Iskierka

That is going to depend what aspect of drag you want; what are you trying to do?

Any chance that neat thing\'s going to come out some time? (Before anyone accuses me of necro the post with the glider is less than two weeks old.)

Perhaps it would\'ve been taken less seriously, had you replied to things like a fairly major point of giving the US a huge inherent advantage in the launch vehicles chosen, which are having their -entire- service history compared.

A) The ISS is primarily US and Russia anyway. Spaceflight time is man-hours. Summed duration of space time for each human in the nation. A space station is not human. C) The number of parts in the shuttle is absurd, compared to just about any launch vehicle before or since, experimental or otherwise, so that wouldn\'t win you much. (Though, I\'m really uncertain what exactly you\'re arguing.) D) With less than 20 launches, there are quite large error margins in Saturn V\'s success rate. E) There are more than enough American companies who openly admit Russia did a better job in many places, particularly RP-1 motors, but also in other areas. Engineering important, yes, and Russia can at least match the US.

I saw your post. Your post that compared the shuttle (1981) with Soyuz (1966) and all other R7-derived (1957) rockets, thereby including all Russia\'s early failures, while allowing NASA to exclude early failures and gain fifteen to twenty-four years of technological advancement before they started clocking up flight time. Perhaps you didn\'t see my post: no-one is providing anything that can be considered a valid comparison. And fewer Russians have died, despite having 2000 more hours of spaceflight. How about America\'s, too? That point was only to say that Russia -can- get to Mars, this problem would\'ve been capable of hitting anyone. I don\'t favour Russian rockets any more than US. (At least, no more than their better aesthetic qualities warrant. Both are impressive technologically, but with Russia doing simple and effective, where NASA have the top-notch but consequently slightly iffy equipment) You, however, are clearly biased in favour of US rockets. Or, at the very least, hugely in favour of the shuttle. If I favoured anyone, it would be UK. It\'s just slightly problematic that until Skylon gets off the ground, so to speak, we have few rockets and few launches, all historical, though those we had were decent for their short testing lifetimes. Damn NASA, offering 'free' then going 'nope, full price.'

And what I was saying is that this design will be horribly inefficient compared with just sticking a turbine behind a rocket combustion chamber. Which will also be lighter, simpler, and more reliable.

You -do- realise that Russia were first impact and first soft landing on Mars, right? Less than a month behind America\'s record of first orbiter, so they\'re not far apart in capability. Phobos-Grunt also isn\'t a Russian rocket. It\'s Russian, but it\'s a probe, the rocket itself worked fine. Sure, details, but this is about people favouring the Soyuz and such, not PG. It\'s not as though Russians are the only ones screwing up either. After all, what was that other thing we were talking about? Oh, right. Hubble. And while yes, public perception is important, prior to 2002 Soyuz had a long string of flawless launches (or nearly flawless, at least: no major failures). That, plus being cheaper, would generally be a good indication of its quality. 2011 has simply been an unlucky year for Russia.

If you wanted to use spare fuel for power, you\'d just burn it and blow it through a small turbine, like an aircraft\'s APU or an adaptation of the turbopump mechanism in rocket motors. Spinning some large external part would be horribly inefficient and pointless.

And with the cost of the shuttle, it\'s very possible that it would\'ve been cheaper to replace the Hubble than upgrade it. And it\'s continually pointed out how reliable each is, but no-one seems to be noting the relative costs. I also note how those favouring America are focussing on the shuttle, a manned vehicle, and comparing it against the unmanned Soyuz. Logically, Soyuz should be compared to one of the USA\'s unmanned launchers. Oh, wait, those are known to fail, aren\'t they? Point is, a manned vehicle has 'does not explode' as a much, much higher priority, since the insurance can\'t quite properly cover people. And, NASA has a much bigger budget to check a badly designed vehicle for flaws before launching, helping their reliability numbers by just using lots more money. The comparison is quite unfair, to say the least. I\'ll give another point about manned safety anyway: Russians have almost 2,000 days more spaceflight than the US, and fewer Russians have been lost. That statistic should speak for itself about safety rates.

IL-2 is good, X-plane is very good for realism but the combat support is bare-minimum. (guns and missiles work, but their effect is limited to disabling. Official statement is that it\'s a system to just put in some sort of competition, rather than to accurately represent combat) DCS is also very good for both flight and combat, though you\'re limited to just the one aircraft, and you will need to use tutorials unless you happen to fly the aircraft in question.

