Wanderfound

Fly faster?

Something to get the LKO category started: Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/sjvnu8r7vzfu5wy/Kerbus.craft?dl=0 Ticket cost of √53.73 per kerbal

Yup, hence semi-SSTM.

The scoring system is based on price: low is good. Bonus points would need to be reversed, but as they are they'll still dominate the scoring. -√50 for landing near an Easter egg. Price is likely to be √200/kerbal or so. Looks fun once tweaked, though.

Low tech semi-SSTM Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ha864hb7iidm8o/Minmus Panther C%2B.craft?dl=0 Requires a bit of piloting precision for maximum fuel efficiency, but could do Minmus even if flown a bit roughly.

Try this version: Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ha864hb7iidm8o/Minmus Panther C%2B.craft?dl=0 Requires a bit of piloting precision for maximum fuel efficiency, but could do Minmus even if flown a bit roughly. Flight cost is up to 7,000 due to the droptanks, though.

1,000m/s in the tanks when it lands on Minmus, and more than enough TWR for the Mun (especially if you save a little oxidiser for emergency landing boost). Land just uphill of a biome boundary and you can roll over for a second science grab. PITA to reenter without cooking the Science Jr, though. I worked out the reentry handling issue, BTW; the rudder was still set to influence roll and pitch.

Dres from Duna:

About 2,000 credits to fill the tanks. Two biomes on Minmus are easy, three are possible if you push it. One is probably as many as you'll get on the Mun. Reentry is tricky; that Science Jr really isn't built for anything but a low orbit aerobrake. Swap the Sci Jr for an inline docking port (or put a shielded port on the nose), add some drag chutes and refuel it in orbit and it'd make a good Duna ship. It might be worth putting the Sci Jr and the contents of the service bay into an inline fairing.

Demonstrating possibilities: Panthers are much better suited to this sort of thing than trying to lift cargo, though.

Craft at https://www.dropbox.com/s/zvxr4sfacamxgb1/Minmus Panther C.craft?dl=0 To be honest, it's a touch flippy on reentry. Move the wings back a bit if you want to use it.

Docking port underneath, matching port on the floor of the cargo bay, aircraft gear to lift the wheels over the port. Or you can use a nose mounted port, but those are tricky to get at just the right height. You have to account for suspension compression under gravity loads. Nose-mounted rovers also have a tendency to sag during flight.

As a datapoint: I was messing around with this yesterday, and the Panther/Nuke/Spark combo is working well. I'm getting about 2,500m/s ΔV in LKO from an easy-to-fly design with four Sparks, one Panther and one Nuke. Nuke on the centreline, Panther mounted above it. The Panther's gimballing ability lets you get away with quite a lot of thrust offset. If you allow a few 0.625m drop tanks, you could probably push that to 3,500m/s or more.

I was figuring range by dividing m/s speed in level flight by fuel consumption to get metres per unit of fuel, then multiplying that by fuel capacity. How would you prefer range to be figured?

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/xh5b9lz5hrcs1sq/Seatourist Safety.craft?dl=0

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/xh5b9lz5hrcs1sq/Seatourist Safety.craft?dl=0 That's a heavy class entry (2 pilots, 2 flight crew, 48 passengers) with points for: No tailstrike 20 No SAS or trim 30 Can fly on two of three engines 5 Airbrakes 10 Water landing 20 Amphibious Seaplane 30 Immediate landing 10 Can fly on any two engines ? No malus (there's a fuel cell hidden in the nose, put some oxidiser in the tail tank if you want to use it) Not sure what you mean by stall; about 60m/s is the lowest sustained level flight speed, but it can drop well below that while descending without falling out of the sky Base score is 631 + (3966/10) + ((48*5)*2) + 125 + ? Score of 1,632 if I've got it right

Sure: https://www.dropbox.com/s/anrsimfrzf40sor/Kerbotruck PFC.craft?dl=0 Action groups 1 to toggle engines, 2 for engine mode, 3 to set elevators and canards to climb. Spoilers linked to brakes. As demonstrated, it can struggle up with 70 ton, but it'll be a lot happier if you keep it to 50 or less. You can afford to drop two engines if you do that, too. If you make a similar ship with the cargo bay replaced with fuel tanks, you've got a good tanker. Use the two in combination and you can fling a payload up to escape velocity with the cargo ship before aerobraking it back down to KSC.

Seventy tons of payload in a fifty ton aircraft: Different flight styles, similar abilities.

One for the SSTO spaceplane category: Score is 68,000/191,925 x 100 for 35.43, plus 20, plus 10 for the runway landing, for a total score of 65.43 Mechjeb is installed, but was not used

A race for amphibious seaplanes; test your speed over land, sea and through the air. 1) Drop a marker buoy at the western end of the runway. 2) Take off, fly ten kilometres east. 3) Land in the water, still ten kilometres from the buoy. Screenshot of your ship stationary in the water with the F4 marker showing the buoy more than ten kilometres away. 4) Sail back to land; stay in contact with the water the whole way. No flying. 5) Drive on land (again, no flying) back to within ten metres of the marker buoy (again, stationary screenshot with F4 showing) at the western end of the runway. Stock parts only, liquid fuel only, all craft must have a proper aircraft cockpit with a Kerbal in it (no probe cores, capsules, lander cans or command chairs), no reaction wheels and torque must be disabled in cockpits. No physics-altering mods (1); Wheaton's Law applies. Fastest time wins. Demo run: 5 minutes 24 seconds. Not terribly fast, but it's just a demo. (1) Except FAR; separate stock/FAR leaderboards if we have sufficient entries.

This is not the thread for SSTO seaplanes; that one is at But we could use a thread for non-spacegoing just-plain-seaplanes too, so this is it. Does it fly on wings, splash down and take off again from the water? Post it here. For starters: Mid-tech science explorer aerobatic flying boat. Nothing higher tech than the Panther. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uvzg7jokxi9l3z/Oceanographer.craft?dl=0

Kerbodyne Oceanographer Mid-tech science explorer aerobatic flying boat. Nothing higher tech than the Panther. Give it a try; I'm quite pleased with this one. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uvzg7jokxi9l3z/Oceanographer.craft?dl=0

A very old design: http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne Showroom/Sabotage/story

Using the AoA settings for auto-slats in FAR is very effective.