Hotel26

Stinger was a joint collaboration between swjr-swis and myself that began with my Hornet. As usual, swjr-swis executed the final instalment and the Stinger you're flying is completely his hand-writing. I'm really glad you like it. It is a real handful to fly!

"Love the way you think." I have a base called Capetown just there and for just that reason. And have also experimented with Wheesleys: Spearhead 2 If you post your craft, I would be keen to give it a whirl!

Airport: Lands End (END) Download: Lands End.zip to ./GameData/<your name>/Airports/Lands End.zip and unzip. Body: Kerbin Lat: 8.51S Long: 83.20W Elev: 55m Description: A pleasant jaunt 125km SW down the coast from KSC Notes: Features ocean views at each of the runway! Great Sunday lunch.

And the winning entry would be... Nice job, @swjr-swis, going Mk-1 on this one!

What a classic jet!!? I'd be thrilled if anyone can identify this one (author/title)! It's beautiful -- that's for sure. M1.74 @ 7km

Can we get this (LImpet): into this (Victor IV) with a double-length Mk2 cargo bay?: Yes, we can!!:

Two ships become one. Resources (including kerbals) may be exchanged. (I have my "difficulty level" set at: Fun & Imagination.)

Fascinating direction. There's a simple mod in here somewhere bursting to get out (as a last or simple resort). Pity i don't recall any of the three of us being keen on gratuitous mods, but it might make a lovely experiment. A mod like that could also add the "missing tweakables", principally the things that can only be toggled but not set to a particular state.

I can't throw much light on this, but perhaps a little. Let's say that positive control with a horizontal reference is the most accurate way to control the aircraft including in the hover. I think it is. While hiking up a mountain in Japan, clothed in fog, I witnessed a medivac hovering very precisely, absolutely motionless about 10 meters perhaps over the surface of a track, presumably, just above the trees. I presumed someone had had a heart attack and were being treated and possibly about to be evacuated. The helo hovered for what might have been ten minutes. This is an awfully long time for a pilot to control the hover -- and yet: it was quite obvious that the helo was Parked in autopilot. It didn't move a centimeter from where I could tell, including not in the vertical axis. Due to the fog, I could not see any activity below the helicopter, not even on a ladder that might or might not have been there. So my point is as follows: if you are in a hover, controlling a motion to a target, go ahead and do it and probably a horizontal reference (and standard controls) is a good or the best way to do it. No contest. But if you want as near as you can get to hands-off, divided attention hovering, SAS Radial Out gives you auto-normalization and will hold the hover. You can adjust the descent rate with the throttle. You can 'jink' easily with short taps. And you can get a faster descent with the Falling Leaf technique, all the while dividing the workload with SAS, which will be working tirelessly to bring your craft back into the hover. This works because you don't have precision goals other than to be making some progress toward your target touch-down. The odd man out is only Yaw, with which you will have opposing control. I'm equally at home with both control schemes with the only confusion being "which one I am in" during a transition. 3-2-1-Fly makes the state obvious in the single-push of a button and that has worked really well in my mental workflow. (Lotsa credit to swjr-swis here!) Bottom line is that you are Not Compelled to use Hover [3] if you don't require it or do not choose it. It's always nice to have the option on standby, I do feel. And I will add that I very much save Hover for the real Hover and not the approach to a Hover; I regard it as almost a labor-saving device only. An alternative scheme following the suggestion (don't use a vertical reference) rigidly would just be a subset and I wonder whether eliminating Hover (and usage of one key) would actually simplify the scheme sufficiently to justify the deletion? Especially when you are building VTOL craft for others to use, offering Vref (in a superset) seems wise. As a coda (should have mentioned it above), the ascent during a vertical departure is the perfect example in which Radial Out is absolutely all you require since it's purely a simple climb followed by a flat pivot onto the departure heading. I doubt there is any material disagreement here.

