SSTO Spaceplanes ranging from LKO to Duna and Laythe nonstop flights with payload

[pa1983]

I have made a series of SSTO spaceplanes with all stock parts (Download Link is at the bottom of the post).

They range from Crew transports to cargo transports to LKO and all they way to heavy cargo (37 Tons+) transports capable of going to Duna and back with out refueling. Goal here is efficiency in terms of fuel and re-usability and still maintain high capability.

Some things to know about my crafts are the fallowing.

Engines should always be activated first on the runway by stage ONCE. This makes sure vector trust works. Then shut down engines you dont want to use. Make sure to check action key assignments in the SPH.

Jet engines usually are staged in pairs of two (only on older crafts with lots of engines) and starts at key 1 and then 2,3,4 etc after that rocket engines and on key 0 there are parachutes IF the craft has an abort system for the pod. So to abort press Delete then 0 when appropriate.

All my crafts are designed so even people with keyboard only can fly them easily and they are also designed to use ASAS extensively. I have made sure that CG wont move to much and that drag is fare back as possible to make a stable craft.

I my self have no joystick sens it didn't work in linux, might do that with the native linux port now not sure.

So no mechjeb required to fly this things.

Also the videos contains descriptions that can contain more information like action groupings and other tips for flying.

But most of my crafts that has landing legs uses 9 for landing gears.

Falcon XIV Kosmos

This craft came to be as a request by fellow forum members and youtube subscribers for a medium SSTO spaceplane.

Its intended to be efficient but easy and forgiving to fly.

It has 528-590 parts depending on version. There is the stock A version with cargo bay and cargo bay doors all stock. So it has the most parts but is basically a Space shuttle equivalent and is multipurpose.

Then there is the B-C versions that are crew only transport or fuel tankers etc.

Its explained by there file names any way.

The craft was designed with 4 Turbojets because this lowers the stress on the CPU and one Turbofan engine is good for 17 tons at least. Craft it self is about 70 tons for the heaviest version with payload and the turbojets offers about 11 tons of trust per engine at take off so thats 44 tons of trust for 70 tons of craft and a TWR around 2:3 so less then 1:1.

Its wings has a high rate of lift also due to the fact that the fuselage is made of wings like most of my crafts.

This allows it to climb steadily and almost parallel to the smoke trail at 45 degree angle off attack even at 34m/s at its slowest point after take off. Once past 1500m it will pick up speed as trust increases and fuel burns off.

The trick with this craft an any of my later crafts even the Falcon XIIIC Galaxy is the fact that they are built to have a perfect intake air to engine ratio at 32-33km altitude allowing for full trust in a low drag environment.

At 32km the air gets thin enough to efficiently go fast with few engines and still have enough air to run at full throttle. Anything less then full trust is just a waste of engines because there dead wight.

If you run at 50% trust at 32km altitude you have 2x to many engines.

And this craft proves that enough wings will allow you to climb and get up to speed with what seems to be an underpowered craft.

But the craft is perfectly capable of 2000m/s+ speeds at 32-33km altitude fare from underpowered. Its optimized if anything.

This is also the trick to go interplanetary even if this craft is LKO only, hulling dead jet engines around and other components only used to get in to LKO is just inefficient.

So 17 tons per turbofan engine is a good number and about 2.5 units off intake air (12.5 intakes) per engine to achieve this. And this craft was built with that in mind.

Because its LKO and relatively small it uses conventional rocket engine instead of NERVA's to save wight and make it easier to balance the craft and it also saves space since one would most likley need two NV-1 engines to make it work.

But the added wight might as well be added as fuel for a conventional engine because fuel is easier to balance then engines. Rear heavy engine is not good for CoM.

The craft was also designed with all 4 jet engines at a 5 degree angle towards CoM so etch engine individually will push trough CoM and that in theory removes the risk of going in to a spin. Also the fact that all engines are in the center and rear of the craft helps that to and made this solution possible.

I have my self not gone in to a spin even with many flame outs.

The fact that the center bottom engine is the one flaming out usually helps and right clicking it will allow you to see when a flame out happens and throttle down accordingly.

The craft also features stock cargo bay doors.

