WhiteKnuckle

Had a day or so to putz around and get some idea of how the new aerodynamics work...ish. More than enough time for the boffins at WKA to throw together...er... thoughtfully design a new VTOL trainer: The Sparrow Mk1:

Rapiers are the backbone of my spaceplane fleet. Very few of my designs don't use them. To me, turbojets are supplementary engines, I'll use them to give me a little extra power between sea level and 25k. One way I do like to use turbojets is if I'm out of easy engine mounting locations and want to add engines above or below CoM. If you try this with Rapiers they'll flip you out when you switch to rocket mode. But with a TJ you're only using them at altitudes where you should have enough control authority to counteract the offset thrust.

I really don't think there is any hard limit. But IMO the two practical limits you're going to run into are: -Payload fraction. After a certain point (weight wise) you need so much wing and so many engines to get off the runway that you're going to have a ton of drag in the upper atmosphere, to combat this drag you'll need to burn a ton of fuel. Bringing more fuel means you need more wing and more engine and the problem spirals out of control. This is probably the closest thing to a real upper limit on plane design, but probably not what is actually going to limit you... -Running out of runway will. This is related to the first issue, essentially to get a super heavy bird off the runway you need a ton of wing and a ton of engines. But adding more wing and engine also increases your weight and drag, so you reach a point of diminishing returns just to get something off the runway. Then you run into issue number 1 when you reach higher altitudes. But even something that is all fuel and no cargo will run into problems getting off the runway first. Now as far as practical limits go, with stock parts getting an orange tank to orbit is hard but by no means impossible. Over that I personally have started to run into issue #1. Getting two orange tanks to orbit might be possible if you used them as structural members instead of putting them in a cargo bay. Using B9 or other mods I think I could get two orange tanks to orbit as cargo.

Yeah you need to climb slower/build up more speed. By 10k you should be going mach 1, mach 2 by 15k and mach 3 by 20k. The 25-30k region is always going to be the hard part of getting to orbit, it's all a balancing act of building speed/gaining altitude/staying in control. But I don't think you'll have any trouble getting to 20k with your design as long as you slow your accent a little bit. I think it took me about 3.5 minutes to get from the runway to 20k.

It practically is hovering! I don't know what it's stall speed is on Kerbin when it's low of fuel, but it's slooooooooow. Probably under 50m/s. The Goose. I like that, I needed a name for it and giving it the callsign of a dead pilot is fitting seeing how many of my Kerbals the damn thing has killed It flies fine, gets to orbit fine, re-enters fine, and then pancakes itself into the runway if you touchdown with more than 2-3m/s of vertical speed... It's been driving me nuts.

Yeah I think it's a little ugly when it's on the ground, but I really dig the way it looks in the air.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/111211-Eve-or-Duna This thread from a few days ago goes over the Eve vs Duna argument. But to boil it down: Landing on Eve is easy, just bring parachutes. Taking off is the single hardest mission in the game. Landing on Duna can be a little tricky. But getting back isn't that much harder than a Mun mission. I also like Duna cause it's purdy...

Really? ...well then... Hmmph. I guess they already violate the laws of physics, so what's a little icing on the cake.

Ok I just made a quick copy of your ship capi to see if it had any fatal flaws and to show you a few design details I'd include. I don't have P-wings so that's the biggest difference. Anything heavy that I could stick up front I did, with the reaction wheel as far forward as possible to give it a lot of leverage. At the back a set of tailstrike landing gear, and I moved the rockomax engines to a 45* offset so I could move the tail surfaces back farther. Tailstrike gear in action. Made it into an 85k orbit, had to unlock the front tank to circularize which to me is fine, you can use all the fuel in the front tank you just have to wait till the rear tanks are empty. Landing under 100m/s and no hint of stalling... this thing has more than enough wing. Made it with fuel to spare. Also note the spoilers activated on the inner wing. Here's the craft file if you want to rip it apart to see what I did. But it wasn't much, the basic design is sound, and honestly flew like a dream once I made a few little tweaks. https://www.dropbox.com/s/m27wbxlfo3k0cr6/Capi%20Test%20drone%20Mk1.craft?dl=0 Action groups: 1. Toggle jet engine 2. Toggle rocket engines

Probably. But not necessarily, for example you may already be coming in high or low and you might want to burn radial to move yourself over the center of the Duna system, or it might take a little bit of prograde or retrograde thrust... who knows. Just play around a bit until you like what you see. If you're doing the maneuver far away it takes so little DV you can afford to play around. Heck, on ships with an RCS system I usually just do little bursts of translation to see which direction will move me where I want to end up. Again, you can use a maneuver node, but since you're talking about at most 5-20m/s it can be more trouble then it's worth to try to set one up. And no... Eve is a cruel mistress... save her for last unless you want to be caught in her purplely clutches forever. And Gilly is a boring space potato. Duna is where you want to go... just watch out for Ike.

Sure. After you've left kerbin and have an encounter with Duna set, make a correction burn (I usually do this at roughly the halfway point of the trip, or at the ascending or descending node if the inclination is off). Click on Duna and select Focus View, now you'll be focused on Duna and you'll be able to see your orbital path once you reach Duna's SoI. From here I usually just make tiny burns in each of the main directions to see how they'll adjust the encounter (you may be able to do this with a maneuver node as well, but I don't normally bother since we're talking about only a few m/s of delta-v) You should be able to get an encounter that comes right over one of the poles or at whatever inclination you want. The key to interplanetary missions is make burns as far out as possible. Tiny course corrections on the other side of the system have huge impacts months later when you finally get where you're going. Also: Beware Ike... it's huge, it's close, and it likes to take things on highly elliptical orbits and throw them out of the Duna system.

