hoioh

Fair is fair, off the back of an aircraft is harder, so I've built one to match the size of my STS: Test flight tonight!

You're right @Ozelui the point of the mission is to do a test without using any kind of thrust on the shuttle, dry or not. So even during landing the little engine puff to drop the nose is too much thrust. And the separation, cool though it may look, should be performed without the boosters or any kind of thrust on the shuttle. that's why I dropped mine instead of lifting it off the back of the plane, makes for a much easier ride what with my shuttle being enormous (again). I don't know why I could manage to get back to my plane after landing, but it might be some mods interfering with KSP letting go of planes in atmospheric flight, it's close, but manageable with a little help from mechjeb to keep the plane under control while I pilot the shuttle myself.

So, official mission 1T flown as well now, took a couple tries to manage to also land the carrier plane. It's a bit unorthodox, but it works, instead of strapping the shuttle to a plane I strapped a plane to the shuttle:

Not the actual mission yet, still have to build myself a nice plane to lift this thing to 7km. I was thinking building something more Virgin Galactic style, rather than a Boeing 747 kind of thing. I like those better and have some experience flying them in KSP I'm going for a 5 meter cargo hold like my previous shuttles, so to make it work proper with the STS design I've scaled up the cockpit to match, so that's a 5 meter MK3 cockpit in case you're wondering why the engines look so small As you can see by the rough handling Jeb still was a bit on the drunk side for this flight, but he sobered up as we got close to landing (I need to use the kill-rotation switch on mechjeb instead of SAS, because that causes me to jiggle on the roll uncontrollably every time)

yay! new missions! Champange bottle has been opened, by means of christening the new mission, however the rope was too short and Bill hit Jeb in the face with the bottle instead... Jeb is now very drunkenly stumbling around with a black eye. We hope he'll be sober enough to fly a mission tonight, if not, Bill has some more building tweaking and testing to do, so it might not be safe for Jeb to fly anything tonight anyways

since when?

I did still correct the direction and everything by hand, basically SMARTASS is just a very advanced stability assist @Box of Stardust I take my hat of for you sir! that is impressive! I couldn't manage with anything over 42t at launch

@zolotiyeruki not sure if this is completely within the rules, but there was nothing in there about using SMARTASS for piloting, which was pretty much the only way to pilot this 40t+ behemoth to the island airstrip. It's up to you to include it or not. (I did manage 40 friggin' tons though!) Album of the nerve wrecking trip: https://imgur.com/a/98BZX

I'm guessing that would get you disqualified in a heartbeat

That's clearly a mk1 cabin and holds 8 people according to the rules, so upsaling passenger cabins offers negative bonus. I would say that scaling (up or down) of passenger cabins is out of the question in all cases.

(At the risk of flooding the thread with entries, this will be my final entry for the forseeable future, any updates will be put on Kerbal-X, please look there for latest versions of craft) Skaled Komposites presents: the Aqua Twin Whether you want to take a whole medium sized company to an otherwise unreachable seaside resort, or want to evacuate a small island before an incoming hurricane, or because you just want to have fun splashing something big at the local lake, the Aqua Twin has you covered! Whith landing speeds as low as 30m/s (a near vertical drop into the water) no lake is too small to put this baby down in. Taking off requires a little more space, but by utilizing the built in flap system properly you can take off from a pretty small patch of water as well at about 60m/s. The twin goliaths output enough power to fly at almost 300m/s at an altitude of 6250m, pitch 0, so you will get to your destination quick. The tail mounted engines and rear luggage compartment keep the noise behind you for a very smooth ride on this luxury airliner with ample window space. By mounting the engines high they keep dry and that results in a bit of an awkward looking tail fin which doubles as a rudder in the water, killing 2 birds with 1 stone, as they say. Proper use of the flap system will also prevent tailstrike during landing and take-off runs significantly reducing the length of the run as well as pushing up hard to gain altitude as quickly as possible. She can do loops, but we don't recommend doing so during the in flight luch, or when the fasten sealbelt sign is off. Controls: 1 = short fap 2 = main flap All other controls as expected To take off (from any surface): Activate the main flaps by pressing 2, set to full throttle and activate the engines. Wait to reach 60m/s before pulling back on the stick. Once in the air press 2 again to disengage the main flap. Angle to 30 degree pitch at any desired heading up to about 5000m then gently level off to 0 pitch while the plane reaches it's cruising altitude and speed. To land on water: Shut down the engines, activate all flaps (1 and 2) and pitch down to reach a low cruising altitude at reasonable speed. Level out the plane and play with the flaps to maintain a speed of about 80m/s for stable, level flight untill you've found a body of water to land in. Get close to the water and activate the brakes, pitch up a bit to maintain your height above the water and gradually get closer to it as your speed drops to about 30m/s when you finally hit the water and come to a halt. Disengage brakes, use the engines and yaw control to boat to shore (if you want to come out of the water, don't forget to extend the landing gear!) To land on land: Shut down engines, activate all flaps and pitch down to reach a low cruising altitude at reasonable speed. Level out the plane and play with the flaps to maintain above 80m/s speed for stable, level flight while lining up with the runway. Drop the gear, get close to the runway and activate the brakes. Maintain below 6m/s downward speed and gently touch down on the runway. You should be able to do this at nearly level pitch, contrary to the water landing procedure where you will be pitching up to further reduce speed. You should come to a swift stop on the runway. Skaled Komposites Aqua Twin specifications: Type: large waterplane Price: Ѵ81,518,000 Passenger count: 96 + Holliday hideout + cargo bays Part count: 38 + 2 engines Fuel: 2119 Kallons Cruising altitude: 6250m Speed: 296m/s Fuel use: 0.44 K/s Range: 1425km KPPM: 0.0155 Craft file link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hnv1mis4s1ihx2s/Skaled Komposites Aqua Twin.zip?dl=0 More pictures https://imgur.com/a/OQ95o I'm working on putting up the complete repertoire on Kerbal-X but I can only upload 10 craft every couple of hours or so. Link to there is in my signature.

