RoboRay

Indeed. And, in fact, the only real-world example of an SSTO craft was a rocket SSTO that operated from one of those "other" worlds.

It's not really about aesthetics (some night shots can be really nice), it's simply the inability to see any detail of dark craft against a dark background at night. It's especially counterproductive when the purpose of the screenshot is to "show off" the craft. Pictures consisting of black rectangles with vague dark-grayish shapes on them and a few bright engine exhaust flames get redundant really fast.

It's been posted here before, but here's my latest heavy-cargo rocket SSTO: Do runway landings count? If not, I also did a Delta-Clipper inspired passenger-hauler last year...

Without pictures of your craft, it's really hard to say why they may be unstable.

Okay! Vertical launch, runway landing, heavy-cargo SSTO... (I don't remember if I posted this one here before... sorry if it's a repeat.)

I've flown through that canyon, or one a lot like it. There are some really interesting places that many people never see, especially if they don't get away from the equator. A simple way to see more of Kerbin (from a distance anyway) is to just launch into an inclined orbit. Instead of turning east, turn north-east or south-east instead. An inclination of 50 or 60 degrees will take you over places most KSP players have never really even seen.

The devs said they are a bug with the exhaust plume effect, a long time ago. That explanation may have been lost with the forum crash.

No problem, it happens... Done it myself. Yeah, we're flying a very similar profile, except that I'm doing a somewhat tighter turn down low to level off at a lower altitude, still in the atmosphere but high enough that the residual drag is insignficant. This expends less energy purely to gain altitude, incurring reduced gravity losses, and extracts a little more energy from the Oberth effect by conducting the horizontal acceleration slightly deeper in the gravity well.

Part of the problem of wheels not being straight isn't due to them not being straight in the SPH when built... it's when a load is applied when the physics engine kicks in and joints between parts start to flex. If the flexing isn't perfectly symmetrical, you can end up with one wheel angled slightly differently than another wheel. And if the runway is sloped to one side, asymmetrical flexing becomes much more likely. I think your discovery is a real eye-opener into what's happening.

No, it's for FAR. You would have very bad results starting your turn at 1km altitude in stock KSP. I never once suggested going straight up. I don't know where you're getting that, but you are not reading it in my posts. I specifically said "I usually set the guidance for a 66% or so curve that starts at 1km and ends at 50km." How, exactly, does a turn start at 70km if it began at 1km and ended at 50km?

Yeah, the long, shallow "dip" down the length of the runway due to it being perfectly flat and not conforming to the curved surface beneath it has been talked about since shortly after the runway was first introduced... But the "banking" due to the plane of the runway being tangent to the spherical surface well off to the side of the runway is a new concept, I think. Very interesting revelation!

In KSP, the Oberth gains far exceed the miniscule drag losses above 50km. It's pretty much the opposite of that. Ending your turn at the orbital altitude and burning horizontal there (as you suggested above) is much closer to what you describe here than what I describe. It is actually pretty much how real launches go... when reaching an altitude where drag decreases to a negligible value, burn purely for horizontal velocity. Then, rise to Ap for a short circularization burn. See the Space Shuttle launch profile, for instance. It's somewhat in-between what what we are both proposing, though... with MECO and ET Sep after completing a long, fairly horizontal burn (actually slightly descending toward the end) at about 80 miles up, then coasting upwards to the desired orbital altitude for circularizing with the OMS. Due to the tiny sizes of planets in KSP and extreme density of matter, but relatively tall atmospheres, some things work a little differently in KSP than they do in the real world. If you want to think that's "stupid", talk to Squad or stick with RSS. Proportionally (ratio of spacecraft altitude to planetary radius), what real rockets do would put them even lower in the atmosphere than 50km. But, KSP's drag forces us higher into less efficient profiles. Going higher than you need to go to escape drag is simply counterproductive, though.

