Wanderfound

More new-parts small-ship high-G fun:

This is fairly close to the auto-warp features of Mechjeb...which I use regularly. So, yes, good idea.

These parts are cool enough that I set up a new KSP install with minimal mods just to make room for it. One possible glitch, though; it looks like the speed/thrust curve of the SCIMITAR engine isn't quite right for FAR. Normal jet-mode RAPIERs completely lose power at about 1,700m/s in FAR; the SCIMITARs were still pushing at 2,000m/s and beyond, allowing me to easily get a large ship to a 70kmAp/30kmPe without burning any oxidiser. This is more than a bit overpowered. Otherwise, awesome cool.

Kerbal Flight Data: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80842-Plugin-0-25-Kerbal-Flight-Data-%28Release-14-29-11-2014%29 Should be stock; spread the word.

BTW: I did a long-range test today. If refuelled after launch in LKO, the Cacafeugo with no drop tanks has enough juice to reach Duna, but not enough to land. So, one or two drop tanks should do for a one-way trip, perhaps half a dozen for a return trip. Also: notice the ventral stabilisers on the Infusion Corsair? Not decorative. Neither is the anhedral on the main wings.

More like this, I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbervogel

Late to the party, but: Do a named quicksave (alt-F5) with yourself about 20km from the runway. Try to have it as close as you can manage to lined up, at about 500m altitude and 120m/s speed with minimal engines on minimal throttle. From there, it's only a minute or so to landing, so you can quickly fly half a dozen practice runs in succession by quickloading. Grab yourself Kerbal Flight Indicators. This is a small, elegant and efficient mod that projects the navball indicators into the main view in a non-intrusive way (easy to toggle on and off, too). All you need to do is put the prograde marker just past the nearest end of the runway and keep it there as you come in, keeping your sink rate below 10m/s at impact. If you watch the prograde marker while you do your final approach manoeuvres, you'll get a really clear look at the effects of the controls on the trajectory of the ship. Shallower approach = easier to control sink rate. Lined up correctly earlier = easier to land with wings level and no sideslip. A little post-landing steering correction is better than a last second banking turn or rudder stomp. Then it's just brake brake brake and steer as gently as possible to keep it on the runway.

Taking my new spaceplane for a spin. Having fun dodging mountains. A little bit too close on that one. Didn't we use to have a tail?

Kerbal Flight Data: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80842-Plugin-0-25-Kerbal-Flight-Data-%28Release-14-29-11-2014%29 Should be stock; spread the word.

Want an over-the-top aerobatic sportsplane that can also carry a useful amount of cargo to orbit? Want something that can get back down from orbit at express pace? The new Kerbodyne Infusion Corsair. Sporty with a quadruple zoom. Short album at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Kerbodyne%2025/Kerbodyne%20Infusion%20Corsair/story Square-to-line-of-flight wingtips make good mounting points for drop tanks or military toys. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/o6dy1k4dzcixkeh/Kerbodyne%20Infusion%20Corsair.craft?dl=0

Tried that, broke the wings off...

Stock parts, definitely not stock aero. However you wanna call it is fine.

PS: I've updated my entry post with some more details.

This has got me thinking about categories...how many airframes do I have? There's the Skua family, the Velociraptor/Wedgetail/Migration line, the Cicada/Locust shape, the De Minimus, the Scapa, the Evangelist and its half-dozen cousins, the Benchmark derivatives, and the beefy Dropbear/Brutus type stuff. Did I miss any?

It's actually more of a Wedgetail ...which was originally a modified Velociraptor. But you can see the influence of the Skua family in the dihedral wingtips. You might also notice a strong family resemblance amongst the VTOLs... All of the best design is evolutionary. Darwin and Newton were right. Most of what I put up is multipurpose, and the payloads are just there as an example of possibilities. And some of the craft are designed to illustrate a technique as much as for their own right. Need a tanker? Flood the cargo bay. Want long range? Stick an LV-N or some CoM-aligned droptanks on. VTOL? Vernors or cargo bays, depending on gravity. Etc. I'd have no objection at all if people started posting home-tuned versions of my stuff here. Especially if it's JPEG and nicely Kerbpainted.

PS: I'll update my entry post with some more details. If I'd known you were timing it, I wouldn't have left them sitting in LKO for half a year.

Yup, which is why I'd include rearranged ships as single-stage. And give a conditional pass to refuelled stuff.

One for the probe fans (now that is a sentence to be careful with out of context)...the Kerbodyne Farseer. Extend your reach to the farthest corners of the Kerbol system. A sleek and high performance medium cargo ship with exceptional aerodynamic finesse: As well as a substantial and long-ranged scientific payload: Short album at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Kerbodyne%2025/Kerbodyne%20Farseer/story with flight instructions. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/x53y29cnsa2sl1l/Kerbodyne%20%20Farseer.craft?dl=0

I admire what you're doing, but it's also a demonstration of why I usually don't. Setting up a ship to fly without active stability management requires a lot of fiddly tuning. SAS and PID tuning is less elegant, but a lot faster and simpler. Just set and forget.

All nice; looks to be still working well. Doesn't need any trimming by the looks of it either; neutral control inputs. How stable is it when you go hands-on and start manoeuvring?

It's the same basic principles as using the smaller parts, just bigger. Build something that looks like a real aircraft and it should fly; learn how to use the FAR analysis screens and it will fly well. There's a couple of tutorial posts at the start of the thread that cover design basics.

See the circle on the front wall of the cargo bay? That's 2.5m. No idea about Tweakscale, I don't use it.

Just made a potentially nice jumbo cargo hauler with the MkIV parts (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/101699-0-25-Mark-IV-Spaceplane-System-%282-5m-aircraft-fuselage%29) but my game reliably craps itself once I try to launch the ship. Poot.

BTW, on the poll: none of the above. Single stage = no littering.

With all of the SSTwherevers...I can do them (actually there are some here already), but actually getting them there requires piloting and space navigation as much as design. And if it can go to Laythe, it can usually go to just about anywhere else as well. But I'm thinking what I might do is take one of my existing designs and do another step-by-step to show how it can be modified into a longer range version and taken to unusual places. Kinda like what I did with http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Challenges/SSTYC/story That's basically just the Skua/Endeavour/Explorer/Simplicio airframe (Investigator is another relative, albeit with widened lateral tanks) with the LV-N centre drive option, double-length lateral tanks and most of the cargo bays replaced with fuel tanks. A Duna or Laythe landing sounds like fun for the demo, though. Only problem is that those long missions inevitably involve half a dozen game crashes for me... -- A lot of what's here is highly modular; altering the weight balance requires a touch of tuning, but that's usually just a matter of sliding the lateral tanks and wings forwards or back a bit. I've got in the works a deep-space probe launcher that is basically a Wedgetail XXV with the central tanks replaced with a cargo bay stuffed full of long range probes. This is also a design tip: when you build yourself a good airframe, make the most of it. Stretch it and tweak it into as many variations as you can. You don't need to build a ship that can do everything; you just need a framework that can be filled with whatever is required for the job at hand. As well as giving you a bunch of nifty spacecraft, doing this also teaches you a lot about how minor changes can affect a design. -- Another thought: have many of you done much low-G (Mun, Minmus etc) spaceplane landing? How easy are you finding it? Would a tutorial on that be worthwhile?