Wanderfound

Only if there's something else seriously wrong with the design. Check the Omnibus thread in my sig; there are about twenty planes there, almost all of which run nose-high, none of which dance on the runway. The craft files are all available in my thread; take 'em for a test spin if you don't believe me. They're all FAR planes, but stock aero won't make any real difference on the runway. In my experience, gear-tracking problems in KSP are almost always caused by off-vertical gear or gear placed on mounting points that flex. Wing-mounted gear is especially troublesome unless the wing is very well braced.

With the Hype-xXx_FaZe_uLtRa_nO_ScOopER_xXx, presumably.

Read it back in July, actually. The line that really got my attention was "Early Access feels like a party that got out of control. We got in where it was only a couple people eating pizza and playing Mario Kart. Then suddenly it's Jesse's party from Breaking Bad." Kerbals at Jesse's party is an amusing image. As for gender-diverse Kerbals: about bloody time. Not seeing that this was a significant problem and fixing it back on day 1 was a major failing on Squad's part.

Alternately, have a play with the Jackaroo: that has an extra set of high mounted gear right under the engines to make it virtually tailstrike proof.

That's what the spoilers are for: keep the plane level and use the spoilers to push you down onto the runway (they're mounted a whisker behind CoM, so they'll cause a tiny bit of pitch up, but that can be controlled with a hint of forward stick). You shouldn't need to pitch up at all during final approach. Wash off speed before and after touchdown, not during. Landing with RCS on so that the Vernors can aid in holding the nose down and assist with post-touchdown braking should also help. I'll post some demo screenshots tomorrow if you want. The high tech bit on the Epinephrine is probably the batteries (stashed in the service compartment). Try loading the plane in a sandbox save and swapping them for the basic ones.

GregroxMun's version seems fairly acceptable: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62518-Four-things-for-pro-KGV%2A?p=853240&viewfull=1#post853240

And, incidentally, women actually make better astronauts on average than men do. They're smaller, they weigh less, and they're more resistant to G-force blackouts. If it hadn't been for the patriarchal 1950's nonsense, there would have been more female astronauts than male.

As always: screenshots would help. We can't diagnose what we can't see.

Latest release is linked in the first post of this thread. Latest dev build is at http://jenkins.mumech.com/job/MechJeb2/

I don't autopilot; I just use MJ to avoid having to fight with over-fiddly manoeuvre nodes when I'm setting things up, and auto-warp isn't involved. Even using Kerbal Alarm Clock and setting a warp-stopping alarm a day before the planned node doesn't always work; if you set them up far enough ahead, the inaccuracy by the time you get there can still put the window behind you. And, often, I don't want to wait for the window, whether or not MJ catches it right; I've got schedules of things to do that can't wait, and I'd rather burn the extra ÃŽâ€V and go immediately. It's not the end of the world; I can always just set the nodes manually. But it'd be nice not to have to; it's a chore.

Okay: just took the OP's plane for a spin in stock aero. Yeah, you've got problems, but they're nothing to do with air intakes or thrust. You're massively lacking in pitch authority and lift; the plane requires a huge angle of attack just to maintain level flight (not enough lift) and you have to stress the controls to the max in order to keep that angle (not enough pitch authority). Lose some weight, get some more wing surface, and add some more pitch-relevant control authority (i.e. placed as far away from CoM longitudinally as possible; canards up front or elevators out back). The control surfaces on your wings aren't doing much for pitch; they're too close to CoM. The pair of canards you've hung out the back just aren't cutting it. While you're at it, increasing the height of the front gear with a hardpoint, pylon or strut would ease takeoff considerably. And you'd be better off rearranging your action groups so that you can toggle and mode-switch the engines in pairs. Alternately, ditch the stock aero and give NEAR a try. The plane would probably work (after a bit of aero tuning) if it didn't have to fly in soup.

