Emilio

Just to let you know - you already posted this 16 pages ago.

A challenge I had been thinking about was a cold war type supersonic bomber/cruise missile carrier, like the Tu-22M, Tu-160, Avro Vulcan, H-P Victor, F111. I think it could be challenging because it would require high speeds at very low altitudes, long range capabilities, carrying heavy and high-drag payloads (the Tu-22 carried its missiles externally), and still a certain level of maneuverability for ease of terrain following and the occasional SAM avoidance. Scoring could include an actual test with a target and SAMs from BD armoury.

And that's exactly what I'm struggling with. The thing is, I'm not sure there are any aircraft IRL that can keep supercruising with additional tanks- unless you count conformal fuel tanks, but those aren't meant to be dropped. In other news, sixth attempt and still no success... I might be taking a small break . TWR is still impossible to meet, I need to find the turbojet's best performance area.

I've started working on a new yet to be named design. I managed to lower its wave drag area to about .65, and it's now able to supercruise at M2.4 @10000m, and go past M2 on afterburner at 3000m (further than M3-4 and it tends to rip itself apart). Fuel tanks are quite straightforward and I have plenty of fuel to spare in the internal tanks - range is excellent. Right now TWR is the problem - it tends to exceed 2 in horizontal flight but I have been unable to test in the vertical because it seems to have lost pitch authority over the course of its versions - Pulling GS and sometimes taking off can be quite difficult. I'll try bringing the CoL and CoG closer together. By the way, any recommended values for mass/strength and deflection angle on control surfaces ?

Ok, I admit, this is harder than I had expected. I thought I needed to go ultralight to reach the required supercruise and TWR specs, so I found a body design that seemed good and went trough three wing designs to try to find an optimal configuration, which seemed to be a delta wing with a couple degrees of dihedral. After a few hours of design and flight, testing shows that the TWR rarely reaches > 1:1, the supercruise ability is barely functional even without drop tanks and it tends to be unstable in roll while the stability dérivatives indicate it shouldn't. Also I started designing before I actually installed BD Armoury, so the bay is too small for anything but the Hydra pods and some cannon ammo. Back to the drawing board, I guess ! Luckily not all was lost, a slightly modified variant with leading edge slats showed some degree of supermanoeuverability.

This is definitely an interesting challenge. After a couple of failed airframes I'm wondering if going single engine and very light weight could be a viable option, the thing I'm the most worried about is getting a 1:1 TWR. Also, I assume the G requirement is here to measure manoeuvrability ? Because in that case, wouldn't it make more sense to measure roll and turn rate ?

That is a cleverly made crane ! And I like those station modules, well done ! Rep+ I'm thinking the station could do with some sort of sensor arm/science array though, for looks/functionality.

Great job on the update ! Just a quick question before I reinstall - I've seen people talking about a texture conversion. Is Active Texture Management still required ?

An F-16 replica with a working UCP ? Amazing !

Ah, I understand better. Moving parts are fine, the problem is that the cross section has to increase smoothly for supersonic flight, is that right ?

If it turns like a potato then it's a real MiG-31 Wasn't the airframe limited to 3.5G ? Good job on the replica !

Well, I don't see why - What causes instability here is a sudden variation. If the gear is fixed there's no reason to be any variation. Of course, with the added drag you'll have trouble reaching high mach.

Aircraft finally feel like they're flying, and not swimming in the souposphere. The new thermal dynamics are also quite good, I remember that on one flight, while coasting towards the Mun, my ascent stage that was on a roughly similar trajectory got exposed to sunlight for too long and exploded - that scared the hell out of me, but when I understood what had happened I thought, good job Squad ! @panzer1b Why the negativity ? Just report the bug in the appropriate section.

Upgrade your tracking station early on - the first upgrade will allow you to see the patched comics and use maneuver nodes. You're going to need that if you want to go father than LKO. I'm quite early in the career and managed a couple of unmanned Mun orbits. That small "Spark" engine is ridiculously good. As far as manned landing goes, I'm thinking a single-stage lander and a three stage rocket should be plenty enough - I'm just waiting to get to the fuel technology tech node to attempt that.

You could try having a very light one-stage lander that also servers as your return stage, since the Mum's escape velocity is quite low. When building Apollo-type missions you really have to watch your fuel/dV as maneuvers can be very fuel-intensive, I'm thinking phases like orbital rendez vous. I wouldn't consider that cheating - Even if NASA didn't have powerful computers early on, all that info was still available, except the calculations had to be done by hand. Also I should warn that because of the aerodynamic changes in 1.0 the dV charts probably aren't accurate anymore, at least concerning taking off/landing on planets with atmosphere (interplanetary transfers should still be fine).