There's no hard and fast rule about how much wing is enough. Can you take off (and land) at a reasonable speed? You've got enough wing. Can't take off before the end of the runway? Probably need more wing. taking off halfway down the runway at 100m/s? You've got more than enough wing, it makes landing and takeoff easy but will be slowing you down at mach 5. Yeah I'd ditch the mono, it's not helping you both in terms of weight and drag. I'm not someone who is religious about keeping wet/dry CoM in almost the same place. I don't mind the CoM moving around as long as it isn't making the plane unstable at any point. Generaly I try to make an aircraft that gets more stable when it's empty, that way when I'm coming in for re-entry at 2km/s I don't have to worry about a twitchy responsive aircraft trying to flip out and kill me. So if you need to put something in to balance the weight, make it something inline. But cut out as much stuff as possibe as long as you keep the CoL and CoM in the right order. Yeah, spoilers are air brakes. When you set a control to act as a spoiler they will be put into the Brake action group so they come on when you press the B key or key the brakes on the upper menue. Having some airbrakes will help you a lot if you come in too hot and are going to overshoot the runway. They also help a lot once you touch down and need to stop. Flaps make the wing they're mounted on produce more lift (also drag) so you can lift off at a lower speed. Just remember to turn them off after you take off or they will slow you down. They will need to be set to an action group. One or two reaction wheels is enough. I would just take it out of the cargo bay and put it in front. This gives the wheel a longer arm to the CoM and makes it more efficent and frees up space in your cargo bay. Disregard my comments about fuel. As long as it's balanced it's good. Most control surfaces you want at 100% for what they are, and 0% for the things they are not. The one exception is the front canards which will usualy stall first. So you can set them lower say 75% or 50% which will make them less effective but also less likely to stall. One great way to see this in action is FAR's aerovis function. Turn on "Tint Stall" and fly around, you'll get a much better idea of what is causing you problems when you can see exactly what part is stalling.

This may be the most amazing thing I've ever read on this forum.

Ok, here's what I'd do: 1. Ditch the bi-couplers. You've got 6 intakes for one engine... 2 would be enough, 4 (2 shock cones and 2 engine bodies) is fine. 2. Ditch the monoprop. Unless I'm missing something there is no RCS and no docking port, so why are you carrying Mono? If you do need it I would put one inline tank at the front just behind the nose cone. 3. Never leave exposed nodes like you have at the back of the nacelles. Put nosecones on them to reduce drag. 4. Move all your little rockomax engines and all your rear canards back as far as possible. You should have more than enough pitch control, so moving the CoL back is not going to hurt anything. 5. Put two more sets of control surfaces on the main wings. Have the outermost set be set to Roll control. Have the inner two sets control nothing but activate them as spoilers. Set one set's Spoiler deflection to 45* and the other set to -45* (this means when you hit the brakes one set goes up and one set goes down, balancing each other out so you don't get any weird control movements) 6. Put a reaction wheel up front just behind the nosecone. This will help you at high altitudes when your control surfaces don't have much impact. 7. I would make the nacelles longer and carry most of my fuel there. I would not carry any fuel at all in the rear Mk2 adaptor, and I would lock off the fuel in the front Mk2 adaptor to keep the CoM forward.

Boone return:

Do you have the SAS set to prograde rather than heading?

Excellent.

That's more than high enough, but not nearly fast enough. Are you playing with B9? If so mach 3.1 is all you'll get out of a turbojet. If not then I would recommend a less steep climb over 20k so you build up more speed before the jet gives out. If you can't build up more speed, or if your speed is climbing so slowly it makes you want to kill yourself, then you either need more thrust or less drag.

Yeah my problem has never been flying on Duna, it's been getting to a reasonable speed for landing. I actually managed my first landing just a few days ago, thanks in part to some of the stuff you showed off in the youtube series: The absurd levels of diheadral on the wings was actually a concesion to the lauch vehicle I used, but I found that it, combined with the wing mounted landing gear made it possible to bounce from dune to dune with hilarious ease... of course I should have just picked a better landing site. The other thing that really saved me was having the forward facing engines on the nacelles for braking thrust.

I think the important question is: How does it drive? If it doesn't tip over every time you make a turn going more than 5m/s then I think you should go back to the drawing board. And now I'm laughing uncontrollably because I imagined landing it on Minimus and rolling it over... and over and over and over and over.... [clarkson]Oh No![/clarkson]

My crappy work computer hates photobucket so I can't open the album, can you actually land the Farlander on Duna? It looks like it doesn't have enough wing at first glance. Yeah with refueling you can go just about anywhere even in a spaceplane. But sometimes it's just cool to be able to launch and go.

Again with the stuff that isn't quite ready for release yet... My first Duna capable spaceplane, designed to be towed to orbit by a Longbow, the Boone:

Landed on, and took off from Duna in a spaceplane for the first time:

Oh... then all of them. I can see MJ being useful to get rid of the tedium of doing your 54874615712th launch, but IMO you should know how to do everything yourself before handing it over to an autopilot. You learn more, become a better player, and know how to handle things when something bad happens.

I like the tactic of cutting across the KSC parking lot to shave some distance off the trip lol. I did something similar and turned as soon as I passed the hanger.