MunGazer

So, I've been holding myself to a high standard for the ironman competition. I won't submit it until it reaches my definition of "level flight" at a target altitude. My definition of the aforementioned in this context is 0 m/s vertical speed (slight oscillation of 5 meters of altitude up and meters down for a margin of error/buffer) and ​the ability to maintain that altitude (definitely no extremely long flat lofts to squeeze out extra altitude in a long, flat arc. This, in my opinion, is no better than a ballistic trajectory) and consistent airspeed (continuous deceleration would indicate a simple "momentum plateau", where you loft up, hold pitch to maintain, but your thrust can't overtake your drag for consistent airspeed ... so if you're continuously accelerating that's fine) for at least 60 seconds. Any opinions on this standard or something like it for ironman? I just think it would show the true virtue and airworthiness of any submitted crafts and reward the best engineer rather than the best slight of hand. Not saying the submissions so far have been slight of hand, I just think it would be a great thing to add to the competition.

Well, I placed a thermometer on a crazy fast vertically launched rocket, right on the angled face of a size adapter exposed to the high pressure air, and it only went up to about 299° (Kevin?) from the 283° (Kevin?) or so that it started at while sitting still on the launch pad. It reached 299° (Kevin?) before exploding due to overheating. I was reading somewhere else that they use a unit called Kevin as opposed to Kelvin, I guess a fictional temperature scale. And it seems as though the slight increase in temperature might have been just from proximity to the part, but a 6% increase in temperature most certainly shouldn't be right for that slanted surface of a size adapter that exploded from overheating before anything else on the rocket. So, assuming that it is a fictional temperature scale and that it can't be used to measure the actual temperature of the part itself, I wonder if maybe I could make a mod that will display a list of the heat of all your parts in real time during flight. That'd be cool. I'm figuring it would be no more of an exploit than, say, the flight engineer mod which simply displays numerical data about the craft. I know how to code a little bit but I've never made any mods. Of course, any attempt at displaying real time part temps in a competition run - I'd only do that with Slashy's approval.

Yeah 263 didn't seem right to me either. iirc I had placed it on the bottom of a shock cone intake which was at the front of my craft. I remember thinking oh well maybe that's just the part's temperature for some reason. I was sitting still on the runway. So I thought I'll punch the throttle and see if the displayed temp changes beyond supersonic when i see flames everywhere. "iirc" it didn't. Anyway, seriously second guessing myself now and will definitely investigate that further as soon as I get home from work.

Good info there Angus. Yeah I remember reading something about the "hot and high" conditions of Afghanistan making things tougher for helicopters. Also, that's something I didn't think of - the trade off involving drag, lift and thrust. Probably should try running the same craft at high noon and midnight to see which yields better results. I really hope what you said about the thermometers giving temperature readings for the part they're on is true in ksp 1.0. I briefly slapped one on the nose of a craft and if I recall correctly it said 263 degrees and stayed at that temp as I shot the craft off the runway and burned up supersonic. At that point, I had given up on it and decided the thermometer only gives me the ambient air temp and doesn't give me the part temp. Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong. Anyway, it would work in real life how you said. Regardless, it's really cool having you in this thread since you're going to school for something that requires knowledge in aerospace science.

pffffffffffffffffffff. This from the new physics thread: • Night time air is less dense than day time air. Planes may be able to go Supersonic at night and perhaps not during the day. No wonder all these pitch black midnight runs where you can barely see anything in the screen shots. "Oh I don't know why I did that" bahaha. Sure. Too funny. Anyway isn't that backwards? Shouldn't squad have made warmer air less dense where your speed runs have better odds during they day?

Thanks for the answers/advice it's greatly appreciated. I can't speak with a lot of authority in response to your question, but yes today I did get a glimpse of an asymmetrical flameout. I had more than one rapier mounted, but when I originally mounted them, I was not using symmetry mode. So as I edged up to a particular altitude slowly (about 10 m/s vertical speed), there suddenly wasn't enough total intake air to operate the engines. So one of the four shut down but the other 3 kept running. This was at about 26 km altitude. So in fumbling with that I eventually became quite unstable. I wonder if there is a way to tie the engines together so that if one shuts off, they all do. At least that way you could just coast until you regrouped instead of having to re do things.

