GoSlash27

My rover *is* my lander haha -Slashy

Absolutely, you could. In fact, you could dial in a steeper approach and flare it out at the end for a nice gentle touchdown. Then all you need are some parachutes to help slow the shuttle. If you do all that, I figure a carrier about the size of Vandenberg AFB oughtta do it. Best, -Slashy

Whatever kinetic energy you impart to a payload when you fling it is also imparted in an equal and opposite fashion to the launcher. It will eventually deorbit unless you replace the kinetic energy you imparted to the payload. Given the fact that no energy transfer is 100% efficient, it stands to reason that it would be more efficient to simply attach your source of kinetic energy to the payload and be done with it. Best, -Slashy

In addition to the above suggestions, I'd recommend a little dihedral on the wings. At least the outer portions. It won't reduce your roll response any, but it will make your aircraft want to self-correct to wings level, so you won't have to roll as often. Best, -Slashy

I'm still tinkering with this concept. I believe an Eve SSTO *is* just barely possible, but only if you cheat. My current design harnesses infiniglide to do most of the work and ion engines to complete the job. After I make that work (or give up trying), we're going to collaborate on an infinigliding kraken drive. And of course... ladder lifters are proven successful at getting a Kerbal into Eve orbit. Other than that, no... not possible. And I'll tell ya why... Most of the ascent from Eve in a glider is spent trying to overcome "the wall"; accelerating painfully slowly and barely climbing. In this regime, the aircraft only has about a 20% delta V efficiency. Once past that, the situation improves, but only to 40% efficiency until you're out of the atmosphere. Even an ion glider can't make enough delta v to overcome that. From a high point on the surface, you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 34,000 m/sec. Eve is a tall order even with infinigliding. Impossible without it. Best, -Slashy

Yessir. No runs, no drips, no errors. I think the clock reset because I went EVA for the photo op. Best, -Slashy

The difficulty isn't in the size of the carrier. The difficulty is in contacting the carrier with just the right AoA, airspeed, and lineup. If any of those are out of limits, your "controlled crash" becomes a plain old "crash". Too much sink rate and your landing gear collapses. Too much AoA and you destroy the airframe, rupturing the fuel cells. Too much airspeed and you snap the wire. Too far off center and you flip the plane. Carrier landings are *dangerous*! The way they mitigate the hazard is by shooting the approach in the middle of the "safe" zone. You can't do that with no engines. You are forced to approach the carrier outside of the safe envelope and hope that you are within the safe parameters when you hit the deck. I'd recommend getting some time actually doing carrier ops to see what I'm talking about. www.fsxcarrierops.com I'm "K6952" over there. -Slashy

That's an important part of it, but it's not all. The glideslope is a fixed angle coming up from the #3 wire, which the pilot can see from the fresnel lens. Adjusting to stay on glideslope requires a throttle input, while staying "on speed" according to the AoA indexer requires a pitch correction. Keeping the lineup is a bank and heading thing, which is trickier than it sounds, since the runway is always drifting out to the right from under you. Point is, without throttles, you can't maintain an on speed/ on glideslope indication. You will eventually end up slow and low without the ability to go around. This means a ramp strike, which is very bad news. -Slashy

^ Reviewing my FSX logbook, I have exactly 3,458 hours, all of it carrier ops. In all that time I have only had the opportunity to shoot 3 dead stick carrier approaches. 2 were successful (1 in an F-35 and 1 in an F-14D) and 1 was not (RA-5C Vigilante). IRL, NATOPS excludes dead stick carrier approaches as illegal and the Superbug loses all control authority with engines out, so it's just plain not possible.

