Lechu

Thanks for the F3 tip, I was unaware of it. Why the thermometer, attached to the wing, is not showing wing's actual temperature? Using Big-S delta I was able to exceed 1500 m/s, but only slightly. No explosion, just plane would not go faster. It is pointless then, I was hoping to accelerate to something like 4000 m/s, on air breathers only, before heading out of the atmosphere. Giving out on this goal for now however, and adding more oxidiser instead, I was able to put my first pure (without detachable engines and tanks) SSTO plane into orbit with some decent dv remaining. Success.

Thanks for the answers. You may be right, it may be an explosion. But I do not see the overheating gauge, the way it is shown when the engines overheat. How do I check the wings' temperature? I have just tried to put pre-coolers and large radiators on the wings, no luck, but I guess it is not working that way.

After unlocking Whiplash and Airspike engines I have thought that my "almost able to reach orbit" spaceplanes will get enough oomph. The problem being, when I am reaching the speed about 1500m/s, the wings are just ripped off. No matter how many struts I put there. How to strengthen these wings further?

Indeed. Thanks

The engines do not want to draw the fuel from the orange engines, to which ducts are connected. Why?

The last patch resolved the problem. At lest for me. When I today started Galaxy, I have noticed that KSP is downloading some small upgrade. After loading that old save from rearrangement of Munbase, Jerlong's helmet is no longer exploding. Thanks!

No, in general settings not. Haven't even seen such an option. I did it manually, to several Kerbals, while doing contracts on Kerbin. Maybe I did it to this one as well once, I don't remember.

No, I had not. As of yet, I do not even have Making History and Breaking Ground installed.

Thanks. I will just be careful not to save with Kerbals outside.

The bug tracker thingy is beyond confusing I just spent 10 minutes clicking in this, and could not figure out how to start a new issue...

Come to think about it, I could have removed his helmet while on Kerbin, long ago. I did it to several Kerbals, maybe Jerlong too.

Jerlong Kerman has died. His helmet exploded while on the Mun. Is it a bug or a feature? Whenever I load a save, Jerlong dies. He is the only one of four Kerbals on this site affected. He can go around while wearing the helmet and enter another craft. But once I save and load... boom. The same If I switch to another Kerbal, go away about 200 meters and switch back.

...I said. Well, I have send this thing into suborbital orbit with apoapsis 250 km. It gave me enough time to deploy the satellite and circularise its orbit, then switch to the plane before it hits the atmosphere. Then the wings are ripped off. Literally. I have thought, that these big engines, working with reversed thrust, will let me slow down. No dice. I have a quicksave just before reentry, and the spaceplane gets ripped apart every time, no matter what I do. Now, what is wrong with this plane?

Yeah, it is logical, but in my case no amount of aligning thrust with the CoM would make any difference. On the other hand, once I put a thrust marker of the air breathing engines (with thrust of rockets disabled) behind the CoM, the flipping problem was gone right away.

Great thanks. That was the problem. The (experimental) Vector engine, that was not supposed to be activated on the runway, has been throwing off the center of thrust in build mode. Discounting this engine, the center of thrust was way in front of center of mass and center of lift. I do realize that I'll need to make many tweaks before this plane reaches orbit, but I was unable even to start, without the ability to take off... For now I was able to reach the height of about 30 km, my current aim is to get this plane suborbital, for long enough time to deploy a satellite.

But it is still backfliping. Edit: I have not seen HVP's post. Thanks for the detailed answer, I must to think about it.

But it is also backfliping: I have tried numerous configurations, there must be something fundamental wrong with this plane. I am sitting on this for two days. My first attempt on SSTO, and I cannot even get off.

Why it backflips just after the take off?

Is it supposed to behave like that? I am at the least stage of the travel to Mimus. There is about 3 hours to SOI change point, but it keeps disappearing on me. I burn radial out just a bit, it is there again. I switch to another craft, do something in Kerbin or Mun orbit, return to my Mimus expedition 15 minuts latter, and the SOI change point is no longer there. I burn radial out just a bit, it is there again. Rinse and repeat. When, in desperation, I wrapped three hours, I was, all of the sudden, on the flying by Mimus trajectory, despite the fact it was not showing the SOI change point on the projected orbit, prior to the SOI change. So, the last 5 curse corrections have been unnecessary...

The game is back to normal. I started to think that I remember something wrongly. But there must have been some bug. After the latest patch, this plane cannot exceed 350 m/s again.

No, not that. But I re-checked it, and map view has nothing to do with it. The plane just overall performs much better then the last time I was using it. At least it seems so. I need to look into it further, for now please delete this thread.

I have noticed it just after upgrade to 1.8 version, I don't think it was there before that. The plane barely able to reach the speed up to 350 m/s, after a briefly switching to the map view, is darting at 600 m/s

I have completed the "Explore Mun..." line of quests. My Mun lander have returned, and no main storyline quests were forthcoming. That's the problem. And no. I have not, suspecting that it may lock me out of some missions, have flown to Minmus. No craft have flown further then the Munar orbit. Now I am exploring Mun's biomes, waiting for Minmus storyline missions to kick in. I have accepted several contracts concerning Minmus, and even one about building a base on Dune, but still waiting for main storyline to direct me towards Minmus. What are the conditions of getting the "explore the Minmus" contract?

What are the conditions of getting the "explore the Minmus" contract? I have several contracts about Mimus, to put there satellites and stations, I am postponing them waiting till I get official Mimus go there and "explore the Minmus" mission. I explored the Mun in the great detail... It is getting boring. Is my savefile corrupted?

These big control surfaces were an act of desperation. It did not work anyway. But.... Spot on. Thanks. Cupola Module mounted upside down, in order to facilitate mounting it on the space station. When I reversed it's reaction wheel the rockets become stable. So, I did it to myself