fowlplaychiken

Hey guys: Theoretically I think a free return should be possible (albeit slow). Has anyone calculated the kerbal --> Mun --> Minmus --> Kerbal free return trajectory? Or even just the Kerbal --> Mun --> Minmus trajectory to slingshot to Minmus from the mun? It should save fuel and would be fun, besides, and I know it *should* be possible. I suck at math however ><

Works fine. Hopefully it will catch on and people will actually come on and talk shop :-D haha

Logging on now! I am pumped :-D

bawk! So, I searched but did not see anything on the forums about this; has anyone considered launching a community teamspeak or ventrillo server? We seem to have a large, dedicated and active community; I am sure many of us would enjoy talking little green men and explosions with fellow players. Sadly I can not host one. More or less wondering if this interests people and if so, if anyone wants to host it? :-D -FPC

I am almost certain that your lander legs just are not long enough. Also, the default lander legs are pretty flimsy and can break under heavy craft I think? I use modified ones with a 250 impact tolerance.

I hesitate to create anything in the hanger due to the symmetry bug, but fuel lines should be safe. Will give it a go.

I am unsure; the COG seems fine. I suspect it has something to do with my fuel cross-feed; I can not seem to get the lines to work properly for the life of me. The tanks are emptying in an odd order, and the center one is empting before the two outer nacelles (despite trying between 1 and a dozen fuel lines all leading from the outer nacelles to the center column) I think the strange fuel distribution is causing the imbalance. I went full-bingo fuel and without a drop in the bucket it glided fine (until I hit about 32G\'s(!) on a steep decent and had to eject, at least!) Epic aerobraking fail. haha Bawk! -FPC

Bawk! Hello gents. So, heres the issue: My spaceplane is perfectly balanced and flys great atmospherically and in space. However, on return, it seems to be extremely rear-heavy due to being bingo on fuel. I am unable to make a powered landing; the moment I take off the ASAS, my nose lurches skyward due to the unbalanced weight. How does one design a spaceplane that is stable when both full and empty? any suggestions? Image of my spaceplane attached, although I am unsure it will be any help.

I have found that landing on Kerbal is easy enough, but landing on Minmus or the Moon 'airplane-style' is extremely difficult. I optimized my plane for VTOL takeoff/landing (but gave it the option of normal takeoff and landing, which is does fine) because I found that landings without atmosphere were best done the same way as rockets- Backwards with counterthrust. I imagine you can land the normal airplane way with heavy RCS thruster use, but it is just not worth the effort. I usually land backward and then tilt the nose forward last minute to land on my wheels; or just land it like a rocket ship on the landing legs I put on back.

My best spaceplane is the X-15 Starfighter I. While a few minor parts I use are not stock, they can easily be replaced with uglier stock parts with no performance loss. It is a Kerbalized combination of the hypersonic X-15 and the supersonic F-104 Starfighter, borrowing the best design elements for each based on the relative usefulness of each at the speeds my craft will be traveling. The end result is perfectly balanced and easily flyable; it can also take off and land horizontally or vertically. Finally, it can take off, fly to the Mun, fly to Minmus, return to Kerbal, and land at the KSP. I also gave it a 'spartan crew compartment' from the Kosmos station kit; I felt bad sending my Kerbals (who are already squeezed into a tiny Mark II cockpit) on multi-day trips to other planetary bodies without some sort of crew compartment. The extra weight is worth Jeb getting a good nights sleep! Note that the entire craft was assembled in the VAB; I have reason to believe that anything assembled in the SPH will be subject to uncontrollable rolling. See this thread for details: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=15739.0 Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/63807837@N02/7539222108/# http://www.flickr.com/photos/63807837@N02/7539222206/# http://www.flickr.com/photos/63807837@N02/7539222272/# (How do I imbed these? IMG tags do not seem to work!) EDIT: Oops! It seems that is an older version; the version capable of the above trip has a aerospike engine in place of the center jet engine. I also added an extra set of down-canted wings for looks, at the rear.

Oh and to answer: I have not tested that exclusively but many of my past spaceplanes (which all had issues) were assembled using a combination of both buildings, since different symmetry tools made attaching certain parts easier.

New thread here for discussion so I do not hijack this one, if you would like to re-paste your question there: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=15739.0

I can confirm that space planes entirely assembled within the VAB do not have an auto-induced roll; those assembled in the SPH do have one. It must be an issue with the symmetry tool in the SPH?

Bawk! Hello everyone Relatively new Kerbonaut here. I got the demo about a month before the latest version released, and played it so often I bought the game just before version .15 came out. I have logged silly numbers of hours on this addictive game and come frequently to these forums, but not written until now. I figure its about time to introduce myself formally, since it seems I will be sticking around. Most addicting single player experience since the first Oblivion, but with more re playability!! I dare say it is nearly as addicting as EVE was, back in the day. Anyway, I will be around lurking/commenting occasionally. Perhaps eventually I will get FRAPS and start recording some of my crazy Kosmos and stock-item creations (I love the Kosmos set!) -FPC

I built a pretty solid spaceplane that can get to the mun, land, fly to minmus, land, and then fly back to kerbin and land at the KSC. Total trip was over 3 days for my poor kerbals cooped up in a fighter cockpit, however. I used stock parks with one important exception; In addition to 3 turboprop engines I strapped 4 small radially mounted low-thrust low-consumption gimbaled rockets to the bottom center. The total thrust is maybe 160, at a cost of about 4 fuel units per 'cycle', making it less efficient than nuclear but more efficient than a single stock gimbaled engine. All of that said, my plane rolls easily and requires heavy use of ASAS to keep a heading. if you take the ASAS off it is stable vertically but rolls so easily its almost unflyable. Npt sure why; it rolls left despite having perfect symmetry.

Makes sense. Thanks guys! Hopefully one of these days we will see working lifting-body spaceplanes that can glide to a landing in Kerbal.

Thanks guys. I just tested it when trying to correct my course only 40k up on re-entry. I spotted something that I suspect may be the other KSP (Have yet to see it!) and tried to correct; but it required a speedy burnoff of over 2km/s due to the angle, and I went bingo fuel and was in a flat stall. I was unable to get any lift by diving, oddly, and ended up falling more or less straight down. Still, being able to attempt a correction (next time at higher altitude, if the need arises) is always nice.

Is powered re-entry beneficial at all when it comes to space planes or is gliding the only way to go? Obviously powered re-entry is a boon when landing anything else but I am pretty sure its useless for spaceplanes. I just wanted to confirm. Thank you gentlemen! Bawk! -FPC