Basically speaking, SP+ shock cone = stock ramscoop (actually, the SP+ cone is a smidgeon better than a scoop, particularly at extreme altitude) and SP+ structural intake (the long things with the square cross section) = stock radial intake. There's definitely enough engine, intake and fuel there to get to orbit in either stock or FAR/NEAR (although airhogging it up would make it easier in stock). The problem is in the piloting. Essentially all of my designs are for FAR, but I do have one that is proven to be able to easily make it to orbit in stock air. See https://www.dropbox.com/s/lbnz9s8k9h7gwgb/Kerbodyne%20Benchmark%20StockAir.craft?dl=0 for the download. That's running three engines from two intakes. Intake spam is not necessary; it's just a way of covering for dodgy piloting. Crank it up as fast as you can before you climb out of the rich air, then shut down the RAPIERs and continue climbing on the turbojet alone. Once the turbo chokes, turn the RAPIERs back on (using closed cycle oxidising mode) and let the rocket-driven ram air revive the turbo. Do it right and you'll have the apoapsis over 70km before the turbo chokes again, with plenty of fuel remaining for circularising once you're in space.

Or, in the case of Kerbal.edu, we need them to avoid perpetuating gender stereotyping crap that is demonstrably harmful to the education of girls. I certainly wouldn't have let something into one of my classrooms that implied (however obliquely) that pilots and engineers are inevitably male. ...and that's all I'll say on this, before I really do draw the wrath of the mods.

There usually is some underlying logic to it, although it may not always be immediately obvious. The Dairyman was built for doing "milk runs" to the Mun; the Epinephrine was a reference to my neuroscientist background, and something I found exciting to fly (Adrenaline would've been too obvious); the Jackaroo was built as a light utility vehicle ("Jackaroo" is pretty much Australian for "Cowboy"; it's also the name of a medium size Holden off-road car). Evangelist was built to encourage people to give FAR a try; Benchmark was to provide a "control" plane to give piloting challenges an equal basis. Migration is fairly obvious, as are Munacy and Dementia. Komet was inspired by the Me-163. Pteranodon was the ridiculously oversized follow-up to the alarmingly fast Velociraptor. Porklifter was named in honour of Porkjet, of course, and also reflects its ridiculous heavy-lift ability. The de Minimus started from "can I build a good one with only one engine?", Longreach is obvious (it's also the name of an outback town in western Queensland), Albatross has long wings, Pacifist isn't terribly subtle, Graduate and Princeling are the follow-ups to Evangelist, Spacebat was developed out of a failed atmospheric plane named Flying Fox (which is a type of large Australian fruitbat). Expect some avian-themed things with red/white paintjobs in the near future, BTW: my footy team (the Sydney Swans) are currently beating the hell out of their semi-final opponents. Strong favourites to take the flag again.

It's also heavily dependent on which aero model you're flying in. Have a look at the Goblin; that's running exactly one intake per engine, and as you'll see from the screenshots it has absolutely no trouble reaching orbit.

Yup, that's the important thing to note here. The hype stuff is excessive and silly; that's the whole point of it. But it is confined to a handful of clearly labelled threads: nobody has to look at it if they don't want to. Sure, if hypestuff starts spilling all over the place into non-hype threads, stomp it hard and fast. I'd agree that the recent trend of "build me a hype-X" in the mod request threads is a bit dangerous. But mostly, for now, hold your nose and let folks have their fun. In some ways, I think it provides a pressure valve; people can periodically and briefly let their hair down and bend the rules in the hypethreads, but mostly remain sensible outside of them. This is a remarkably well run and well behaved forum; the Squaddies have the balance just right. Pushing it too far in either direction will wreck things.