They are how ever pretty unreliable, smaller seems buggier the bigger (inertia?).

If you need the A version with payload capacity make sure to use F5 before trying to open them. The structural pylons that bend easily randomly picks what end to bend at so the doors wont always bend at the right place.

The pylons should not bend but be fixed relative to the airframe. Hitting F9 will reset the pylons and randomize them again allowing for a new attempt.

The other versions of the craft do not have a stock cargo bay doors since there pure fuel and crew transporters.

So expect for the slightly buggy cargo bay doors the craft is very stable during ascent and reentry and was built to be easy to fly even for a beginner.

Tough you need to be relatively proficient with spaceplanes to achieve the high efficiency that is possible.

Ascent profile is everything because design of the craft and ascent profile go hand in hand. And theres from what I can find realy only one way to ascend efficiently and that is with lots of wings and what I call the two step method.

Basically real aircrafts step up as they burn fuel to avoid stall. But an SSTO's limit in KSP is not so much limited to wight from fuel as it is limited by speed (Delta V) on jets to save fuel and amount of intake air.

Going up to fast wont allow for fast enough horizontal speed to feed the jet engines with air and going to slow vertically burns to much fuel due to drag and time spent climbing.

One needs to climb just at the right vertical speed to allow for the most efficient acceleration and to make sure intake air speed is high enough to avoid early engine flame out and allow for 100% throttle and the use of as few ramair intakes as possible to save parts.

One wants to climb steadily up to 32-33km with a average vertical speed of around 50m/s.

Slow climb initially of about 20m/s and no faster then 100m/s at its peak climb rate to avoid excessive vertical speed and also avoid bleeding of momentum due to negative lift when turning sharply when leveling off.

Once at 32-33km altitude on wants to maintain that altitude and go as fast as the craft can do with out wasting fuel.

That means eventually you have to go rockets or you just spend more fuel trying to get those last m/s out of the jets. Around 2000m/s is doable with a well designed craft.

After that one wants to ascend again, this is the second step.

One should hit close to a 100m/s vertical speed and at least 40km altitude before going rocket, probably more with a good designed craft.

The Faclon XIV Kosmos can do 44km on jets during the second step of the ascent.

Here is the ascent profile I used in the video below that I also suggest you watch, it shows all the steps in the ascent profile and I also recommend reading the youtube description for more information on the craft that I might have left out here.

(Ascent profiles vary from craft to craft. If the craft lacks power one might have to climb to 18km at 45 degrees instead of 16km and so on and if its overpowered on might have to start the first turn at 14km instead etc to avoid excessive vertical speeds.)

0-16km = 45degrees

16-22Km = 35 degrees

22-24Km = 30 degrees

24-27km = 25 degrees

27-30km = 20 degrees

30-32km = 15 degrees

32km = 10 degrees (level off)

32-33km. Maintain 32-33km altitude until 2000-2050m/s is achieved by flying at 15 degrees plus minus 5 degrees (here is where your pilot skills mater the most.

Once at 2000m/s plus pitch up to 20 degrees and maintain and start ascending for the second time. You will need to throttle down a notch or two almost immediately. The bottom engine should be the one flaming out but also remember this craft has all engines pushing individually trough CoM so spin out is unlikely so no need to get nervous. But still it wastes fuel so right click the bottom engine and when it flames out just throttle down and check that the craft is stable and keep ascending.

37km. You should shut engine par one down by pressing action key 1 now and throttle up the remaining two and make sure one of them dont flame out or produce to little power due to oxygen starvation, if so throttle down a bit. Throttle down as needed to avoid flame outs and asymmetrical trust. Check by right clicking the engines periodically.

41km. Pitch down to 10 degrees to maximize intake air. You should be going at about 100m/s vertical by now.

44km. Shut Jets of with action group 2, shut all but two air intakes with action group 0 and activate rocket engine with action group 3 and head for orbit.

50km. Level off to 0 degrees and burn until your Apoapsis reaches its desired target (usually between 70-400km) and once at Apoapsis circulate by increasing your Periapsis to the same altitude.