Speaking as someone who has a whole lot of stick time in FSX shooting carrier approaches (some of them engines-out), I would personally avoid it if at all possible The carrier approach uses throttles to maintain glideslope, and a shuttle has no throttles on landing. Plus no ability to go around in the event of a "bolter". You can make a successful dead-stick approach to a carrier, but you don't want to have to. But if you *have* to... Take a "charlie" on arrival. Keep your approach high and clean until you actually see the ball, then dirty up for landing at about 3/4 NM. You will want to maintain a steep glideslope and red/ fast AoA until 1/4 NM. Find your glideslope there and hope that your AoA doesn't go too slow before you hit the ramp. And be prepared to eject, because things can still easily go wrong even if everything goes "right". Been there done that, -Slashy

I don't know exactly how much DV it takes for me since I don't have any add-ons to give me an exact measurement, but it's got to be under 4,400 m/sec according to the calculated DV at launch and fuel reserves remaining in orbit. I launch vertical to 7.5 KM at 1.5-2G, then follow a very close approximation of a gravity turn with an approximation of the sine of pitch for t/w the rest of the way. I use benchmarks as I go; 68* and 1.9G at 15 KM, 45* and 1.4G at 25KM, etc. I can't guarantee that this is the most efficient path there is, but it is very efficient for every vehicle that uses a ballistic launch profile. Best, -Slashy

Definitely a Saturn analogue with big pretty rings and some moons to explore. I'd also like a few neighboring stars with their own planets to explore, but that's probably pushing it. -Slashy

I do it the opposite way; I design the craft to have the required delta v and thrust/ weight ratio with as little overall mass as I can manage. *Then* I build it. I find it's much more fun to complete missions than it is to tinker and adjust, but that's just me. Best, -Slashy

Not to the best of my knowledge. If they are, I've been going about this all wrong. Welcome back, -Slashy

Your battery is probably dead. Best, -Slashy

I suppose I should swing by and claim my k-prize. http://wikisend.com/download/448306/EVE%20express.craft This little vehicle comes equipped with a pressurized capsule for 1 crew member and a clamp-o-tron jr. for docking and refueling. It does SSTO easily from Kerbin, and my goal is to make it SSTO from Eve as well. It weighs 2.2 tons, has enough DV to fly direct to any other body with an atmosphere, and can dock in orbit or land on the runway. Best, -Slashy

Godranus, I've never played with kraken drives before. Sounds interesting. I'm still working on my Eve SSTO, so I can't pick that up right away. -Slashy

As cantab pointed out, you're not going to get to Eve orbit without staging unless you're exploiting a glitch. I'm working on a practical solution to that now, but it's liable to be a while. Best, -Slashy

Roger that... I just don't know how to do that. Best, -Slashy

Eve Express in a 70x70 LKO orbit. Manned ion SSTO with clamp-o-tron jr. for refueling in orbit. It's an infiniglider, so it can fly anywhere on the planet without using fuel. Just raise the gear to park. Jeb after a successful mission EVE express.craft I have to figure out how to hyperedit so I can test it on all the planets with atmospheres. -Slashy

Success! Jeb got himself a free ride into orbit. Now to figure out how to hyperedit one of these to Eve for further testing...

I'm less than 100 M/sec away from stable orbit now. Jeb just ran a (barely) suborbital circumnavigation around Kerbin and set it down on the runway at KSC. A couple more tweaks and I should have it. This is with a lander can and clamp-o-tron junior. /small control surface > delta deluxe -Slashy

Infiniglide still works. I'm flying one right now. *edit* To make one, simply make an airplane with control surfaces instead of wings. No need for an engine. Use the pitch control to pick up enough speed to take off. Once it's airborne, engage the SAS and twitch it around until it starts shaking. It will accelerate like a meteor until it either runs out of air pressure or krakens itself apart. -Slashy

Laie, You should submit a stock version of that glider. I've run them that big with a probe core. Best, -Slashy

I'm working on a practical infiniglider with ion engines, but I don't know how to hyperedit for Eve, so I'm testing on Kerbin. My last run was 34.9 KM altitude at an orbital velocity of 1,719 M/sec. Gotta find about 500 m/s of efficiency somewhere...