Fearless Son

Yeah, I am familiar with that one. I have gotten spaceplanes into orbit before, just never one quite this big. I actually remembered a trick that worked once for me before and I am applying it to my new design. I use some standard jet engines balanced across the center of mass and positioned to thrust downward while in forward flight. The extra thrust vector directly against the gravity vector helps the excessive mass lift off the ground. Once I get to higher altitude and greater airspeed where the turbojets can shine, I can deactivate the increasingly ineffective lifting jets. Just got a prototype of this into the air carrying appropriate cargo. Pics to follow.

In this case, I do not think that would be sufficient. A plane does not strictly need to be able to nose-up off the runway at Kerbal Space Center due to the runway being elevated. A plane can simply accelerate off the end of the runway, and if it has enough lift and thrust, can then perform a very gentle climb until it achieves sufficient clearance from the rapidly falling ground to point the nose up as far as it needs to for its ascent profile. With my plane though, it fails to achieve enough lift to even maintain altitude once off the runway. The more I think about it, the more I think I need to redesign the whole thing. I will post more pictures of my next iteration.

Okay, so after posting this last night I went back and did some hand calculations (I use exclusively stock so no mods to do it for me.) Comparing the total wing lift with the total mass tells me that I have less than half the wing I need to lift this much. I think that I shall have to redesign the layout again, if only because adjusting the fuel supply in this Mk3 setup will alter the center of mass too much for my taste. Someone mentioned splitting fuel tanks across the cargo bay forward and back, but my concern is that it will also affect the center of mass too much by draining one side before the other. I think I am going to have to go with fuel tanks on the sides of the cargo bay so that adjusting both cargo payload and fuel weight should not unbalance the craft. Maybe put some Mk2 hulls astride the Mk3 hull. I have experimented with "flying wing" type aircraft before, both as a way of cramming more functional components (such as air intakes in the front and turbojets in the back, I dislike most kinds of air hogging) into an aesthetically pleasing package and doubling-up my wing surface area to provide more lift without making a drastically bigger plane, but so far I have not noticed any gain in lift (and in fact most of my planes with that kind of design seem to have much less lift than the sum of the parts lift rating would suggest.) Can anyone elucidate me on the mechanics of making "fat" wings by carefully arranging structural wings together?

Salutations Kerbalnauts, Long time player, first time poster. Since the .90 update, I have been struggling to make an effective heavy cargo spaceplane for delivering large components to orbit in a cost-effective manner. These components are intended to be attached together into more complex structures, such as space stations or larger interplanetary vessels. I have certainly proven I can build effective spaceplanes that can reach low and mid-Kerbin orbits (almost but not quite as far as Mun in one of my models) but only for the lightest of spaceplanes. Building ones that are as heavy as I need this to be has proven much more challenging. Not the least of which is simply getting off the ground. So far, every design I have attempted (and this is only the latest of many) has trouble even getting off the runway. I try to build them with large amounts of wing surface area to give them a lot of lift, but no amount of lift ever seems enough, the speed caps out around 70 M/s by the time I hit the end of the runway on only its turbojets, and only a little more than that if I burn the rockets early to give it just that little extra thrust. Even after getting off the runway, I tend to sink just slightly faster than the ground falls away beneath me toward the shore. Let me illustrate with a few pictures: Above is the side view of my current design. I have included the center of mass, center of lift, and center of thrust indicators for reference. This view of it from above underscores just how much wing I try to put on this thing, though it seems to never be enough. View from below this time, with the cargo bay doors open so you can see the "ballast" I put in here to test the center of mass with a load onboard. My goal is to be able to transport an entire orange fuel container into orbit. It is the volume and mass of it that is more important to my design goals than the amount of fuel itself, since this is not necessarily a tanker, just something that can convey a similar size and mass to this. View from the front, shielded docking port for utility's sake. You can also see that there are sixteen conical air intakes on this thing to ensure plenty of airflow for the engines. And of course the reason for all those intakes being the six radially-mounted turbojet engines on the back, though I fear that may not be enough. Nestled between them is a quad of aerospike engines for atmospheric escape and orbital maneuvering. Detail on the intakes. I angled the ones hanging under the wing slightly downward, because I know a spaceplane of this mass flying at high altitude will likely have some serious incline and I want to ensure my air intake remains relatively efficient during that stage of the flight. And finally, detail on the landing gear. Note the two pairs of landing gear positioned just behind the center of mass. Both are equally level and adjacent to spread the weight of the plane across them so that they do not end up breaking me just by the weight of the plane pushing down. There is also a single landing gear nestled among the engines which actually hangs off the ground while on the airstrip, but the wheel extends just slightly past the radius of the engine cowling to ensure it does not scrape across the ground while taking off or landing. Any advice on how I can get a beast like this actually in the air? I mean, I know smaller and simpler is better, but in this case the size is part of the point. I have seen pictures from other people who have constructed absurdly massive spaceplanes that against all common sense make it to other worlds (very Kerbal) but I would be content just to get this into equatorial orbit and back down again.