Gman_builder

Still, that makes no sense. I am very confused. Going straight east at any speed would yield 7,500 give or take kilometers from start to finish for one circumnavigation unless you take a ton of detours going north and south. @AetharanThat reminds me, I have some adjustments to make to the rules. Nothing major though don't worry.

I don't know what centrifugal force in lieu of lift means on a plane but as long as it isn't cheating you should be fine. Just fly for as long as possible without cheats.

Here is my entry. It weighs 0.971 tons even with full fuel load. It was built in FAR and has some, uh, strange flight characteristics. It also has a 700 kilometer range. It is completely capable of landing on the other airfield but because of the strange stall profile it tends to come short every time I try to land there. I have however landed successfully at the main runway.

I'm interested

Holy shnizzle

I think Ion engines have low thrust but are extremely useful if you want to get your spacecraft up to very, very high speeds. I escaped the solar system on a single Ion engine. My probe was going 21,000 m/s.

Only one full circumnavigation? That doesn't make sense, unless your using a planet re-scale mod. I'm going to post my own entry to this challenge. I hope this doesn't discourage anybody from taking a go at it. In my "Endurance record plane" I flew 35,000 kilometers over a 43 hour period. That's 6 whole circumnavigations without landing or re-fueling with about an 8th of the tank left to spare.

11 thousand kilometers! That's over double the circumference of the planet!

I was not accusing you of cheating. I was just confused. So if you went that far and still had half a tank of fuel you can go around Kerbin 3 whole times! This is the most promising entry I've seen so far.

I like your enthusiasm, but if I can be completely honest with you... If you showed me this plane with no context I would have a hard time identifying it :|

I see. Is that your official entry? If so, you can enter one more craft.

The circumference of Kerbin is 5,750 kilmeters the long way around, and you say you only did one lap. Yet the total distance covered is over 8,000 kilometers? Hmm...

Wow, this looks really good! Can't imagine the parts though...

Try going higher and making it lighter. You will get much better performance.

Definitely optional bro.

@Cunjo CarlWhat engines does that plane use? They look like wheesleys. And can you post a pic of it without the aerodynamic effects, I cant really see the actual aircraft.

Everyone I also have another thread about aircraft endurance. You can check that out here

@Mjp1050Mechjeb is allowed as it is more of a plugin than a part pack. When I said no mods except plugins I meant any mods that add new engines and structural parts and whatnot. If I can give you a hint to the secret of ridiculous ranges, install FAR. Also, the circumference of Kerbin heading east is 5,750 kilometers. So even if you didn't lose control you wouldn't have made it all the way around and like I said, if MJ doesn't work well, Pilot Assistant is highly recommended.

I updated the KerbalX page Ok gotchya. Well obviously the heat shields and pre-coolers help. Just saying. So if you wanna go as fast as me or faster you need some combo of those 2 things along with rapiers. I wish this game had fluid dynamics so you could literally build your own scramjets and go a lot faster than the stock engines allow. I also had an idea, I wonder if using RSS would help your planes go faster, as the atmosphere is different. Possibly allowing for more thrust and less drag at higher altitudes. I guess we'll have to wait for it to update to find out.

This thread has been empty for almost a month omg

The Aircraft Endurance Challenge This challenge is exactly what it sounds like in the title. A challenge to see who can fly an aircraft the farthest. The challenge will be split up into 2 categories, distance travelled, and flight time. RULES 1. Your aircraft must be completely stock. 2. No cheats. At all. 3. No mods except for FAR and any other plugin you see fit. Like Pilot assistant.(which is highly recommended) 4. Your aircraft must be powered by air breathing engines and it must stay within the atmosphere at all times. 5. It must takeoff and land like a conventional aircraft. 6. Your aircraft may fly at any speed and any altitude below 30k meters, so you don't fly off into space. 7. FAR gives you an estimated range for your plane, but you must actually do the whole flight for it to count as the estimates are not always accurate. 8. You must safely land at the KSC, KSC 2, or Island runway. In my attempt I used Pilot Assistant to keep the plane on course while I did stuff on my other computer. If you are doing a flight that could last several IRL days you don't want to be sitting there at the controls for that long. If you can some how stage a air-to-air refueling when you run out of fuel mid flight, I shall allow it. DISTANCE WINNERS 1. @Van Disaster124,000 kilometers 2. Me: 35,000 km 3. FLIGHT TIME WINNERS 1. @Van Disaster79 Hours 2. Me: 43 Hours 3.

I know this challenge is really old but I just wanted to say that recently I flew a planes 35 thousand kilometers and 43 hours straight. It was 5 days and 1 hour in game time and it took me almost 3 full days IRL to do because lag made it take longer.

So ya, like I said, pre coolers do actually help. Also, radiators create a ton of drag and don't have too much effect on the heat of your craft. So honestly I would just remove all your radiators and replace your furthest forward part of your plane with a heatshield. It causes drag but there is virtually zero heating. @GrenartiaIf it is a missile it violates one of the rules of the challenge. JSYK

That's strange, why?

Ya I was just going through the forum and this was near the top so I clicked on it and decided to add some input. Given the same question is still applicable to 1.1. It's not really dead. But about FAR, I use it because it can give me different speed readout, like mp/h or Mach. Also, it replaces the stock part based drag model with a dynamic one. Meaning triangular shaped aircraft in FAR will have inherently lower drag than the same craft in stock aero. Making it achieve higher speed. I don't count this as cheating because it actually makes the game HARDER in some aspects and makes it more realistic. So a airplane of that design would theoretically work in real life. That's why it is based after the "Aurora."