Skaled Komposites presents: the upgraded Ski-Kull With all the advances in technology and the new experience by our design team we've decided that the Ski-Kull waterplane, which previously did not receive such glowing remarks required an update! https://imgur.com/a/WLASe Fly to your holliday destination in style! The new Ski-Kull sports sturdyer wings that also double as a fuel tank radically extending the range and even making it suitable for polar trips where refueling at the destination is not possible. As a standard we recommend fueling to about 800 kallons for a range of 2500km, but this can be extended to beyond 4000 when all tanks are fully fueled. If you want some luggage space we recommend not fueling the rear tank and using that as luggage room instead. The new specifications for the Ski-Kull: Price: 31,748,000 (includes 800 kallons of fuel) 31,103,000 (dry) Fuel: 800 Kallons (up to 1860 Kallons) Cruising Speed: 122m/s Cruising Altitude: 6,000m+ Fuel Burn Rate: 0.034 Kallons/sec (using the autopilot system to set the specific 0 degree pitch) Range: 2,500km+ (depending on fuel, can be extended up to 4000km+) Passengers: 16 Part count: 34 KPPM: 0.0289 Link to craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3y0de8s2l3rx991/Ski-Kull upgraded.zip?dl=0 We hope your test pilots enjoy this version better! (by the way, the remark about the old fashioned look was a surprise to us! This aircraft is modelled to resembled the latest creation of Burt Rutan no less! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_SkiGull )

How does 1104 sound? It's actualy in the stats and the name (latter goed for all planes I've submitted), third row from the bottom. I fully agree that one should mention the passenger count on any plane, some of these planes mix different cabin sizes, or pop a mk1 in a tiny spot somewhere where you can't see it in the provided pictures, etc. There's 4 hulls, each is 11 size2 cabins long and then there's 2 extra in the front on the bottom fuselage: 4*11*24+2*24 = 1104

Tried to build something that resembles a B2: Doesn't need control surfaces, but it's got a little sideslip, so you have to angle it a little bit, especially at lower altitudes and speeds, but once she gets going and gains a bit of altitude the problems go away. I even managed to land her on rough terrain. Remaining images: https://imgur.com/a/dhtGy

Pretty hard, this! Made it with 31.356t to the island runway though! Flying this thing is the easy bit, followed by take off and the hardest bit is definitely landing: https://imgur.com/a/oQegW Oh and don't shut down the engine! you'll lose power quickly!

