Nuclear_Hamster

On a side note, i wish to congratulate the KSP team for their amazing work with the recent graphical updates. Phoenix One. You look stunning.

Thanks for these comments. Each craft only took about an hour to produce, once I had finalised and finished the Phoenix MK I overall chassis. The Mk I took on and off a week to design, tinker, master, change and fiddle with before is was happy. The whole point of this VTOL was to prove that such things as a stable stock aircraft do exist. So long as you use small corrections, it works a charm. I've even managed to land it on the Spaceplane Hangar, on top of the invisible block that surrounds it. It will easily transfer to normal powered flight too, and back again if you right click the engines to activate/deactivate them. And yes, I do have a bit of a beastly machine. I do forget that others might not find it as easy to control with lower FPS's. If I publish any more craft, I will try to make them easier for others to get into the air. Patch Update Unfortunately, the recent 1.7 patching has rendered the Phoenix One unable to get into Orbit. It will manage the height, but that's it. A Shame, since I spent so long tinkering with it. Judgng by how much it lags already, I doubt that the Phoenix's will manage to safely Orbit in the traditional mannerisms. It is not in their style to be broken for the purpose of space. Perhaps the next series will be more willing to shed their parts! Also, the Phoenix Fighter. Yes it is a Fighter. I know its large, but in comparison to the size of the other aircraft, its a marvel. I also find it a joy to fly. Goodbye for now.

Ok. As it stands currently, Phoenix One will travel to a geostationary orbit on a little over half tanks. Does it need space for a detachable module? Do you want the module integrated? I will have a tinker and see what I can manage. My Design inspiration for this Series was the Russian Tupolev Series, mostly the TU-22 and the TU-160's. Making it go to space was just a one up . But i will try. One problem I know I face already is the amount of lift -required- will substantially decrease on the way back down.... but like I said I shall tinker.

Removing the upper rocket tanks will severely impact its overall range in space. I would try putting them in a different position, but it did take a very long time to balance it out for stable space worthy flight. I'm wondering if future planets will have atmospheres which the engines could breathe. If they do, this Spacecraft would be perfect for them.

Good evening. I have recently launched a thread about my general input into the Kerbal Space Program, and from the feedback i received, I have decided it would be unfair to let you chaps wait any longer to try these out. The blog can be found Here If you are somewhat interested in how my development started. Ok, I shall now present: The Phoenix Series. Phoenix Mk I This is where it all Began. This Core chassis is extremely stable, and I found it such an easy craft to fly. Instructions: It's take-off speed is about 80m/s. Run it to the full length of the runway at 110m/s for a clean take-off. Moderate difficulty take-off. Phoenix Mk II This was a successful cast-off from the former craft. I was experimenting with wing designs, especially tail fins to see how well it change its performance. The one I show you now is specifically tuned for stable low flight manoeuvres. If left with a nose up pitch using SAS, it will cruise at around 4-5,000m Instructions: The Tail gives extra lift and also a lower clearance at the rear. Be extra careful during take-off. Nose up towards the end of the runway and hold the pitch. Keep the nose up pressure along the runway for easier Yaw movement. Phoenix VTOL This design, I like very much. It's my first VTOL and its quite effective. I have already balanced it out, so there is no need for fine tuning. It has a capability to Fly perfectly well Horizontally too, at a fast pace. Instructions: Spool up the engines to about 66% and it Should have lift at around 70% on full tanks. Activating the next stage triggers the main engines. Deactivate and reactivate the hovering engines at a good horizontal pace to avoid crashing. Oh, and Sloooow movements whilst hovering. Never put the aircraft further than the gimbal range (about 5 degrees). Phoenix Fighter This fighter is Fast, and manoeuvrable. It also has drop tanks for extended range. Its by far the most fun to fly around because of its Nimble nature. The engines were designed close together so it had a better Turning circle. Instructions: Its an easy one to take off. Drop tanks can be released on second stage, either on the runway or in the air. They fall with parachutes. Fighter will automatically draw from the drop tanks first. Fully loaded, fly at 10,000m. Drop tanks lost, it's the usual 15/16. When turning keep the Roll angle level with the turn to avoid loosing control - Exactly like a normal fighter. Avoid sharp turns with the drop tanks - they aren't there for that. If you handle it good, it will fly even better. Phoenix One This. This is the flagship. With this, I went from the Surface of kerbin, to a 4k orbit of the mun, to a 5k slingshot around mimnus and then back to land on the runway - all in one trip with 8 Tanks of Jet fuel to spare. Its designed so that the rockets do not eat the Jet fuel too! Instructions: take-off, lift nose at 70m/s. Rear wheels act as trolleys behind main undercarriage. Try not to put all the weight of the aircraft on them, they are only there to prevent damage. Be careful pitching up too much after take-off. It was designed for easy re-entry, which has made climbing almost impossible without the SAS. Activate rockets at about 9000m. Keep the pitch at around 60 degrees. Never boost in space whilst rotating. Ensure you have no rotation and lined up for re-entry and -use the stage to drop the rocket boosters-. Should be fine with that because they are the usual rules of space flight >.< I hope you Enjoy these. They took a great deal of work to produce, and I would appreciate Feedback! ~ Nukey