Reentry from a 400km orbit you could aim Periapsis just past the islands out side of KSP, shown in the video below at an altitude of around 27km. That will put you close enough to KSC that you could if your lucky glide to KSC and land. Adjust where you want to end up with the angle of attack during reentry.

You dont need to open air intakes for a powered landing because you have two intakes that are always open. Its recommended to have the others closed for a stable reentry.

Some Pictures and a illustrative video of the craft.

http://youtu.be/ayHBGs9Ztrw

KSP - Falcon XIII B/C Galaxy STOL

This craft was made to replace the Flacon X Jumbo because the Jumbo no lounger could land on Duna with its procedural terrain with its high speed requirement of 88m/s something new was needed.

This craft was probably the hardest for me to build. It took 4 previous prototypes of different designs that all failed until I came up with this about a month later. This craft also required extensive testing and tuning to get its payload fraction up to an acceptable level.

The current B version for Duna is capable of 36.6 tons and the C version for Laythe is capable of 22.7 tons with out refueling.

The craft uses drogue chute and Aerospike engines to give it Short Take-Off and Landing capability's allowing for landing and take-off in rough terrain.

The craft also features a stock payload bay door by opening the nose. Its important to use F5 and save before trying to open the door and never save or time warp or switch to a craft fare away when its open. Its a hack not a feature of the game.

Other then that its very stable and efficient and fun to fly except for the high part count so it requires optimized settings and a fast processor, i5 2500K or better I would say.

This is the C version going to Laythe with 22.7 ton payload, identical to the Duna B version except it has two jets instead of aerospikes to save fuel in Laythe's atmosphere.

http://youtu.be/ZlEzl5s7ndw

First test flight to Duna. This version was the prototype that I built the improved B and C versions from. First version had limited lifting capability but proved the concept.

http://youtu.be/KtFSIWnvfmk

To run this craft with best performance I strongly recommend doing the fallowing changes to your settings to get the best FPS and Real time Rendering.

You need to set "Physics Delta Time" to 0.03 minimum In settings (first page).

Or edit settings.cfg and change MAX_PHYSICS_DT_PER_FRAME = 0.10

to MAX_PHYSICS_DT_PER_FRAME = 0.01

That will lower the allowed time spent on physics etch frame and increase FPS and real time rendering and improve overall performance in KSP a lot in cases where your CPU limited and thats almost all the time. Lower is better. 0.03 is lowest recommended by the devs but the game accepts 0.01 if set manually in the settings.cfg file.

I dont take any responsibility for consequences this can have on the game or your system.

Here is the download file and it will be updated with new SSTO spaceplanes as they are developed and tested.

Pleas dont post the link any ware else. If you want to "share" the file pleas download it then upload to other sites or e-mail it etc to other people. My server is on limited bandwidth but its reliable at least.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27196441/SSTOs.zip

Edited October 9, 2013 by pa1983

[pa1983]

Legacy Crafts

Legacy Crafts are crafts I dont use and no longer develop. There simply outdated ithere becuse of better designs or due to changes in the game.

Falcon XII Skymaster Transport

This craft was the next evolution of my low profile slim wing with closely mounted engine nacelles. This allows for equal spreed of the wight and lift over the craft minimizing stress and flexing as a result. The craft was made primarily as an illustration of how I make my crafts so it shows off different concepts. The craft was stable and works but the extensive use of I-beams in the engine nacelles reduced the payload fraction. A rebuilt of those would solve that tough.

This craft also use a stock version of a cargo bay and was my first attempt doing that.

In the end the craft is mostly for demonstration in combination with the build video and flying video.

Building video

http://youtu.be/4epfP6F7AF8

Flying of the craft

http://youtu.be/NEKtKB76udA

Falcon XI Hercules

It was my first attempt at a low profile slim wing with engine nacelles. Its not perfect but it works. The low mounted wing allowed for easier use of the short stock landing gears and also minimizes stress on the fuselage unlike center mounted wings where the force has to go around the fuselage not trough it minimizing flex and stress. Tough the engine nacelles where mounted fare out because I didn't know if the wing would be strong enough past the engine nacelle and I feared it might break off past the nacelle. That was not the case. Wing proved strong tough the fare out mounted nacelles had the disadvantage of flexing the wings more. Craft was made to hull a deep space exploration craft of 72 tons max to orbit.