Here y'go; the Kerbodyne Jackaroo. I don't use KAS myself, so I just picked two of what looked like the largest KAS boxes in the list. Let me know if there's anything you'd like altered. Action group key: 1: Toggle RAPIERs 2: Toggle Aerospikes 3: Switch RAPIER modes 4: Toggle intakes 5: Toggle spoilers 6: Toggle docking port 7: Toggle service compartment and solar panels 8: Toggle cargo bay 9: Toggle Vernors 10: Trigger scientific instruments I aimed to make it user-friendly and loaded with as many useful tricks as I could think of. * The rearmost gear serve as tailstrike guards. * The green gear lights reduce reflection glare during nighttime landings. * Both the service compartment and cargo bay have lights hooked to the door toggle. * There's a full scientific payload, all triggered by a single action group. * Ladders up back for the passengers. The pilots can board from there, walking along the top of the fuselage to their cabin. * There's a drone core for pilot-free operation. The battery on the core is locked off as an emergency power reserve, just in case you forget to deploy the solar panels. * The spoilers allow you to control sink rate during landing while keeping the nose level. * Fuel should drain from the rear lateral tanks first, then front to rear on the core; this will keep the CoM stable throughout flight. * The stabilising Vernors are completely unnecessary unless you mess up your piloting. If you do, flick them on momentarily and they'll help you get the nose back to prograde. Keep them off otherwise to save fuel. Make sure to toggle them off and retract the solar panels before docking. Easy, kerbal-proof takeoffs so long as you don't immediately slam the nose to vertical. Set the pitch to whatever you like for the initial ascent; about 20 to 30° is probably best. Stable enough for hands-off piloting, even under maximum time acceleration. Do keep an eye on it if you do this, though; cut back down to 1x time if it starts to wobble. Pull the nose down and minimise angle of attack once you pass 20,000m in order to build speed. Self-throttling RAPIERs maintain air breathing operation even after the air runs thin. Once they do switch to closed cycle, shut the intakes and engage the Aerospikes. Shut down the engines and point the nose prograde once the apoapsis breaks 70,000m; use the Aerospikes alone to circularise in order to save fuel. 300 x 300 orbit as requested, plenty of gas left in the tanks. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/a05exjy6w9h1jpd/Kerbodyne%20Jackaroo.craft?dl=0 Requires SP+ and KAS (payload only, easily removable). As usual, Kerbpaint optional.

We've got plenty of flying Hypetrains; has anyone managed to land one yet?

Surely you'd prefer an Ekranoplan instead.

I'm guessing that it's stock aero, so I'm not the one to ask. It is a good idea to keep the middle of the cargo bay as close to CoM as possible, though; that way any variations in payload won't upset the balance too much.

That's up to the voters. Personally, however, I'd consider payloads of 5t as "light", 20t as "medium", and "heavy" goes as high as you can manage.

Sorted. Do keep my timezone in mind. <-

A munth?

Our newest all-purpose light cargo spaceplane: the Kerbodyne Dairyman. Going cheap; end-of-update Hypetrain runout sale now on. Sharp and sleek modern aesthetics. Fully-featured, with enough capacity for one large or multiple small satellites or probes (three RCS-powered thermometer probes shown here as a demonstration). Advanced cockpit displays highly suited to IVA flying (full IVA functionality requires RPM; cameras not included on the version presented here). Aerodynamic analyses Exceptional weight balance both wet and dry, centred on the cargo bay to avoid disruption by payload mass. 123 kN of low-G VTOL thrust. Nose Vernors for emergency stall recovery. Aerodynamically sound across the full speed range (data presented for 5° AoA for all speeds up to Mach 6). Blue line equals lift: high is good. Red line equals drag; low is good. Yellow line equals instability/manoeuvrability: <0 (but not by too much) is good. Green line is lift divided by drag; high is good. Smooth handling at a wide range of angles of attack throughout the supersonic range (data shows 0-15° AoA at Mach 3). Line colours on the figure follow the same key as above. While the yellow line is trending downwards with increasing AoA, the plane is self-stabilising in pitch; it will naturally tend to return to level once you stop forcing it to climb or dive. This ability fades as the yellow line inflects up, giving a plane that will hold pitch if no inputs are given. Once it goes positive (above zero, not just trending up) you get active pitch instability: any pitch deviation will naturally tend to increase unless controlled by elevator deflection. Easy takeoffs at moderate speeds (data demonstrates liftoff with <6° AoA at <110m/s, shown in the "level flight" section on the right). Superbly polished aerodynamics even at hypersonic speeds (data portrays Mach 6 stability in slippery high altitude densities). The derivative figures at the bottom are the focus here; green is good, white is adequate, red is bad. Tech Specs: Price: √80,947 Weight: 37.526t wet, 13.626t dry. Part count: 99 Action group key: 1: Toggle RAPIERS 2: Switch RAPIER modes 3: Toggle Aerospikes 4: Toggle intakes 5: Reduce flap deflection 6: Increase flap deflection 7: Engage docking mode 8: Open and illuminate cargo bay 9: Trigger spoilers 10: Toggle Vernors Flight Instructions: * Designed for express, long-range delivery to orbit. * Capable of placing half a dozen satellites into a variety of Munar orbits in a single un-refuelled trip. * Suitable for interplanetary delivery given an orbital refuel. * Takes off easily on air-breathing RAPIER power alone with the flaps set to deflection 2 (as they start by default). Raise flaps immediately post takeoff and keep them up until final landing approach. Use spoilers to control descent rate during landing. * Tailstrike hazard on takeoff easily avoided by sensible piloting. * Designed to be flown with SAS engaged at all times. * Set pitch between 10 and 20 degrees post-takeoff according to personal preference. Either hold that pitch until orbit, or level off and build speed at 20,000m in order to maximise fuel efficiency. * Keep the Vernors toggled off unless needed. Docking RCS is balanced with Vernors off. * Close intakes and activate Aerospikes once the RAPIERs switch to closed cycle. * Use Aerospike propulsion alone once in orbit to maximise fuel efficiency. * For the mod-heavy Wanderfound IVA Custom Special edition, add IVA cameras to the nose (for flight), the service compartment (for docking) and the cargo bay (for satellite deployment). Use Raster Prop Monitor and Hyomoto's MFD to activate the cabin display screens. IVA screen displays combine very nicely with Scansat. Stick a Mechjeb unit in the service compartment for cruise control, flight data and autopilot. Use Kerbal Aviation Lights on nose/tail/wingtips for general visibility, and a couple of flashing beacon lights around the cargo bay, linked to toggle on when the doors open. Find room for a pair of action groups triggering "set trim to inputs" and "clear trim" via the Extended Trim mod. Works very well as a Fine Print satellite deployment ship. Craft file available at https://www.dropbox.com/s/a1f5o3fv3w5w3cc/Kerbodyne%20Dairyman%20CE.craft?dl=0 Requires Spaceplane Plus. Optional paintjob by Kerbpaint.