"KSC, This is Phoenix One - Reporting In"

Evening, Again. Tonight I decided to branch the Phoenix Series off with a Fighter Class. Its A long range interceptor, build for distance, but to fight with speed and manoeuvrability. Most aircraft will excel in two of those areas, but lack in all three or are classed as average. So how do you create a fighter capable of all three? In essence - Drop pods. This fighter contains 8 Extra tanks of fuel under each wing that can be dropped in the next stage, and sent back to earth with a chute to be recovered again and re-used. The pods will happily let the aircraft cruise, but only efficiently at 10,000m. After they have dropped its a quick climb back up to 15,000 feet to fly at the full 450m/s. But it will struggle to keep its height, due to its small wing surface area. All these negatives are more than made up for, as you drop the fuel tanks before the Arctic Ice, and dive down above the mountains, screaming at 600m/s. It will hold its own path wherever you point it, feeling very twitchy. But that's a side effect for its manoeuvrability, especially considering its its size. A 90 degree bank into a turn and it can hold an attitude of 60 degrees off gyro. By keeping the wings level with the turn and it will perform a tight turn at the surface near anywhere starting 300m/s, but it circles best around 175m/s. The placement of the landing gear means a fiddly landing, but I wanted to keep it Fighter-like in the landing gear too. As a little note, I will be realising the Craft files as a set once i'm satisfied the Phoenix class has been finished! Enjoy

Good evening, I will start by saying I was expecting to be back here in a week. However, adapting the Phoenix for VTOL didn't take hardly as long as I thought. A mere 10 minutes. Surprisingly. However, I did find it extremely laggy. It dropped all the way down to about 5 Frames per second, even on my meaty machine, and activating the main engines made it impossible for the secondaries to be reactivated after the Frame rate dropped further. However, i did manage a few shots. And I cannot tell you how unbelievably stable this thing really is. Enjoy!

Thank you for the hint about the spoilers, Updated posts. I'll not be adding any craft files just yet. I'd like to build any reputation first before dishing out the goods, so to speak. This first Vtol has inspired me to try and make a another MK of Phoenix with Vertical take off and landing capabilities. I'll come back here in about a week or so and update you with what I've been doing. Who knows, I might even adapt the Titan for it, if the Government let me in that is

Well, Since you asked so kindly, I've made this just for you, zapy97. Just spent the past hour tinkering and came up with this. I must say its quite stable all things considered, however I do admit its a bit wobbly if you're trying to take a pretty picture. I do apologise since the tail touched the ground as I landed. I aimed for the other side of the lake to proove it was a hovering landing. Still, I included it because it shows how controlled it is - it didn't blow up.