Altering the orbit of your spacecraft is how you reduce the distance between them. It doesn't matter if they are in different orbits; it only matters that at some time in the future they will get very close to each other. When that happens, then you match velocities to get them into the same orbit. If two people standing on the opposite sides of a room want to shake hands, one of them has to start walking.

You do if you want it to be aerodynamically stable. You may have enough control authority to compensate for that, but it's a heck of a lot easier to keep the flames pointed down if the thing has positive stability.

It's actually more efficient to level off in the upper atmosphere (like 50km+) and burn horizontal there to continue slowly raising your Ap while also rapidly bringing up your Pe (taking more advantage of the Oberth effect) than leveling off at the Ap and raising the Pe to match it. I usually set the guidance for a 66% or so curve that starts at 1km and ends at 50km. I shut down the engines with Ap at 100km and Pe at 20-50km, so only a tiny circularization burn (less than 100 m/sec) is needed.

If you put a flag every couple of kilometers west of the runway along the centerline, heading toward the mountains, you get a longer line to use for visually orienting yourself. For rapid coarse pitch trim adjustments (if you don't normally use flaps on your designs), assign flaps function to a couple of small horizontal surfaces near the tail. Attach the surfaces so that they are angled upward to a point where the "medium" flap position makes them level with the wing. Then, you can use the "raise flaps" action group to rapidly add a big notch or two of nose-up trim.

An efficient spaceplane is a small spaceplane. The most effective way to improve performance and capability is to get rid of unnecessary mass. Only when you've removed everything you don't absolutely need should you consider adding things to further improve the design (even fuel). Take engines, for instance... They are heavy. Having more than you really need is just adding more weight to lift. Not to mention, you need extra fuel to lift them, which just adds tankage and decreases your performance more. Fuel is also heavy... if you're carrying extra fuel to lift equipment you don't really need to have, you're reducing your efficiency as well as payload capability. Here are some of my other SSTO designs: Bumblebee, Javelin, Stingray, Skate The main thing they have in common is they use very few engines, and they use very small, lightweight rocket engines when an airbreathing-only jet engine is used for atmospheric flight. If you treat reducing engine-weight as the first place to seek improvement, it will lead to reduced fuel requirements as well as reduced structural requirements, which also reduces fuel requirements, all of which reduces wing-lift requirements, where less weight and drag further reduces fuel requirements... keep working through those iterations and before long you've got a tiny plane that can do the same job as the big plane... or a big plane that can lift a lot more payload than before.

I finished my newest SSTO spaceplane... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83727-The-Dove-A-small-six-seat-SP-SSTO?p=1224515#post1224515

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83727-The-Dove-A-small-six-seat-SP-SSTO?p=1224515#post1224515

I'm a pilot. We use the tools available to us when they improve precision or simply allow operations that otherwise would not be possible (such as staying right in the proper position while descending through a cloud layer). Once you can see the runway to eyeball it, the ILS guidance isn't important anymore. It's really there for when you can't yet see what you're trying to eyeball.

Okay... for everyone who's been pestering me for a craft file, I think I finally have most of the kinks worked out. Here's a download thread for the Dove: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83727-The-Dove-A-small-six-seat-SP-SSTO?p=1224515#post1224515