First video is of the flight and second one is the deep space explorer mission.

http://youtu.be/CLJP_w6C93o

http://youtu.be/s0l8fcawiEQ

Edited September 27, 2013 by pa1983

[pa1983]

Legacy Crafts

Legacy Crafts are crafts I dont use and no longer develop. There simply outdated ithere becuse of better designs or due to changes in the game.

Falcon X Jumbo

Here is my first realy big nonstop huller. No longer suitable for Duna due to landing speed requirements have changed.

It has gone to Duna successfully and back with a 37.82T payload and to Laythe with a 10.98 Ton payload and back. Its about 205 tons (including the 37.82T benchmark payload) and 1212 parts with the benchmark payload.

I have tried to keep the number of engines down to reduce lag but it requires a decent PC but still is playable just fine compared to most 1000+ parts SSTO's but thats mainly due to the number of engines are kept to a minimum.

It has docking capability's tough its not fitted with RCS thrusters for any fine control, it only has 4 RCS truster blocks behind the cockpit to help lining it up so its preferable to try to dock a smaller craft to it then the other way around. If finer control is wanted theres just a mater of slapping RCS block on to the wing tips.

EDIT: B and C sub versions are now also available with more fuel and bigger cargo bay.

Some pictures of the "Falcon X Jumbo Transport" and a video on a mission to Duna to try it out.

http://youtu.be/05WxvokQITc

Some pictures and a video of my first real mission to deliver a mobile base of 10.98T to Laythe with a successful return trip to.

http://youtu.be/fMOzbtZAfWM

Here are some accent figures that could help you get started but they are conservative and good for practicing.

You should deactivate Jet engines in the fallowing order using the action keys.

This are my safer figures.

Key 1 = 0.58 air intake

Key 2 = 0.45 air intake

Key 3 = 0.32 air intake

Key 4 = 0.18 air intake

Key 5 = 0.14 air intake

Key 6 = 0.08 air intake (usually a good idea to start the NV-1 with key 8 by now so you dont loose to much vertical speed, this is some where around 40km altitude)

Key 7 = 0.04 air intake

This will give you better fuel efficiency but they are on the cutting edge so be prepared for flame out and hit the key as soon as intake air fluctuates.

Key 1 = 0.31 air intake

Key 2 = 0.17 air intake

Key 3 = 0.17 air intake

Key 4 = 0.14 air intake

Key 5 = 0.13 air intake

Key 6 = 0.07 air intake

Key 7 = 0.04 air intake (start throttling down to maintain 0.04 and start the NV-1 engines. Once at 1/3-1/4 throttle shut of the jets and increase throttle.)

Accent profile that works well for a heavy max load say 36-45Tons. Depends on Sub variant, C version is overall the best on in therms of payload size and tonnage and fuel/oxidizer ratio.

45 degrease at less then 16Km

35 degrease above 16Km

30 degrease above 20Km

20 degrease above 24Km

10 degrease above 32Km (you need to get up to 1900ms at before passing 34Km so level off more if needed. This will save a LOT of Oxidizer once you go NV-1)

35 degrease above 34Km (do a gentle climb and later increase to 45 and start leveling of once you get in to thin atmosphere to start circularizing.

Landing gears are activated with 9 not the normal G key. G unless remapped will activate the landing legs that is used for support during loading or unloading.

There also seems to be a delay of 30-40 sec before key number 9 works so you might have to hammer it at the start of a new mission but later it should work fine. I have that problem on all crafts where I map landing gears to an action key for some reason. There are also drogue parachutes that can be used by stage once more but for some reason they seem to act as if deployed so you might have to go EVA and repack them before reaching the target body.

They can be cut with Key 1, I ran out of action keys so I did it that way so there on the same key as jet engine pare one. They can be manually activated safely if one is high enough also if staging wont work properly, do not seem to work if repacked and new stage is created.

Then we have the "Falcon IX". its pure crew transport and can go to Duna at least so much I have tested. have not tested Laythe but in theory I think it might be possible due to the oxygen atmosphere.