Skaled Komposites presents: the gigantor 1104r Having booked some noticeable successes with the previous series we at Skaled Komposites decided that we could go bigger and since we had not yet entered anything into the super jumbo cathegory we might try our hand at it and see what we can come up with. The result, not surprisingly is quite a nible super jumbo with a lot of window space. The engines have traditionally been removed from the cabins quite a bit to prevent the 12 goliath engines from messing with the pleasure of cruising at high altitude in what can only be described as a cruise ship. Entrances have been created in the front and back of the plane and most of the fuel is accounted for in the absolutely massive wing structure (the rest is flung underneath the economy seats at the bottom). Directly behind the cockpit ample first class seating has been installed and the remainder of the passenger cabins can be split into 3 classes of their own: economy at the bottom (no views) mid class seating in the mid-deck, which has been made extra wide so there is good room for movig around, as well as the option to have entertainment in the middle aisle, or extra seating for those companies that want to provide nothing other than a "schoolbus to destination" experience. The top deck can be used for either more first class seating, providing the best views, or can be used as a regular+ class with some extra leg room for example. The gigantor 1104r sports the following statistics: Price: 737,256,000 (includes a full load of fuel) 680,616,000 (dry) Fuel: 70,800 Kallons (there is some overcapacity in the cabin roofs which is deemed unsafe for use, do not fill.) Cruising Speed: 222m/s Cruising Altitude: 5,000m+ (cruising below this altitude and speed is not recommended and will void range warranty) Fuel Burn Rate: 2.78 Kallons/sec (using the autopilot system to set the specific 3 degree angle Range: 5,750km+ (depending on angle of pitch changing the altitude and speed, slower and higher = fly further) Passengers: 1104 (loaded and unloaded through the front and back of the plane through 3 different exits on either side) Part count: 225 (please make sure all parts have been counted prior to take-off!) KPPM: 0.0183 All control surfacea have their own purpose by design, please do not tamper with the settings before you've flown her. Control setup: 1 = Front flaps 2 = Rear flaps + droop nose 3 = Thrust reverser (not always required, but handy for shorter runways or landing on rough terrain) All other controls as expected To take off please take note of the following: The flaps that control the pitch up behaviour on the nose should be activated as well as the brakes prior to engine ignition. Set throttle to full, ignite engines and wait for spool up. Once the plane starts to move faster than 5m/s release the brakes Use gentle nudges to make sure the Gigantor goes down the runway straight (it's big, don't hit the SPH on your way out!) When a speed of 70m/s is reached pull back on the controls, release the front flaps (1) and you will find she stabilizes all of a sudden She should take off anywhere between 80 and 90 m/s Choose your direction and pitch up to 15 degrees until you reach about 4000m - 4500m Change the pitch to 5 degrees and wait for the plane to reach desired cruise altitude, then pitch down until vertical velocity = 0 In flight: The Gigantor 1104r is, as previously mentioned, pretty nimble, so go easy on the controls unless you are avoiding an in air collision. To turn, simply bank the plane and use yaw and pitch control to turn the plane. It is not recommended to turn without banking though you can turn the plane around mid flight with relative ease this will not improve the flight distance, so only change course when you really need to. To land please be aware of: When approaching the runway shut down the engines and activate all flaps, the plane will now have a tendency to pitch up and slow down Pitch down aggressively and aim quite a bit ahead of the runway When a suitably low altitude has been reached level out the plane so that vertical velocity is low, at this time you should pretty much be level with the runway and flying at about 100 m/s towards is, you will be losing speed fast at this point and will need to keep pitching up further as you approach. You should hit the runway at a speed below 90m/s, but it's possible as low as 60m/s with a vertical velocity below 5m/s Once you've hit the runway apply the brakes hard and if required use reverse thrust to come to a quick halt We know the Gigantor is not the cheapest plane in it's group, we at Skaled Komposites bet it's the best handling one you've tried though! Link to more pictures: https://imgur.com/a/3v1xC Link to craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3p7ggp9rkaat6r5/Skaled Komposites Gigantor 1104.zip?dl=0 (includes all pictures)

There's actualy more to it than that, I chose to make the first transfer so that I would immediately get the correct orbital inclination, but every shuttle launched after that one would need to be launched with the mun at the same relative position in order to be able to get into the same orbit this way. So instead I opted to go for an equatorial orbit which would guarantee the same inclination change every time without the risk of having to do a 180 degree inclination change in the event I would end up in a reverse polar orbit. + I didn't want to launch just 1 shuttle per month, or all of them one after the other (possible, but stressful and tedious)

I'ts subjective, but if you're using it to make a plane look better, or function better on your computer that's perfectly fine. If you're using it to exploit characteristics of parts to achieve an insane range for example, that would be frowned upon. But it's all up to the judges in the end and they will simply tell you if they disagree with your use of tweakscale and ask you to improve your design, which is just as much fun as building it in the first place!

@Lisias I've accounted for your argument already, but you might have missed it

You are mad! Genious, possibly evil, but definitely mad!

I was thinking the same thing: =B3/370*250 for the engine maintenance calculation has more influence than any other adjustment I tried to make I would also suggest to reduce the lifetime number of flights by half for supersonic planes because all that maintenance takes a lot of time

doesn't actualy make sense either because it factors out the lifetime of the craft out of the final calculation... Replaced it with this: =((B10^B14)*B13*B3+B39)*10 But had to multiply by 10 to achieve a realistic number... Added this in for the fuel cost difference to award additional range: =IF(B21/B37>2,IF(B21/B37>3, 0.65,0.7),0.8)

A second option to make the cruising speed a LOT more influential resulting in radically more maintenance cost for supersonic engines vs subsonic engines: =(B10^B14)*B13*B3*B12/1000+10*B39 Don't rightly know about that, I do know a concorde required so much maintenance it was VERY expensive to fly and the speed also reduced it's lifetime number of fights significantly requiring maintenance after each and every flight. Which is opposed to say, a 747, which cruises subsonic and doesn't require the same maintenance schedule and is therefore far cheaper to fly. There's a very good reason just about all passenger jets cruise at speeds close to, but not exceeding the sound barrier: it's more fuel efficient and it's a lot less dangerous requiring less rigourous maintenance. this might make more sense: =(B10^B14)*B13*B3*B12/1000+B39*B12/1000

For the engine maintenance cost formula, this produces good results: =((B10^B14)*B13+B39)*B3 Factors in the cruise speed and the flight time in realistic proportions by using one as a multiplier and the other as an addition to balance the weight of speed versus flight time

(Thanks for the changes to those cells, I couldn't stop looking at it )