I've been having a blast (often literally) experimenting with different prototypes and I feel as though I've found "the one", but right at that minute, alas, I had to leave for work >.< . In the meantime I thought it would be good to ask some technical questions relevant to the engineering of crafts specifically for the Kollier Trophy. 1. Does the angle of airflow relative to the front of an air intake of any kind affect its efficiency with regard to how much air it is able to capture for the engine? If so, I may angle them down a few degrees to better process air at high altitudes where there is precious little oxygen. 2. Does having objects "in front" of an air intake interfere with its air capturing capacity? By in front, I mean in such a way that the physical structure of the intake is at least partially shielded from drag as opposed to hitting fresh, unbroken air. 3. Is there any way to monitor the heat of external craft surfaces during flight? This would be valuable for slowly approaching temperature limits or knowing which parts are getting too hot. 4. Is there indeed some kind of Shockwave effect in the aerodynamics of ksp 1.0 for supersonic aircraft? Can a part that isn't directly behind another one, but slightly off to the side and to the rear be partially protected simply by being within the shock cone of, for instance, the nose of the craft? 5. What specific factors affect the heat of parts? I assume, at a minimum, the following: airspeed, angle of incidence with respect to the part in question, total surface area of the part exposed to the airstream. Is there anything I'm missing, or are any of those assumptions inaccurate? That's all I have for now. Thanks in advance as I'm sure the knowledge will help out all the engineering efforts. - - - Updated - - - I get the impression that some of us thought that it was ok to have parts explode or break off after​ achieving a record in flight and pressing F3 for example to capture the airspeed and/or altitude for the record, but I also get the impression that is not allowed for official submissions. It is a clarification that many may want to have for both the iron man and non-iron man events. "During the run" and "during the flight" may get misinterpreted. Slashy?

Wow nice work. I think now is that aha moment where I understand the new aerodynamics system better - specifically with regard to shock waves and high speed atmospheric flight. Hey Lesbiotic, that black magic you were speaking of.... perhaps the shock wave created by the front of your craft is what distinguishes it from the others and allowed it to hit 1900 m/s and not blow apart vs the 1600 m/s of the other ones. This is the great thing about this competition from slashy, we can all learn so many things from it.

Excellent altitude, although I think that might be sort of a new category since you've got virtually 0 intake air - I can only assume your engine has been shut down for quite some time at that point 36km and it may be more like the apex of a ballistic trajectory than "level flight". However I could be wrong and ultimately Slashy will dictate lol. Aside from that, if your airspeed is peaking at 280 m/s, you may be able to do away with the heat shield ablator altogether. I'd think your craft could sustain significantly higher speeds at any altitude without overheating, but maybe that ablator is making your craft more stable somehow for all I know lol.

Hey, not sure if you intentionally had oxidizer on board or not, but if you removed the 220 oxidizer from that bicoupler and had only liquidfuel in it, that would reduce your craft's mass by about 1.1 tons, which might be roughly 9% of your overall mass at 12k kilograms. There are so many different types of "tons" (short ton, long ton, metric ton (I would hope that kerbal uses metric tons, metric is the truth and the way)) so no exact figures there from me but you get the idea. I realize it could be you're aware of that and you're just showing that you didn't use any of the oxidizer on board but so far no one has had to present much proof so I'd say don't worry about it and see if you can maybe hit an even better altitude.

Wow you hit 1900 m/s plus at less than 500 meters above sea level without exploding/overheating? That's crazy. Is there any reason you did it at night, does that help with the temperatures? lol

Lol that looks awesome. It looks like Jebediah can climb in and out of that compartment too!

Can we make our craft unmanned and controlled by a probe core such as the OKTO2?