The first in what should hopefully be numerous 'officially' classed aircraft, the MA-01: And, to my knowledge (and that of the few who were on IRC at the time of asking), the first effective taildragger. The gear configuration gives it quite nice landing, and very nice takeoff characteristics, though it is quite touchy coming down. (With two-plate gear, the wings will not forgive any bank. With actual gear instead, the rear mounting tanks explode quite dramatically.) I\'ll probably download the water skids to test their effectiveness. While it means sacrificing the lower wings, and possibly an elevator or two, that much gear supporting it results in quite nice water characteristics. Sits neatly with pod clear out of the water, and -would- be able to takeoff again ...

By that simplest definition of indie, Skyrim was indie. Developed in-house, published in-house. Fits the bill. And I fully expect to get lots of 'bbbut-' replies to this. Minecraft can just barely be called indie now, at best. I\'d agree with Sordid that TB or the Yogscast would have better luck, but I suspect in its current state KSP would get buried among their collection of games that they didn\'t want to actually put up a video about. Plus, the servers are struggling enough to provide updates and forums as it is, it seems, so if either of them -did- post a positive review, with the tens to hundreds of thousands of views any video they post gets ... Yeah.

Yeah, don\'t send a massively incomplete game to any reviewer, at all. Best-case scenario realistically is he doesn\'t post about it.

Except if you\'ve ever paid attention to that g-meter through odd manoeuvres, you\'d know it\'s a far from reliable measure of ... anything, really.

Wrong, it\'s both easy, and basically impossible, because there\'s no way to confirm. Having engines off in atmosphere is not weightlessness; lift from wings and drag from everything apply force to the aircraft, which applies force to the occupants. Thus, it is not a zero-g environment. This challenge could not be completed within the atmosphere ... and everyone who has left the atmosphere has achieved this anyway. Also, shush, zero-g does not imply an absence of gravity. Zero-g means the apparent body force experienced by anyone or anything in that situation is zero g\'s.

I think the intention is more for it to fly like a rocket, than a plane. That said, might want to check on the legal status of that model, even if it\'s only for a mod.

Have and are building several. But none have yet managed useful energy output, and at most one or two have managed anything that can be considered sustained. I\'m going to go with Nova, though useful fusion would be nice too.

The problem with this challenge is actually performing a flight that is zero-g, with no way to measure. Also the fact that it\'s something basically any aircraft can perform.

I\'m not one for image macros, but if I had that beard, \'stache, and smoked, that would be my reaction exactly.

Suggestion: how about actually showing some models?

A) C7 would make it easier. His challenge is to demonstrate full range of motion. IE; hover at every possible (or near enough for proof) angle. Not simply to fly on RCS alone.

Like I said, the problem is knowing where; I already have a boost tank + engine which gets me as far as I want plus an extra 150-200 m/s start. But those aren\'t useful in passing condition #2 unless I know where those need to take me to. Snaps from the last, experimental run (Warning, quite a few images): I\'m quite entertained by the speeds in those two. Last definitely over KSC. Probably still over KSC Mission stats said this was extremely close to burnout. Might still be over KSC, but no way of confirming, unless someone wants to make a VTOL, try get the exact same location, and verify. Not fast enough for a run anyway, needs more design tweaks. In for landing Close ... Bam. Off go the wings. (In the distance, just visible.) Yeeaaaaah. I did try snap earlier stages, but I mis-set mode on my joystick and failed to take. EDIT: scratch comment about forum refusing post. Very abruptly the problem has resolved itself, despite persisting previously for more than 18 hours.

Perhaps; the problem is that my runs can cover twenty or thirty kilometres, which is just a -tad-* more than KSC\'s greatest dimension. * Traditional British understatement, for those who may not realise.

I\'m just using C7, and stock for the decoupler. Awesome for water landings though, that means an extra 0.2 off drag coeff, very helpful.

RCS burned out completely in the speed run. Can\'t say precisely what the touchdown speed was, but it was somewhere between 30 and 40 m/s; it could\'ve gone slower, but there wasn\'t enough control authority to keep it airborne until more speed was lost, so the lower wings of the X were lost. (The rules don\'t require a 100% clean touchdown as I recall) Just as an extra, the pad configuration: Yep, just one boost tank. That thing will actually take it quite a ways from KSC, if flown efficiently; just need to figure out WHERE to take it to for a proper run with peak speed over KSC.