Epinephrine was designed as an all-rounder. Sirine was running a spaceplane design contest; I asked if the voters were looking for speed, looks, cargo capacity or long range, and the first person to reply to that said "yes". So, I made something fast, pretty and long-ranged that could lift 20t of cargo to orbit. It should do the job for middle-weight cargo delivery to any of the easier planets. You can increase its already-substantial range by refuelling in Low Kerbin Orbit and/or stuffing the cargo bay with fuel tanks (or changing the bays to normal LF/O fuselage sections; you may need to adjust the wing position to compensate for any weight shifting, though). Or you could pack the bay with several satellites or a long-range probe; you can boost your probes' range substantially if you use the Epinephrine to boost it to Kerbin escape velocity before deploying it. Or, if you can be bothered loading the passengers manually, you could also stick a dozen or more command chairs into the cargo bay for passengers. Or just swap the bay entirely for proper passenger pods. Keep the RAPIERs off and rely on the Aerospikes alone once you leave atmosphere; they have better fuel efficiency. Longreach can do KSC -> Minmus Ice Flats -> KSC without a refuel. It can probably do the Mun as well, but that's harder; the higher gravity means you'll probably waste more fuel on the VTOL landing, and good flat landing spots are hard to find. It's a good idea to refuel in LKO if you're planning on landing on the Mun, for peace of mind if nothing else. You don't want to worry about running low on fuel while you're hunting for a landing spot; Neil Armstrong learnt that lesson. The Apollo lander was down to a few seconds spare when it finally touched down. The easiest to fly is Evangelist II, of course, followed by Evangelist II TJ. As for the mission specialists... 1) Anything with an SP+ two-seater cockpit. Kick out the co-pilot before you go, and use his seat for the rescue. Goblin is probably the most fun, and certainly the quickest; de Minimus would be a lot more sensible and cheaper to run, though. Alternately, take one Evangelist II TJ, swap the two rear tanks for an FLT-800, change the turbojet to a RAPIER, stick a probe core in there somewhere and fly it up as an unmanned drone. 2/3/4) Longreach will do fine at any of these jobs, but the one I'd recommend isn't actually here yet: it'd be the newly-designed Kerbodyne Dairyman. I'll post it here in a minute or two. It can do multiple satellite deployments around the Mun or Minmus without a refuel, carry a substantial science payload wherever you feel like, and do Mun/Minmus landings with a LKO refuel. To get the probes out of the cargo hold, just decouple or undock the probe, then RCS the plane downwards for a second. Do it right and it'll come out clean, but even if it doesn't, a bit of bumping usually doesn't hurt them. Glad to hear that you're having fun.