Skyhawk

And here's my day 8. Box standard moon mission on a time budget. See you all tomorrow!

Alright, here's my Day 7 on hard mode:

Alright, finished my day 6 test, just barely in time. In the spirit of orion, I basically put the lander on a mock Delta IV and sent it up. The thing was way OP for the experiment, but I may just use it for the moon, just because it works. I missed the entry and came down on the land west of KSC, as drag during re-entry turned a last minute burn against me. I lost the engines again, due to a loss of parachutes during powered landing. Still, that's just bad piloting, and I'll fix that when I fly, instead of trying to fly via IVA.

Alright, I've begun work on the new program. I'd like to present my new lander to you all: Well, that looks a little problematic. Fortunately, that was after a re-entry/high-speed parachute no guidance 4x physics crash test. Still, engines aren't cheap. With hardmode and permadeath enabled, with the exception of revert to VAB/SPH, because I have too many bugs sometimes (I swear I won't cheat with it), this looks like it will be an interesting program. Ill design a lifter 5 minutes before launch tomorrow. 'Tis the procrastinator's way. I would like to thank Treldon for his flag, which I plan on taking with me to the moon and elsewhere. Hat tip to you, sir! I will see you all tomorrow for the great launch in for the moon. Good luck, and may your vessels be free of kraken/cthulhu/space octopi/etc.

Just barely finished day 4 challenge in time, but here's my album. I did my best approximation of a comm system, though it's not my forte, so I just kind op hoped. One of my 8 satellites disappeared on me, so we have dasher and dancer and vixen. And them the game bugged out, so no other ones have names. Merry Christmas, I guess... Enjoy the yellow spacecraft.

After my questionably built craft for challenge 2, I thought I'd lighten things up a bit for day 3. Though not the fastest, at 2020 m/s, I think Luney Kerman's vehicle was fun to fly.

Man day 3 up already? I feel behind... Anyway, completed challenge 2. Said we didn't have to use just one launch, so I sent a few of my little green kerbals off to different parts of the space center.

Completed, though I'm not sure how Jeb's getting down. Also, whats up with the semi-transparent/opaque dishes?

Yeah, it's great to see you're designs and such, by again, no hope of ever getting on a leaderboard (I tried months ago), and some mode might just decide to lock this thread at some point. I'm just saying it's probably time to let old birds rest, and move on to something else. I'm awful with names to but I'll try to think of something creative. in the meantime, just keep on pushing, you'll break the record eventually, even if no one sees it on the board.

You know guys, as much as I loved the machingbird challenge and participated in it (Pushing the bounds of infiniglide since .22!), I do believe it's about time to let this post die. It's run its course, and at 48 pages and a year in length, its pretty much done. There is no hope of getting back on the leaderboard, as the OP doesn't touch it anymore, so I think its time we say goodbye to the machingbird challenge for good. R.I.P., we knew ye well... This is not to say, however, that we need to give up on speed records. I believe it's ripe for a new challenge, a back to basics challenge about pushing our aircraft to higher and higher points. Its been multiple updates, rebalances, and new parts added, so I believe to keep up with the times we need to start a new post. I can do that, or someone else can, but machingbird has run its course; we need a new name. So I propose that we come up with a new name for the system, and start a new thread, so we don't have to necro long-dead giants. I'd like it if anyone left could help come up with a name, so we can stop beating a dead crow and get this thread on track.

I've tried to land and put a base on K2. It's very frustrating because I like to try to use planes to get there, but it's effectively impossible to land with wheels, and its hard to go slow enough for parachutes if you use small wings. Takeoff is also hard, and there's not much distance to takeoff in. I've lost many aircraft on landing and takeoff there.

This challenge generally goes unmaintained for a while, until the creator looks at it.

Here's a picture of one of my infinigliders heading into solar orbit... Infiniglide can be exploited a long way.

It's effectively a probe core with a solar panel on the front and a ton of small control surfaces on the back. By spamming the up and do buttons it flaps it's way to ridiculous velocities. After a few of these were created for the last leaderboard, we were given the 'Stock Unmanned Exploitational' category.

