-[Gryphon]- Easy to Fly, [FAR] SSTO Orbital Tanker and Crew Rotation craft

[Rakaydos]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kie35rff4rppf2o/Gryphon%20v5.craft?dl=0

The Gryphon is my second significant design, and beat out my first design, the Manticore, to commercial deployment. The Gryphon is an orbital bus and tanker, able to transfer almost 3/4 of an orange tank to a craft in low kerbin orbit, as well as over 300 units of monoprop, and up to 10 crew and passangers. It has been tested for Deadly Reentry and designed around the latest version of FAR. The posted design uses Mechjeb, but an autopilot-free version is available by request.

In addition, the Gryphon, like the Manticore before it, is designed to accept a transfer vehical attached to the belly docking port- as long as all the -LOCKED- tanks are still full, it can perfectly balance on top of another rocket, the spaceplane's ample tanks usable to supplement the transfer vehical's. With this capability in mind, the Gryphon has a belly mounted RCS bank, capable of safely belly landing on Ike or smaller worlds, and assist with a safe landing on kerbin or laythe. This bank can be toggled off with the press of a button.

The Gryphon is easy to fly into orbit.

When physics loads, press your [FAR] tab to bring up your Flight Status, and click on "Lvl", "Yaw" and "Flt Data." This last window has a bunch of information, but the important part of it is the "L/D" and the "Air Requirements Met." Finally right click one of your flaps (on the delta, not the tailbooms) so you get a window that says "Flap Setting: 2"

(image is of the Manticore, but the FAR data is the same)

Your action groups are as follows:

1: Switch Raipier mode

2: Toggle Raipiers on/off

3: Toggle Turbojets on/off

4: Flap Setting +1 (nose up)

5: Flap Setting -1 (nose down)

8: Release whatever is attached to your docking port

9: Belly RCS activation/shutdown (when active and RCS is on, press K to fire)

0: open/close docking port.

Press Space to turn your engines on, and throttle up. Double tap 9 to shut down the belly RCS, and 0 to close the belly docking port. Then let it take off.

On flap setting 2, the default, the Gryphon should gracefully lift off around 140 M/s and start arcing back into the sky. Wait for it to point over 45 degrees upward, then activate SAS to lock in the heading. Ideally you should be very slowly bleeding m/s, and your Mach number shoud be holding steady in the .4 to .5 range.

As you pass 8000m, nose down (with W) to just below 40 degrees- you should start building velocity. Watch your mach number, and try not to move your nose around much (unless you start getting a "Large scale stall" warning, then nose down some more) until you pass Mach 1. Then (assuming your level) you can turn off SAS to smoothly let your flaps lift your nose back up to 45 and lock it in.

Once you pass 17500m, you're going to need to start leveling out. Press 5, wait a sec, and press it again (the flap you right clicked on should say "Flap setting 0" If not, press 5 again until it does) and release SAS. Instead of pulling up, your nose should drop.

Find your "Air Requirements Met" in the Flight Data window- you want to be flying almst perfectly level (the guage next to your altitude at the top of the screen should be very near the +10) when you get below 150%. Press 4 to get to Flap Setting 1. You're trying to find an angle that keeps your Air Requirements steady, somewhere between 90% and 140%. (110%-120% is best, but anything near there is fine) Lock it in with SAS, and check your email. It'll take a while to get up to speed.

Because Kerbin is not a flat world, your locked-in angle will slowly rise, pulling you up into thinner air, so you'll have to re-set your SAS every once and a while. You want a horizontal speed of AT LEAST 1550m/s before going rocket-mode on your raipiers- the faster you go on jets, the more fuel youll have left in space. Dont turn on the rockets if you're falling (again, check the guage next to your altitude), instead, nose up 45 degrees (and turn OFF the raipier rockets with 1 if they switch automaticaly) until your flying level, THEN turn on the rockets.

While the rockets are on, you want the most lift for the least drag. Really, you want that most of the time, but it's most important for rocket mode because the rockets use so much fuel. Find the "L/D" number in the Flight Data window. The number will jump around as you nose up and down, but try and find a high number and lock it in. Then bounce out to the map screen to find your apoapse. (or if you use mechjeb or Kerbal Engineer, you can open an Orbit Info window in the flight screen) it'll take a minute or so, but once your apoapse reaches 70, press 2 to shut the rockets down.

The apoapse should still be climbing slightly, because the turbojets are still going- choking and shuddering, perhaps, but still giving a little bit more power. When they finally give it up, press 3 to shut down, point your nose directly prograde, and coast up to orbit. While you wait, plan your circularization burn in Map mode. Remember to cut your throttle (with the X button or with Ctrl) before pressing 2 to bring your rockets back online if you dont want to go flying right then and there.

From there, it's simple rocket science.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Rakaydos

[Guest]

You should try to make screenshots with F1 so we don´t see your desktop

[Rakaydos]

I can never find the folder it puts them in. :/

Anyone want to tell me what I screwed up on?

[Commander Jebidiah]

Screenshots folder.

If it's not there create a new folder called 'Screenshots' but without the apostrophes.

[Rakaydos]

Here I was hoping someone was commenting on my jet, not my computer. :/

[LvL]

It's a wonderful SSTO, but I was wondering, why are there swept wings at the back? Putting them there will minimise the amount of lift from them , and the canards being so high up will make the craft less stable in atmo. (not sure how it would work with far though)

[Rakaydos]

The swept wings are funtioning as tailfins. They might not be the most effective at it, but considering I built this by trial and error, I'm not really too clear on WHY it works, only that it stays balanced through most aerodynamic regimes in flap settings 1 and 2.