m4rt14n

Hello. I managed to make a VTOL by looking at your wonderful design from youtube. My question is, is it necessary for the Center of Lift to be precisely the same as Center of Mass and Center of Thrust? And boy landing at the heli pad on top of VAB is hardd....

The government is spending $ 65 bn/month shoring up Big Banks in the name of the economy. Imagine if they put that up for NASA....

vae victis

I recommend dockinf cam mod by lazor for easier time. You'd still dock manually but it takes the annoyance out by showing graphically your alignment and movement vectors.. A must have for bases with a bunch of docking ports.

The problem with shuttles IMO is that they're so overly complicated that by the time you can build them, you're already capable of sending SSTO to Duna and back... In real life its the other way around though...

I dont always send kerbals to Jool. But when I do, they dont come back.

Pics would be great

Yea kinda just used WhiteKnight Two as example. This now flies perfectly to 20km and able to deploy the spaceplane payload. Center of Lift could be a little bit lower but this'll do for now.

KSP would be version 1.2 by now instead of .23 (for the time being)

Thanks for all the replies. I was looking for a ceiling of 20kms before delivery. Higher than that would be preferable, but not necessary. The idea is to deploy the payload and return to KSC, while the smaller craft goes into orbit and hopefully deorbit back to KSC. @Claw: If I mess around with the CoT, CoM and Lift would the spaceplane itself be screwy after delivering its payload? Perhaps a glider type is a better deployment vehicle. Rutan got it right lol..

My fix for mac lag is just dual boot windows.. I have a '09 macbook pro running on that setup. Performance for native mac games is just too underwhelming compared to windows version on the same laptop.

Any links for shuttle building tutorials? What mods do you recommend? Stock seems to painful with all the weight transfers, thrust alignment and assymetrical lifiting surfaces. Especially on ascent.

I always thought he'd come back again. Eventually... In fact there's a whole thread about where's Jeb here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53811-Where-is-YOUR-Jebediah-Kerman Also read about something about missingcrewrespawn or something flag somewhere... edit: Ninja'ed

stuck? how so?

Yea I guess you're right. I was hoping just to be able to piggy back from the said plane. Looks like a design change. Thanks.

200km is ideal for me. because if you fail at 1st rendezvous from launching from KSC, you can safely drop periapsis down and catch-up. 100km is of course much cheaper for spaceplanes leaving kerbin, but adjusting rendezvous is annoying because there is only so much you can drop down into before hitting the atmosphere.

Has anyone ever successfully delivered an attached space plane on top of another space plane? I'm trying to fly into sub-orbit, deploy the payload plane then return to KSC. But whenever the ship(or ships) hits 9000-10,000 m it goes into an uncontrolled backspin. I tested the deliverer plane beforehand and it was able to go to orbit without a hitch. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here... Here's the craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51811839/Flying%20Swan%20Delivery%20Spaceship%20K-One.craft

B9 mod and FAR looks so nice. Stock spaceplanes seems to look ghetto-rigged compared to it. Especially the wings.., Maybe I'll install it soon..

Also go ahead and install Lazor mod. Especially the Lazor docking cam. I could dock before using this mod, but after it I'm a pro.

Okay final spaceship: Full Orange tank fuel tank with some spare on the side tanks, oxidizer almost full. I could sub another set of jet tanks to rocket fuel ones but it might get too heavy. The plane itself cant take off until the end of runway because of tail strike. Here's the craft file if anybody want to take a stab at it: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51811839/Orbital%20Refueler%20Space%20Craft.craft P.S: Of course the plane needs some fuel left to deorbit and descent, so cant deposit all the fuel in orbit yet..

I cant see jack with the docking cam when it is dark. It works really well during daytime. Do I need to install the Lazor Module first into the ship or something? Or is there a separate Nightvision cam for docking?

Vessel mass 61 Tons on the runway. 6 Turbojets and 2 Rapiers. 1 Orange tank, and 4 jet fuel cannisters. All in all 52 ram jet intakes so about 6,5:1 ratio per engine. Not sure if I could use less intakes, action grouping them together is really annoying by the way. I should really swap 2 jet fuel canisters with 2 regular rocket fuel ones to end up with more oxidizers. P.S: God knows if I can land this though....

Most likely not enough wings. Is the AOA and prograde vector too far apart when climbing?

I got close to 60% fuel and 35% oxidizer up into LKO with this behemoth finally... It did go into a tailspin (flamed out) cos I wasnt watching at 35km and I circularized too much (apo went up to 185km). I think if I tinker a bit and fix the ascent it should have close to sending 50% fuel&oxidizer of a orange tank. Not sure if it's possible without massing intakes though.... Edit: Here's final version. Oxidizer still less than fuel (not 1:1), but good enough I guess..

Ugh.... yea I keep on putting jet instead of turbojets... DOh...