Alright, I guess I'll bring back the Stock Unmanned Exploitational Category. I present to you my newest creation, the Hawk. It's very prone to accidental suborbital hops, and even escaping Kerbin's SOI. The highest speed overland while in Kerbin's SOI was 8,401 m/s. The highest solar orbit speed I achieved was 190,735 m/s, or somewhere in the realm of mach 560. I imagine that we should probably judge by speeds on Kerbin, as the solar orbit speed was actually the result of what on Kerbin would have been a slower flight than the other Mach 24 flight. It's your choice, but I feel that the solar orbit speeds are not truly indicative of the actual speed of the craft, and instead luck of the draw when flying out of Kerbin's SOI. I'd like to then enter my Mach 24 8,401 m/s speed of the Hawk into the Stock unmanned exploitational category.

I've been playing with kraken drives. They're a biiiit dodgy...

Alright, I put together a science rig to see if i could answer some of the questions. The first test on the beam (going left to right) dropped a payload onto a ring of solar panels. Upon checking the results, all of the panels were broken. The second test dropped a probe core with a solar panel on the bottom. The panel exploded, so it definitely broke it. The third test consisted of an inline orange engine firing downward at a panel. The panel refused to break, and simply displayed the message 'blocked by structural beam'. The fourth consisted of a sepratron firing downward at a panel. The panel didn't break, and displayed the message 'blocked by structural beam'. (Note: I'm not certain if the 'blocked' message overrides the 'broken' message, however the broken panels from test 1 were blocked, so I suspect that 'broken' overrides.) The fifth test consisted of a large solid booster firing downward onto a panel. The panel did not break. During previous testing, this test also gave me a pretty cool image. For the last test, Jeb got out of his capsule and walked across the line of solar panels. Walking did not break them. When he jumped on them, however, every panel broke. I conclude that physical damage (with the exception of walking) can and will break panels, but engine exhaust will not.

I have a guy named Desbree, who I take on all grand missions. He was the first to go to Minmus, and seems to survive everything I throw at him.

Dude, that thing is insane. Now I've got to go try to beat that. How did you control that? Was it accelerated by rotation or was it pitch/yaw? Either way, congratulations on managing to beat my speed. I'm extremely impressed.

Holy crap, man, that's just ridiculous. I checked a calculator online, and it told me Mach 17. Now I have to go beat that. Also, though, don't we have a rule where thing have to takeoff horizontally? I seem to recall someone having an issue with that earlier. Still, that thing is absolutely terrifying. Nice work.

I'd like to enter the lowest periapsis please. I took an unnamed probe to a 2,736 meter periapse according to the map view. Some the screenshots beg to differ, though, and I don't know why. After this shot, the probe began to rise, as vert. speed is zero. After I finished the orbit, I tried to lower it, only to create a new crater on the side of a mountain. 1,900 meters was too low. Still, though, this was after 1 complete orbit, so I'd like to enter either 2,736 meters from map view, or 2,715 meters form the altimeter, whichever you go by. The apoapsis was over 100 km, so it doesn't matter.

Really now? I want to see that. As they say, pics or it didn't happen. Make sure to take a shot of the f3 log. I would love to see a new challenger.

I sent the lander, but had tons of extra fuel in the transfer stage, so i decided to try and land on that. Unfortunately I was overloaded and in darkness at the landing, and it took a suicide burn to make sure that the lander on top would survive. Amazingly, the ASAS and capsule torque managed to keep it upright as it fell over, still pointing straight up, with the NERVA sort of acting as a pivot as it fell. If you want, I have screenshots at the post Desbree Goes to Minmus: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36102-Desbree-Goes-to-Minmus%21

Yeah, that's okay. It is definitely exploiting a glitch, however nowhere in the rules did it say you couldn't use infinigliders. Still, it's your challenge, feel free to do as you wish. I have seen other challenges in the past that have seperate categories for glitch-powered vehicles, but it's your choice whether to do that or not. I just thought it was a cool vehicle.

I once left a NERVA and a bunch of fuel on Minmus, after attempting to land on my transfer stage. Still, nothing exploded, and the lander on top got home safely.