Good afternoon everybody. Or Morning. Or even good night. I have decided that i have reached a level that I would class as being pretty advanced. This has lead me to believe i should do a little showcase on my designs, from beginning to end. You will see how my creative skills have progressed. To help with this, I already have a good knowledge of rocket science, aerodynamics, physics and engineering in general. This game doesn't strictly adhere to most rules, but at the same time keeps the most fundamental ones! This is why I find it good fun. I am also a Pilot in the real world, so have a decent sense of aircraft design and handling. This does help! Anyway, enough from me. Enjoy. This is the first presentable rocket I had ever made, ignoring test rockets. To my surprise it worked first time. I'm much more interested in the Spaceplanes personally, so you will see a lot of bias towards them. This is the first Spaceplane i made. Very basic. This one is the first High-flying air breathing space-plane I made Due to it being unbalanced, it evolved into this. I remember seeing the tail of that last design and wondering how close to a Concorde I could make a spaceplane. This was made. the tanks on top were added afterwards to increase its endurance; I wanted to see it fly to the North pole. They turned out to make it very stable in flight. ...Mission completed. By now I had a very good grasp of the building editor. All of these contraptions above had been created without the use of holding Shift during the editor! It was a massive realisation and you will now see a huge increase in the standard of design I could create! Low wings, High wings, Swept wings, Delta wings... Endless possibilities! But before i move on, to decent design, I had not yet mastered a "Space. Plane." A Horizontally launching aircraft capable of reaching space. This was the first one to manage it. It didn't reach orbit and I couldn't understand why it kept falling apart on the runway if I tried to make it bigger. But it got to space! This one got a bit higher And Higher still! With a bit of pride for finally getting a stable space worthy spaceplane launched, i decided to knock getting it into orbit on the head. Instead, I had discovered speed! I had seen all of those pictures of engine bricks on here, and well before any of you say anything. No. Just no. That's not a plane. You shall only see (relatively) Intelligent design shown on this thread. So without further adieu, I present to you the speed demons. A Few things happened next. Updates. Minmus. Those were all conquered without much real change to my existing rocket. But then this happened. Some of you will stare at that and think "Oh. Its a plane." Others may well see a different picture, and notice my observations. I saw that wing flex. Now look at how much weight it is carrying. Thus began the next stage. Building the titans!! This was my first 'large' creation! However it was interrupted with the new KSP Update including EVA! So you shall see a few of the shots, playing around with that in the next bit too. Now i wanted to go back to my Spaceplanes. But i wanted another try at making a 'Space. Plane' again, but one that could orbit. And hell, one that would land back on the runway again too! This one managed it. It was tweaked so many times to get it balanced with the burn to space. But it paid off. New update meant I had lost my spaceplanes! I had no footing from my previous designs to look back on either. No worries for me though! Lets start with the biggest thing we can think of right? This, my fellow kerbinauts, Is currently my price and joy of spaceplane creation. It can reach anywhere on Kerbin. It will climb to the 16,000m Mark and sustain it with only a 10 degree angle of attack and not even the need to adjust the pitch! Its perfectly balanced and as the fuel drains, it becomes lighter and amazing to handle, and easier to land. There are Several variants, but these three are my favourites. During Testing, Bob decided to fly the first flight. Now refined, and with a new pilot selected... Phoenix MKI Phoenix MKIII Now this one. The Phoenix MK VII, codenamed 'Titan'. This has proven to be too much for my computer to handle. I have only managed to get it spawned and moving along the runway. But the framerate is just too low for control. But i am proud of its prowess That is all I currently have that is worth showing. If this becomes popular, I might even be willing to explain some designs, why they work, and even do some tutorials. More importantly, I hope you have enjoyed it. Goodbye, for now.

Aha, a thread that finally meets my type of building criteria! Now, I'm not one for weird design types. Masses of engines? No. Random shaped wings? No. I like my Aircraft to look like... aircraft. My True Submission: (There are currently about 9 or 10 different variations of this model dotted around different oceanic Islands around Kerbin. This MK III slightly larger than the rest of my Phoenix Classes, but it doesn't have the best cruise altitude. Here it is. this model in particular will reach the other side of the planet, and it is the most stable because of the tail formation, especially in landings.) Landed here As an added bonus, i tried to create this. Now this aircraft I think would work. Why? Because its exactly the same weight to lift ratio as the previous. Why can't I get it airborne? 1 FPS. But enjoy it anyway, I've created it so i may as well share it!

When more power was Needed, Power was Acquired and Power was Approved. Also. HELLO STRANGE GRAVESTONE...

This is how it went... Enjoy! Brake testing Lift-off! Head North Climb to 14,000m Fun over the Mountains Solar Glare... Birds Eye View Ice Ahoy! Starting the Decent Touchdown Best Sunset... Ever Erm. Now to refuel...?

Konkorde MkII

Behold, after finding the right site for post, the Kerbal Konkorde...