I have no accent profile for this craft but as fare as I recall it has no engines or intakes directly on the fuel tanks and that allows air intake to reach 0.01 no mater if all engines are running or not so its a lot simpler to know when flame out will happen. But the Falcon VIIIB is very similar so view that video if you need help on the ascent profile. Its unedited.

Some pictures and a video of reentry with one of the earlier prototypes so not the final craft but almost identical.

http://youtu.be/9MfCWkn9nzg

Then we have the "Falcon VIIIB Cargo Transport". Its similar to the later Falcon IX but has less fuel of its own and uses the lift capacity for cargo. Its a good LKO craft that can be used to build space stations and it can hull 36T to 500km orbit at least from what I recall with a proper accent profile. There is also the Falcon VIII and it has less ISP sens it uses two LV-30 plus two LV-N instead for 4x LV-N but its faster at climbing and should be good for at least 350km LKO.

Check my Video for ascent profile but be aware that the Falcon VIIIB Cargo Transporter needs longer time to get up in orbit then the Falcon VIII Cargo Transport in the video but I would recommend the Falcon VIII Cargo Transport as a practice craft and the go over to the Falcon VIIIB Cargo Transport.

Here are som pictures and the video is of the first version that has less range then the later B version.

http://youtu.be/DzT0X6lFdNk

Then there is the "Falcon VIB".

It was built specifically for Laythe and back with out refueling. Tough a very outdated design it do work.

Edited September 27, 2013 by pa1983

[drewscriver]

Thanks for the useful and informative posts - I'll definitely be looking at it closely, in particular the 17 tons/TurboJet and intakes/engine question were things I'd been wondering. One minor quibble - you wrote 2.5 intakes per engine, when I think you meant 12.5 intakes (from looking at your craft). Other than that, I follow your logic of gaining speed at 32,000 perfectly, and will be giving your ascent profile a try.

Thanks!

[pa1983]

I meant 2.5 units of air. But yea 12.5 intakes would be correct since they have 0.2 units per intake.

I have edited the post to make it more clear. Also there is advantage in scale (bigger craft is better) since you get more intakes (more engines equals more intakes) and that means you have more intakes on the remaining engines before going over to rocket power.

Edited September 27, 2013 by pa1983

[sgt_flyer]

congratulations on making those cargo doors 'work' in 0.21 the update really made the structural pylons much more unreliable than before for this kind of things, when they bended nicely

[pa1983]

There not reliable As I wrote thats random. Since the ends they bend at seems random if you have two ends and two pylons the chance of both bending in the right end is 25% and that is probably true from my experience.

To bad squad just wont make any "hinges" even just as place holders. Simple hinges with 90 degree turning radius would just help so much for all sorts of problems.

On the other hand I dont think many people use my crafts, bit to heavy on the system and feature complex. So I dont realy care and if it takes a few F5's to get the payload off so be it. Just a few minutes of a 4h round trip any way so not a big problem in the scheme of things.

Edited September 27, 2013 by pa1983

[sgt_flyer]

that don't surprise me ^^ - i've seen my cargo doors stopping working reliably when 0.21 came out that was a bit heartbreaking ^^ we really need something akin to stock hinges (and structural pylon based helicopters stopped working too )

Edited September 27, 2013 by sgt_flyer

[pa1983]

I do wounder if theres a better way to do stock cargo bay doors.

[sgt_flyer]

Well, most 'animated' parts like landing legs can collide with the vessel they are attached to while they are moving (once they stop moving, it returns to a no collision between the parts) - that's what i used before 0.21 to animate my structural pylons cargo bay doors.

Here's my old thread but 0.21 broke everything with the modification of the structural pylon

[Moar Boosters]

Such lovely planes. Will have to download some of them to figure out how you make them so efficient.

[Simplicity]

Well I didn't think I would do it, but I managed after about 15 failed attempts, ran out of charge approaching my station, but a good engine thrust and reposition gave me enuff charge to be able to dock (yes I used mechjeb to dock) - after refueling I headed for home, but since I a lousy pilot I just put her down on the first bit of flat land I could (blew something up at the back on landing, but I got down)..

