Kerbal Airliner Around The Globe! Challenge

[Northstar1989]

Is there going to be an update of the Leaderboard? I believe at this point we have several rearrangements and new entries in order...

I guess more time wouldn't hurt though- I realized that my electric airliner model really doesn't have to worry much about weight, as long as it can still outrun the sun at max cruising altitude- since it has essentially unlimited fuel- and so upgraded it to carry about 64 passengers. Problem is, even though the part count is only in the low 100's, it's still a flying lag machine on my weak computer. Given enough time though, I'll eventually get the willpower together to fly it around Kerbin and land successfully (which should place me at the top of the Leaderboard, if I can make the runway with that much lag...)

[robmobz]

(You never see airliners using rocket boosters to take off in real life)

You do. It is called the JATO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JATO it just isn't very common.

[Hodo]

Also did that challenge:

Pilot +15

Passenger +30 points

Mechjeb -30 points

Fuel left +10 points

6 mach = +300 points

Penny pincher: Use under 100 parts (+100 points)

Engine shortage: Use only 1 engine (+100 points)

Have max height be between 39,900 m and 39,999 m (+75 points)

Have a max speed greater than 2000 m/s (+75 points)

Land on the runway (+50 points)

Have no lights on your aircraft. Do not use your landing gear lights. (+25 points)

Stock Parts + Mechjeb

I wanted to be as fast as possible, so i went very close to 40 000 with "orbital" speeds.

Total time: 38:49

One problem, there is no end log screen shot to confirm anything. But great flight.

Is there going to be an update of the Leaderboard? I believe at this point we have several rearrangements and new entries in order...

I guess more time wouldn't hurt though- I realized that my electric airliner model really doesn't have to worry much about weight, as long as it can still outrun the sun at max cruising altitude- since it has essentially unlimited fuel- and so upgraded it to carry about 64 passengers. Problem is, even though the part count is only in the low 100's, it's still a flying lag machine on my weak computer. Given enough time though, I'll eventually get the willpower together to fly it around Kerbin and land successfully (which should place me at the top of the Leaderboard, if I can make the runway with that much lag...)

I don't know if there is going to be an update on the leader board, the original poster hasn't been online since Oct 30th.

[adammada]

One problem, there is no end log screen shot to confirm anything. But great flight.

Yeah, i "recovered" vessel and didn't get it. Should i "Abort" or what?

[Hodo]

Yeah, i "recovered" vessel and didn't get it. Should i "Abort" or what?

Just hit F3, that will give you that log.

[Kingtj44]

Scores have been updated! You guys have been very patient with me. Hodo now by far takes the top space with over 2000 points!

[Hodo]

Scores have been updated! You guys have been very patient with me. Hodo now by far takes the top space with over 2000 points!

Thank you, I could have gone bigger... if I had more Kerbals.

[Fengist]

Ok, first of all, I didn't follow the rules completely. I tried. But, I simply could NOT get stock or Firespitter landing gear to work right on this plane so, I used the landing gear from the Multi-Wheels mod. I know, rules say it's not allowed. If you feel I should be disqualified on those grounds, I'll understand, otherwise, I did what I hope you'll find equitable and I deducted 90 pts as if I had used Firespitter (which I didn't). Other than that, this is a B9+Stock aircraft.

Now that's out of the way, I present,

The Flying Asylum.

Points Calculation

Pilots X 3 = 45

Passengers X 120 = 3,600

B9 - 90

Multiwheels - 90

Fuel Left (1093/100) X 10 = 100

Max speed. LOL, what's Mach? Zero.

Penny Pincher = 79 parts = 100

Low Rider under 20k = 100

Perfectionist Runway Landing = 50

Blackout = 25

Total Score 3,840

Before you think about building something like this, please take note of my flight time. It was well in excess of 4 hours. Unless you have some time to spend, I don't recommend a plane this slow (WELL under Mach 1) Luckily, this plane held tight and still managed to fly quite well with 2x warp so it ended up only being about 2.5 hours. It was steady enough that I even left for a bit and went to a gas station for some food while it was cruising along.

Thanks for a REALLY nice challenge. I'm a truck driver and spotted this a couple weeks ago just as I was leaving the house so I didn't have time to work on it then. It gave me something to think about on several long drives through the night.

Now for some pics...

Takeoff (note the clamp Jr.)

Over Land

More Land

Mountains

KSC Mountains - Landing Reverse View

Final Stats

Ok, I tried like 4 times to EVA all 120 passengers and crashed each time. Once, while trying to EVA them the dreaded Kraken showed up again and every planet disappeared. This is about as good as it's going to get with me trying to dump 120 Kerbals on the runway. You'll just have to trust me, they're all in

there.

[wasmic]

Over Land

More Land

Where did you get the IVA for that cockpit? Doesn't it use the useless stock MKIII internals?

[Fengist]

Where did you get the IVA for that cockpit? Doesn't it use the useless stock MKIII internals?

Erm, It came with B9 I suppose. I didn't really pay attention. I don't have the latest B9 but it's fairly recent.

I can tell you that only what's behind the pilots is finished. The actual IVA forward view is a blank wall.

[Pds314]

Made a new luxurious hypersonic-airliner using B9-Aerospace.

