. These are just dead weight in the upper atmosphere and space, of course, so there is added inefficiency there. I like little VTOL SSTOs for the coolness factor alone, but when it comes to these more demanding Lifting SSTOs, it is just too inefficient.

I don't agree with this completely. If you are talking about moving 70-700 tons yes, then a VTOL SSTO on Kerbin is a waste. But if you are talking about 30-50 tons no it is completely practical. I have built a couple that can move that amount or more and maintain their VTOL abilities on Kerbin.

Here is one of my last tested designs, it is a VTOL and is capable of lifting a maximum of around 45 tons, if you can fit it in the cargo bay.

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Then there was this, unfortunately I lost the craft file when I reinstalled the game due to a bug.

It could haul 30 tons to orbit and back if needed.

I have made a VTOL SSTO that could lift 50 tons into orbit, but it to was lost in the bug mentioned before.

[Rune]

I don't agree with this completely. If you are talking about moving 70-700 tons yes, then a VTOL SSTO on Kerbin is a waste. But if you are talking about 30-50 tons no it is completely practical. I have built a couple that can move that amount or more and maintain their VTOL abilities on Kerbin.

Here is one of my last tested designs, it is a VTOL and is capable of lifting a maximum of around 45 tons, if you can fit it in the cargo bay.

I have made a VTOL SSTO that could lift 50 tons into orbit, but it to was lost in the bug mentioned before.

Then again, you are using tilting engines from the B9 pack, while we are talking stock with additional engines just for vertical flight, and in that case jets become prohibitely heavy, and even rockets are a burden for high gravity places. Your craft would be best compared to a tailsitter, and then it's perfectly doable, as you say. But not what we talk about.

Rune. I have my own B9 VTOL cargo SSTO, BTW .

[Hodo]

Then again, you are using tilting engines from the B9 pack, while we are talking stock with additional engines just for vertical flight, and in that case jets become prohibitely heavy, and even rockets are a burden for high gravity places. Your craft would be best compared to a tailsitter, and then it's perfectly doable, as you say. But not what we talk about.

Rune. I have my own B9 VTOL cargo SSTO, BTW .

I also have a VTOL SSTO, I haven't made a cargo version of it yet, but it does not use the tilting engines from the B9 pack. I actually couldn't get them to work right for about a week then I figured it out. But my SVO-9A does not have tilting engines and if I really wanted to I could stretch it a bit and add a cargo bay and lose the Kethane mining gear. It would then be able to lift about 36-40 tons without to much effort.

I am not saying that you can't build VTOL SSTOs I am just saying I disagree with you.