Edited September 29, 2013 by Simplicity

[pa1983]

I dont think I have seen pics of other flying my crafts. From what I know your the first one to dock that particular craft. Did the RCS work out well enough? I tried to line them up good enough for Docking but how knows.

My crafts where designed to be easy to fly with out mechjeb so I dont know if it was mechjeb that caused you to run out of electricity. The craft if working properly should have two RTG's and that worked fine for me but I didnt try docking. I know the torque modules use electricity but on could shut those down and use RCS plus the battery in the pod should recharge between maneuvers from the RTG's.

Seems like you knocked of one of the engines when landing. To high angle of attack or a hill in the way I would think? The craft can land pretty much flat at 0 angle with all its lift gliding.

But hey you got it up to 500km from what I can see thats a very good start. You will be landing at KSC in no time.

I was a crappy pilot in KSP to and Im still not that good. Thats why I design my crafts so there easy for me to fly

Its not like flying previous simulators back in the day helped because KSP is well a bit odd in the physics compartment

Think it took me 3 days just to get suborbital the first time with a rocket and another day to put a kerbal in lko.

But flying spaceplanes and learning to land at KSC etc is a bit like riding a bike. I can do it even if I have not played in two weeks. It kind of sticks eventually. But I have done hundreds of KSC landings by now. A tip is to plant a flag at the runway so you know where it is and how fare away it is. I also fly chase view the last bit or IVA if possible.

You didnt suffer any spins due to flame outs ether I presume?

You also ran with the lower physics settings that I suggested in the first post and in my youtube description? Did that work out well?

Edited September 29, 2013 by pa1983

[Simplicity]

Did the RCS work out well enough? I tried to line them up good enough for Docking but how knows.

Yup, the RCS worked fine for docking - my only problem is that I ran out of it, lucky enuff tho I had a tug based at that station, so was able to use that to refill the RCS tank (did take me a while to find it on your plane tho) - If I had 2 tanks that size on the plane I would have been fine.

My crafts where designed to be easy to fly with out mechjeb so I dont know if it was mechjeb that caused you to run out of electricity. The craft if working properly should have two RTG's and that worked fine for me but I didnt try docking. I know the torque modules use electricity but on could shut those down and use RCS plus the battery in the pod should recharge between maneuvers from the RTG's.

Yea, I presume it was Mechjeb that caised the power loss, not to worry tho, firing the engines was enuff to get me close and I used the tug to give me not only RCS but also electricity as it had solar panels attached. - the only problem I got now is that the tug is stuck in space with no RCS, so I going to have to send up a rescue craft with spare RCS to refill it.

Seems like you knocked of one of the engines when landing. To high angle of attack or a hill in the way I would think? The craft can land pretty much flat at 0 angle with all its lift gliding.

As I said, I a lousy pilot, I thought I was coming in too steep, so I raised the angle to around 15 degrees, that's what knocked things off..

A tip is to plant a flag at the runway so you know where it is and how fare away it is. I also fly chase view the last bit or IVA if possible.

Now that's a good tip, thank you, I will go out and plant a flag at the end of the runway, at least that will help

You didnt suffer any spins due to flame outs ether I presume?

Nope, no spinouts, your plane behaved very well, I did kinda muck up a little with flameouts, but I managed to nurse her up to around 43Km before I finally had to turn the jets on.

You also ran with the lower physics settings that I suggested in the first post and in my youtube description? Did that work out well?

I did try the 0.01 but found it too slow (maybe it was just me), but I set it to 0.03 instead, and that worked really fine

Anyway, thank you very much for making these ships, now I got one up I going to have to try another one or three

[pa1983]

The devs recommend 0.03 from what I know, probably a reason the game wont allow you to set it lower in the menu

Well It would not be hard to add more RCS or electric power your self if you need more. Those parts are not very heavy so should not upset the balance much. Easiest is to add it at CoM.

I dont dock much but I usually get around on 200 RCS on my Duna or Laythe round trips with out a problem.