Imgur gallery:

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Yes, at the end, I accidentally smash the engine during landing, it was no fault of my design, I do that with my 737-replica fairly often and my 747-replica pretty often as well (the 6.1-meter fuselage made out of panels attached to 8-meter HL-cargo tanks looks pretty amazing when it disintegrates)

Score:

Type: Score bonus Total Comment

Pilots: 1 +15 15 S2 hypersonic only holds one pilot, unfortunately.

Passenger: 36 +1080 1095 Not as high capacity as some, but better safety and comfort than open-air lawn-chairs. (IMO, these should be restricted to Q<6000 and Altitude<5000 for safety and comfort purposes, either put a fuselage around them or they shouldn't be going into the upper atmosphere and put a windscreen in front of them or they shouldn't be going at break-neck speeds)

FAR mod +40 1135 Go FAR or go home.

B9 Aero -90 1045

Fuel left:3041 +300 1345

Max Speed: 5 +250 1595 I wish the airliners I rode in could go Mach 5.

Penny Pincher: +100 1695 91 parts for 37 Kerbals.

Engine Shortage:+100 1795 1 SABRE M with a Precooler and no fewer than 20 large devertless supersonic intakes.

Risk Taker: +75 1870 Max altitude of 39977 meters, to put that into perspective, that is less than half it's length and it is less than its wingspan.

Perfectionist: +50 1920

Blackout: +25 1945 No lights on the aircraft besides ladder lights, which remained unused.

Total: 1945 points, although if I had stuffed the Kerbals into lawn chairs, I could have actually made it have 100+ Kerbals with the same weight and aerodynamics. Sure it would have 200 points fewer bonuses from fuel and part count, but it would still do the job and it would also have an additional 1920 points, totaling 3665 points, smashing any and all competition beating most other scores. I will not, however, make it out of lawn chairs, because the idea of having to wear a pressure suit, portable heater/refrigerator and a neck-brace on an airline is silly. Also, re-entry would be pretty problematic, probably face-meltingly so. For that matter, going to an altitude of 40 km on Kerbin is like going to 64 km on Earth, you have to deal with things like radiation and ionized air and micro-meteors and such, if only for the 23 minutes you are actually exposed to it.

Specs:

Cockpit crew: One.

Seating Capacity: 36 in S2 crew tanks (First class, not lawn chairs), 1 Pilot in S2 hypersonic front end (Cockpit).

Length: 55 meters

Wingspan: 26 meters

Wing area: 448.9 m^2 including body, 368 without.

Wing Sweepback 65.2 degrees (Going from front corner to wingtip)

Overall height: 8.4 meters (approx)

Maximum Cabin Width: unknown.

Fuselage width: ~2.4 meters (approx)

Cargo capacity: 160 m^3 if converted to hold cargo instead of crew.

Empty weight: 58470 kg.

Maximum take-off weight: unknown, predicted to be ~140,000 kg from KSC's runway.

Cruising speed: 1700 m/s (Mach 5.00)

Maximum speed (level flight): 1720 m/s (Mach 5.05)

Takeoff Field Length: ~800 meters (with flat terrain at end, ~600 with drop down like at KSC.) ~900 to clear small obstacles. (e.g. lights at the end of the runway if you are unfortunate enough to aim yourself at them)

Maximum range: 32276466 meters if you fly like I did.

Fuel capacity: 3860 (15.44 tonnes) standard with no oxidizer, 20240 (80.96 tonnes) with all crew tanks converted to fuel tanks. This would weigh 140.8 tonnes, making it still likely able to takeoff from KSC.

Service ceiling: Untested, above 40,000 meters. (at which point the engine is at 25% throttle and produces ~110 kN at 1700 m/s. The AoA required is about 15 degrees to maintain such an altitude. As such, it is unlikely to be able to fly above 44 km.)

Engine: Single-Precooled SABRE M with 20 large divertless supersonic intakes across the back of the wings.

Thrust: 860 kN (MAX), ~650 kN (Takeoff), 110 kN (Cruise)

Edited November 25, 2013 by Pds314

[Pds314]

-redacted-

Edited November 25, 2013 by Pds314

[Pds314]

-redacted-

Edited November 25, 2013 by Pds314

[leafty]

I wanted to have a shot at this challenge with a very kerbalistic plane. Unfortunately, I failed, but let me present you the concept.

We, at the Flying Kerbal Initiative, have taken very seriously the need for kerbals to fly around the world at a very cheap price. Leveraging the know-how in aerospace gained by C7 was no laughing matter and early on we were facing the problem of flight safety measures since the cockpits designed by C7 were very safe but too expensive to use for commercial flights. H. Kerman, researcher at our labs, found that most safety measures were taken to avoid the permanent death of Jebediah Kerman. "Since our ship will be piloted by him" he said, "we'll only need to have a safe cockpit and and an unsafe cabin. There's no flying safety regulations whatsoever on Kerbin, anyway." A. Kerman was promptly promoted director of the research on unsafety measures on board and given ticket 001 for flying our first plane. Today, the Flying Kerbal Initiative is proud to present you model FKI-KB001 also known as

The Kerbal Box mark I

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The thing failed miserably with only 10 passengers, but I want to try and see if this concept can manage to bring a handful of kerbals around the world. It's only stock parts and can fly pretty well without passengers, so maybe I can try with only 5 of them. Feel free to experiment with the concept if you like.

[Hodo]

Made a new luxurious hypersonic-airliner using B9-Aerospace.

Imgur gallery:

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I love that craft.

One side note there is a newer version of FAR you may want to download.