The Dove is designed to operate as a personnel-carrier for local ground-to-orbit operations at Kerbin, in as small and efficient a vehicle as possible. Its normal missions are crew-taxi services for space-stations and interplanetary craft in parking orbits. The craft can attain an altitude of 32km and speed of 1575 m/sec on air-breathing jet-thrust without requiring careful throttle-management to optimize use of the available intake air (going higher and faster on the jet may be possible for pilots with more patience). It arrives in a 100km circular orbit with approximately 300 m/sec of rocket delta-v remaining, with an additional 280 m/sec of RCS capability, making rendezvous with any destination in LKO feasible. After reentry, nearly half of its total jet-fuel is still available for atmospheric flight to a suitable runway. If the Dove is flown to not exceed Mach 3 until approaching 25 km altitude, high-velocity thermal effects can be completely avoided during the ascent. Likewise, reentry heating can be kept to negligible levels (no visible effects) by maintaining a high angle of attack and flying a sequence of steeply banked S-turns to safely decelerate to well below orbital velocity in the upper atmosphere, before descending past 35 km. While the craft is positively stable, it is fairly close to neutral. This permits an extreme angle of attack to allow for aggressive braking maneuvers (flight-tested at up to 70 degrees off the velocity vector). The craft can be forced to depart controlled flight, but is not expected to do so without a deliberate attempt by the pilot. Recovery is possible from every tested spin mode. The craft is extremely maneuverable while subsonic and can even perform advanced aerobatic maneuvers such as the Pugachev Cobra. The Dove does exhibit noticeable Mach tuck, so do not plan to perform any significant pitch maneuvers around Mach 1. During the takeoff roll, accelerate to 80 m/sec before attempting to lift the nose. The nose wheel can be raised off the ground at 70 m/sec, but doing so may result in a tailstrike. During landing, the recommended approach speed is 100 m/sec. Cross the numbers at 80 m/sec and touch down at 70 m/sec. Wet mass is 15 tons. Crew capacity is six. Unpiloted remote operation of the vehicle is included. A single rear-facing Size-0 docking port (with target illumination) is provided. RCS-balance is a little off (slight roll moment during lateral translation and slight pitch moment during vertical translation), but I got tired of fooling with it (and it's fuel-level sensitive, anyway). Turn on SAS while operating the RCS and let the reaction wheels compensate for you. While the only required mod parts are from Spaceplane Plus, the craft is designed to operate in a FAR environment. It has not been tested in the stock KSP atmosphere. The Dove can also survive Deadly Reentry if properly flown. Putting the nose down and plowing into the lower atmospheric at hypersonic speeds voids the warranty. Craft download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sml4fs4fqyhaopq/Dove.craft Action Groups: 1 - Start/Stop engine 2 - Switch engine operating mode 3 - Open/Close air intakes

The ILS localizer/glideslope information still works fine. You don't have to turn on the autopilot just because you use MechJeb for data displays. It's the checkbox that says "Show landing Navball guidance." Just click it.

Then there's something wrong with Squad's stock wing parts configs, because they do the exact same thing as these wings. Unity has a branching-tree hierarchy for part attachment. Each part attaches to its parent part, only. If you attach a series of parts together as shown in your picture with another series of parts adjacent to them, they are only attached to each other at the one common parent part to both of them (the pivot point you mention). Struts are how you create additional physics joints to stitch the child parts to other child parts. If you don't want to use them, I'll have to suggest you stick with the big simple wing parts in B9 instead of building your own wings from these panel sections.

You definitely need to slow down a lot more before descending into the lower atmosphere. As soon as you enter the upper fringes of the atmosphere, point the nose 30-40 degrees off to one side of your course and roll the craft into a steep bank. Yes, this will steer you off course. After a while, roll around and steer back in the other direction. If you're heading to KSC, it's not hard to adjust your S-turns so that you're heading in the right direction (aim for the mountains west of KSC). Adjust your pitch angle to keep you high up, 30km+, for as long as necessary to slow down. Ideally, you'll be so slow before reaching 30km that you don't even see any reentry effects. Likewise, keep making turns and holding the nose up as you descend. Try to go subsonic around 10km. If you packed a jet engine, making the runway should be no problem at all. Gliding, you do need a little more precision. For unpowered landings, it's safer to arrive high over KSC and spiral downwards, circling the field to get lined up with the runway. Airbrakes really shouldn't be necessary... during reentry, the bottom of your wings are your airbrakes... just turn the flat side into the wind. I assign a few control surfaces to brakes, but they are mainly intended for helping get stopped on the runway. In-flight usage would be reserved for emergencies.