EDIT:

Did some testing of 0.03 VS 0.01. Have not done that in a few versions of the game. What I noticed is that 0.01 is slower at least its maximum physic time is lower. But also its minimum physics time was lower. With 1400 parts I got 0.254x real almsot constantly but with 0.03 I got a max of 0.3x+ down to 0.1x. So 0.03 seems faster but only at times and other times its slower.

With 527 parts with the Kosmos I got in to the green at times with 0.03 but I still often am down to 0.5x due to the buggy terrain slowing stuff down. Also 0.01 seems to produce smoother and higher frame rates so its hard to say what I perceived as faster.

I also tried a simulated flame out by shutting on of the outer most engines of and the plane kept going more or less strait with out a problem.

Edited September 29, 2013 by pa1983

[drewscriver]

Given your experience, what Ascent profile do you recommend for the Galaxy?

Also, in the profile you list for the Kosmos, you have

16-22Km duplicated, but there are two different degrees listed, so it's a little confusing

[zombiphylax]

Wow, pa1983, those are some great designs, I'll be downloading them when I have time to play KSP again.

Very nice line blending.

[Nephf]

WOW. This is just awesome. Great Planes!!

[KissSh0t]

Have you ever tried landing one of your SSTO's on the Mun pa1983?

[pa1983]

Yea once. Some on sad it was so hard to do because of high delta V requirement even compared to Duna etc so I had to try it.

I modified an existing craft used to hull payloads to LKO if I recall. Added engines and more fuel. SO it was not balanced well or perfect but that was not the point.

So no the craft do not exist any more, it was just a test. But it worked and got back.

But I dont see a point in landing spaceplanes on a body with out an atmosphere. The howl point of a spaceplane is to use the wings to reduce the fuel consumption. No atmosphere no spaceplane.

I usually hull a 60-70 ton spaceship to LKO and send that to the body lacking atmosphere.

[pa1983]

Given your experience, what Ascent profile do you recommend for the Galaxy?

Also, in the profile you list for the Kosmos, you have

16-22Km duplicated, but there are two different degrees listed, so it's a little confusing

I dont realy have an ascent profile for it but its basically the same as the kosmos or the old Jumbo. This days I fly by tracking Vertical speed and try to keep that optimal.

Well seems Like I got most values wrong with 5 degrees. I rewrote it because I found the first way hard to interpret so it seems the error slipped in there early on. Its all in the video but I have updated the ascent profile.

Any way you cant blindly run the numbers in the ascent profile because the way ASAS works you need to correct all the time. I suppose some on could write a kOS program for it that would make it reliable all the time. But manually you still have to keep an eye on vertical speed and pitch and well use your experience for best results.

[drewscriver]

Huh. Do you use a mod to report your vertical speed, or do you just eyeball it? I don't have enough flight experience yet to just go by the existing readouts

[pa1983]

I use the vertical speed indicator in to the right of the altitude indicator. I just keep my eyes on vertical speed relative to my altitude so I dont go to fast, can happen with a light payload, and if I go to slow I just add a km or two to the first couple of steps so gain altitude faster.

So yea you need to have an ascent profile and I now days just use what I remember from the top of my head and then you need an idea of whats a god vertical speed at etch step and then correct when you actually pitch down for the next step depending on vertical speed. So yea I kind of fly by feel this days if its a craft Im use to.

So yea eyeballing it I suppose But a good ascent profile helps then its just practise.

Edited October 10, 2013 by pa1983

[drewscriver]

I'd completely overlooked that indicator before. I gave it a shot - it does work, but it's small and hard to read; I might want to look into a mod. Your outline was still a useful reference point, though I wasn't able to execute the flight profile nearly as cleanly.

The Kosmos was quite easy to fly, though the bay doors gave me fits. Still, I got it working in the end, and lofted another tank of fuel up to my tug.

[pa1983]

Yea the payload door hack is pretty bugged in 0.21. I have not found any other way of doing it that is more reliable tough. But there are mods for hinges that should work for those that wants to replce them.

I really hope there are hinges in 0.22 but I doubt it. Its really needed.

The vertical speed indicator is pretty crappy yes

Not a precision instrument but its accurate enough between -100 to a 100 m/s. Realy good way of staying level and keep climbe rate optimal with some practice.

Edited October 12, 2013 by pa1983