occar

Thanks! That page keeps freezing the browser tab I try to open it in though and I can't get the download

That's how this challenge works. At the altitudes needed to get the max speed, you'll always be intake limited, so extra jets do no good. You'll see that the fastest entries typically are single jet designs. You're also at sub orbital heights, and control surfaces become less and less important as well. You have the speed to effectively be in orbit as long as you can keep your orientation correct. The ideal design for this is something that goes up, drops all control surfaces and relies on gimballing and torque only, has a single jet, and a bunch of intakes and enough fuel to get to top speed just before running out. I may redo my design to dump the wings and tail when it gets high. I have a newer design that gets to the 2330's, but I haven't redone the documentation yet because the way I do it take a while. I end up getting in orbit and skimming atmosphere, so it takes a few orbits to get to top speed. The only way having a second jet could actually help you is if you managed to stack so many intakes on that you could go full throttle at the top of atmosphere with a single one.

A 2:1 coupler on the back and a single engine would likely make that one go faster. Can I see the craft?

With an apopapsis that low, you aren't going to have much speed. My best runs push the apoapsis out in to the 300KM range. Remember that speed at periapsis is directly related to apoapsis height.

That's neat zarakon.

We get too many "challenges" that are really "please make this ship for me". Maybe there should be a "requests" board.

I bet one of my little separatron sleds would jump the runway longways.

In fact, my pancreas is currently attracting every other pancreas in the universe!

Truthfully, most of the challenges are that way. However, this one is very doable with whatever it takes to get your ship up out of the atmosphere, and then just a single I beam and a good landing. There was a challenge for it already recently, but the forum issue ate it, I think. Not sure why it says "orbit" because really, anything in middle atmosphere is going to be the same exact speed on impact as something deorbited. 130ish m/s is going to be the terminal velocity.

Here is an old one, not made for this challenge. Note that technically, this can be done with just a single I-beam on the pod. It's an easy challenge.

Errr, it takes 10 or less RT10's to get away from the sun is all. See the RT-10 challenge. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/28736-The-RT-10-Challenge! Guy does it with 7 RT10s

Yeah, with not that many of these, you can get out past jool and eeloo in 70-100 days.

No one has come within 60 m/s of that point anyway, so.... My second design monstrosity ended up with nearly the same speed as my first, so I'm not sure. It may not be possible to get much more than in the 2320s with a manned ship, and 2330s with a pod.

I'm actually trying a more sane design that doesn't use quite so many intakes. I don't know if it's feasible though. It has no real wings, other than the wing connector things, and some winglets. I'm letting mechjeb fly it. So far, it has only gotten up to 2232 m/s, so it's not looking good. edit: yup, the only way to do this is as many intakes as possible. doh. new model. It's scary looking, but you have to have a lot of surface area if you aren't part clipping to fit those things on. The thing is the most unstable plane I've managed to get up in the air before... Mechjeb only here.

Exactly why I think it's a neat idea for a challenge. As with Machingbird, we *know* there is a limit. The fun is getting as close as possible to it.

Wow. 62 km.... That's impressive. I was expecting mid 50's. You also have an entry for the maching bird challenge there. (and beat my maching bird ship by 6 m/s!)

I specifically meant choose which version to use based on which version of the module I stick on the ship. I mostly wanted MJ2 for the flame-out protection on the throttle control for some high-altitude jet flying. I still prefer orbital transfers with version 1 though.

This probably wins this. (not mine)

Errr, that would be an apoapsis. Periapsis is the *lowest* point in the orbit, not the highest. You'll see in the example that the apoapsis was 285 km, so, at its highest, that ship was 285 km on jets alone, but the hard part is raising the periapsis. Taking off and going straight up like that gives you a negative periapsis.

Fire is a relative term. The jet is providing something like 0.5kN thrust at that altitude (about like an ion engine) because the throttle is so low.

I'm not sure. I do have a variant of this design that uses two ion engines mounted mid way out the wings and it is trivial to take in to a stable orbit. You just extend the solar panels (which this model doesn't have) and fire up the ion engine each time it rises above 70km altitude. You switch back to jet the few times you dip below 69 km, and bam, orbit. The intakes mounted above and below the wings are because it isn't the most easy thing to correct the attitude of without power, and there are times that I've needed those to get the jet going again.

Since I was playing with the Machingbird Challenge again, I figured I'd make this slightly related challenge. Rules: 1. Stock parts only except for as required below for control or viewing stats. (No propulsion other than air-fed jets!) 2. Mods allowed: Any auto piloting mods like Mechjeb (which also means flame-out assistance is ok) as well as informational (so that we can see your orbit stats) 3. Get in "orbit" (obviously you can't get your periapsis out of the atmosphere because jets require air) 3. Post proof of your highest periapsis. Leaderboard 1. 62.50km - pinolallo 2. 62.00km - Kappa73 Here's an example of 49.28 km periapsis with a jet. It will go higher, but I didn't take pictures. It's a decent starting point though.

Ok, here is the manned "Zoomer" which uses mechjeb to fly (because I was lazy). Actually, it got 1 m/s faster, but I forgot to re-take a picture. Doh. It took almost an hour real time, so I'll concede that 1 m/s and say 2323 m/s. I used this same design in the previous challenge without mechjeb and took it to 2314 m/s, but I didn't have the patience for the crazy throttle control needed to fly this thing again. You can see from the screenshots, it gets in to orbit, and then skims the atmosphere. I think 2324 m/s is pretty much all I can get out of it. Sorry, forgot to take taking off shot, so I relaunched to take a shot.

Well, I looked in to it, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't as long as I only use the parts from one version.

Does the 2.0 version conflict with 1.9.8 at all? That is, can I install both, and choose which to use based on which part I add to my craft? The reason for this, is I still prefer 1.9.8 for simplicity, but want to experiment with 2.0 for some of the newer features.