I am intending to standardize my VTOL craft on this scheme and so will document it here. I would be quite happy to hear comments from others and also encourage those aviators who use & recommend other schemes to outline them in this thread as well. 3-2-1-Fly, a VTOL control scheme (adapted from a @swjr-swis concept) Definitions: Vt and Ht engines form two sets, providing vertical and horizontal thrust respectively. Vr and Hr define control references for the vertical and longitudinal axes, respectively. [1] Flight Mode: conventional flight utilizing lift from wings and powered by Ht engines. Vt is inoperative. Hr is selected. [2] Transition Mode: [3] Hover mode: craft is not moving quickly in any direction across the ground but may be ascending, descending or simply keeping station. Only Vt is operative and Vr is selected, most usually with SAS Radial Out assisting the pilot by keeping the hover attitude. [4] Shutdown: all engines on the VTOL vehicle are shutdown. Flight <-> Transition <-> Hover Vertical Departure and Transition to Flight Use [R] to open the hover bays (if any) to prepare for a vertical departure. (Otherwise, your lunch will quickly being to cook...) Select [3] Hover mode to start the Vt engines and select Vr control reference. Activate SAS and engage Radial Out. Spool up the engines to ascend and clear obstacles. Be absolutely sure to tap [F] to clear Radial Out/select SAS Hold slightly depress the nose to commence forward motion quickly tap [2] to engage Transition mode, which will start the Ht engines (keeping Vt operating) and select the Hr control reference. Keep the nose down while airspeed builds. as soon as flying speed is attained, tap [1] to shutdown the Vt engines and ensure the Ht engines are running. you may now close the hover bays, if any, with [R] Transition to Hover: as you approach the landing target, still retaining sufficient forward speed to coast to it, begin the transition with [R} to open the hover bays, if any. tap [2] to engage Transition mode, which will shutdown Ht and engage Vt. You can begin ramping up Vt power to compensate for anticipated decline in wing lift and to maintain the coast (speed) and glide path as desired. tapping [2] repeatedly now toggles Ht on and off as you need it, should you have misjudged your initial approach speed upon entry to the Transition. Hr is still engaged during the transition because KSP control surfaces can react erroneously while Vr is selected and this often leads to fatal consequences when there is significant airflow over those surfaces. only engage Hover mode when the horizontal speed component is much closer to 0 than it is to 30 m/s, which is the speed that true hover control becomes nigh impossible. complete the transition by tapping [3], shutting down Ht, leaving only Vt operating and engaging the Vr. Quickly then select SAS Radial Out. You are now in the hover. Use the [WASD] joystick (with [QR] opposing yaw) to momentarily 'jiggle' the attitude away from the neutral hover attitude to control descent to a spot landing. with roughly TWR=1 Vt operating, use the Falling Leaf technique to hasten and control quicker descent to the ground for a safe landing For anyone who wishes to try this immediately in practice, I think my Hexapen Deluxe machine is currently equipped with 3-2-1-Fly and is an ideal trainer for VTOL. Good luck!

Experimenting with a "passenger terminal". A Mk-3 cabin with a short Mk-3 LF fuselage. Some comms aerials coz... and a ladder for pedestrians. A little harder to see, in the shadows under the airplanes: docking stations.

Airport: Capetown (CAP) Download: Capetown.zip to ./GameData/<your name>/Airports/Capetown.zip and unzip. Body: Kerbin Lat: 0.54N Long: 42.03W Elev: 44m Description: Major, equatorial ASR base 592km downrange of KSC Notes: Air-Sea Rescue and capsule/booster recovery center

Thank you, @JorgeCS. Sometimes you see a post in KerbalX that makes you say, "hey!!" Your K.450 Koleoptere was one of those. And you know that "mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery"... I had actually worked recently on a couple of attempts at a vertical lander for personal transport. Your landing arrangement is perfect for it! So, here is Torque Wrench II:

Yes. Approach the target with good speed to adopt a zoom into the vertical. SAS Radial Out. If you attempt to side thrust too aggressively once in the hover you will lose the vertical. I go into a bit of a free fall because the Panther is virtually instant-on and coz TWR. You can fall at 90 m/s OK[1]; then use boost for a suicide burn to finish the landing quickly. It's easily maneuverable in the hover for a spot landing. The trick is simply going vertical initially -- you need enough kinetic energy to zoom steeply/long enough that you have canceled your horizontal component. [1] that descent speed might have been after my Kerbals cut the annular ring away using oxy-acetylene. After that surgery, it's super-fast. I really like your landing arrangement though. I've built a series of vertical landers and none had such a nice arrangement. I'm about to augment the wings, though, so that the pilot can board without a ladder. I'll show you the result when done. (Hint: it won't look like a coleoptere. The first thing I did was try to put some AoI into that ring. Would probably need to have the control surfaces flat as well, rather than beautifully curved.) I know this screenshot is "off-topic" but it's a super-fast plane (M2.1 @ sea-level (dry) and M2.89 boosted) and my kerbals love it! (To be clear, I did land your original. I'll make a vid if you can't duplicate the technique.)

A fascinating aircraft. I ran it in stock 1.11.2 (no FAR) and it clocked M2.22 @ 7km altitude. Pretty thirsty like that, though. (I guess you meant dry...)

https://kerbalx.com/Hotel26/Hyperkube

More Fun with STOL as Jerke Kerman (pronounced 'Her-kay' por favor) tests a new Hexapen variant. (OK, look, I'll get bored with STOL too, soon enough, OK.)

Too kind! I am revisiting Hexapen to attempt a massive drag reduction program, but check it out. Also my VTOL hangar as these are all V/STOL. And Boojum, which was a step on the way to swjr-swis' magnificent (but as yet, unpublished) Mujoob... Don't be afraid of the JV-6 'Vito' part that Boojum employs: it's merely a config from Snark (and see the original post) and very easy and unobtrusive to install...

Exploring the STOL envelope in the fabulous, yet-to-be-published Mujoob[1]... [1] not my work

I was going to +1-or-even-more your always-humorous entry in Shower Thoughts (although I deeply suspect you are having Shower Thoughts at all times (are you a sauna attendant, perchance? or just the world's cleanest guy?)), but you left me hanging on which were those much-maligned cities, skipped to be polite -- now I can't sleep... Is my city one of THOSE? I could be living knee-deep in filth and not even know!! <Sleepless in <Snipton>>

Playing "tag", a fun game:

I learned something today. "What does 'The Hunt for Red October' have in common with 'Fawlty Towers'?"

Terrain setting on High; Texture Quality on Half Res; but I just set Full Res up to max and no difference here. R9 is only 400m long before it climbs a hill in its third segment. The threshold slopes slightly down until meeting the middle segment which is level. I'm on 1.11.2, of course. Are you flying in 1.3 or 1.11.2? (OK, I will try this in 1.3.1... Oh, boy: that jet 'whistle' makes me nostalgic for 1.3.1.) If this fails to show any difference, I will start a new world... UPDATE: OK, I think it is a bit flatter in 1.11.2.

This is Donsted-Frobrett AFB (DFB). It occupies one whole island. It is 106 km SSW of KSC and has two runways, both short and both grassy. (All you need is a building, right?) Great for a Sunday morning flight or a prototype test flight. Come on down sometime? Donsted R9 7.01S / 82.17W / 84m Frobrett R36 6.99S / 82.11W / 119m

Airport: Kathmandu (KAT) Download: Kathmandu.zip to ./GameData/<your name>/Airports/Kathmandu.zip and unzip. Body: Kerbin Lat: 62.18N Long: 40.91E Elev: 101m Description: Picturesque medium-scale airport on the shores of Mt Keverest. Notes: Connector for Lukla (LUK), at Mt Keverest. Airport: Lukla (LUK) Download: Lukla.zip to ./GameData/<your name>/Airports/Lukla.zip and unzip. Body: Kerbin Lat: 61.63N Long: 46.24E Elev: 6628m Description: Tiny airport with 510m, inclined dirt strip, R10 (with run-off ramp), very near the summit of Mt Keverest. Notes: Very challenging! Beware the density altitude. With a single-engine Juno aircraft, I line up the flags for R10 and maintain 6,615m altitude and 70 m/s speed. Next: don't panic. (Get the touch-down right and don't worry about the end of the runway because every accident is a touch-down bounce rather than a runway end accident. There is a very steep "runaway truck ramp" at the far end.) CAUTION: here is the view of short final at the dirt strip intended for landing: