Cal'Mihe

Its also an indirect way to track your progress. I seem to recall the mapping of the far side of the moon was a big achievement.

Joystick, having that extra granularity in the control is a very good thing!

I don't see why not, after all Mars keeps two despite having a lower gravity! Gravity isn't shared, its just there after all Of course there'd be some effects on earth too, like different tides and such.

I second the RCS build aid, its an awsome little thing that gives you a marker for center of mass when empty.

Looks to me like the ground might be sloping away from the main station just a bit, that would cause the cable to hang in the air until it is properly loaded in and gravity pulls it down again. Just as long as whatever you put at the end of it can take a bit of a bounce, you should be fine

Oh this looks like a neat idea and implementation Sign me on the roster! Name: Cal'Mihe World Preference: Kerbin and its moons (but willing to stretch legs). Character Name: Cal Kerman Career highlights: - Spaceplane pilot and fan. If it doesn't have wings we're not associating with it. - Visited and landed kerbals & cargo on Mun and Minmus by SSTO - Circumnavigated Kerbin - Made 80 km of rover tracks on Mun

Reposting this from the old tread back on page 8 which died before it was properly recognized Vessel : AF-2W Starspeeder Pilot: Merrie Kerman All parts stock (only mod is Kerbal engineer), Touched down at 35:06 and came to a stop at: 35 minutes and 37 seconds That old challenge had an altitude limit of 45km, so I had to stay below that, it could undoubtably be done faster at 55km or higher, but then you'd spend the vast majority of fuel and dV trusting downwards to avoid scooting off into interplanetary space The hard part is when to start comming down from 43k meters without overshooting and losing time that way Most of the cruising is done at 42k and at 2450 m/s, with the nose pointing straight down, to keep speed above orbital ejection velocities, but still remain below the 45k. I had a try yesterday that could go to 2550 m/s, but sadly I had messed up the weight balancing when empty, and it spun out and lost control just as I overshot KSC on comming back. Reaching cruising position: Cruising position, trusting down to maintain speed and altitude The fireworks as we come down towards KSC with full power to the jet engines (I had too much jet fuel left) Getting Mach effects comming down fast towards the runway: Approaching runway: Mission log at End of flight: Apparently I bumped down just a tad faster than usual, as I had one of the engines come loose while touching down, then jiggling around as I rolled off the runway. A shot of the bird in the hangar:

One of the big factors in the Thor project, is also the fact that it would be very hard to shot down or interfeer with the projectile once it is launched. Very small radar cross-section, very small time window for detecting it, and even if it is detected then its a tungsten rod, so not terribly vulnurable to the various anti-missile devices currently existing (laser or ABM)

Claus von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators are executed for their attempt to kill Hitler. Tom Cruise plays in the movie Valkyrie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie_(film)

I think this is more or less precisely what got Goose killed in Top Gun Unstable air intake for one of the engines after they get too close to the slipstream of another plane, produce an unrecoverable flat spin.

Precisely, beacons East 60 and West 120 need to be in the water, though reasonably close to shorelines both of them. What I did was air-drop the beacons down on a small rover platform as close to the coordinates as possible, and then drive them into the precise position. For the naval beacons I used a small set of rocket motors on the platform to enable them to move a bit on the water after they had come down by parachute.

Hi all, as I was watching the 0.21 KSP-TV special, I noted that Yaghir had some issues estimating on the fly the rotation of Kerbin in order to land directly at KSC. So I thought I'd show the little solution I have put in place if others want to apply something similar in their games. I know there are probably mods that do this, but I prefeered to find a stock solution As Kerbin is on a 6 hour rotation, we're in the fortunate situation that every hour Kerbin will rotate 60 degrees. So if I want to land at KSC and I'm precisely 2 hours away from touching down, then I should try to make my touch-down point 120 degrees East of KSC. In that period of time, Kerbin will rotate so that KSC will be directly at the landing point when the space-craft gets there. If you use a mod that tells you the coordinates of a landing site, then you can simply calculate the difference of the coordinates, and ensure that you are that many minutes worth of degrees away from landing. Alternatively you can put in place a set of beacons, to aid you in eyeballing it: Here I have put in place 6 beacons at the equator around Kerbin, with 60 degrees between them. One of them is located right at KSC. As the distance between one beacon to the next represents one hours worth of rotation, I can use that to aid me in eyeballing where to come down for landing to be as close as possible to KSC. An example: Here is Merrie Kerman, comming back from a trip to the Mun. As he has heard that the canteen is serving his favorite dish today, he really wants to go directly home and not having to wait for the recovery ship to pick him up half-way around the World. To that end the manuver node making the transfeer from Mun orbit is tweaked slightly, so that he will make a touchdown close to Beacon West 120, meaning the beacon 240 degrees (4 hours) away from KSC. That path will take him 3 hours and 53 minutes, checked by placing a manuver node on the estimated trajectory and seeing at what time it touches ground. This means Merrie will land close to KSCs canteen, and his spaceplane can glide the rest of the way to the runway. If I find that I'm slightly off, then the trajectory can be adjusted halfway though. Its also much easier to fine-tune by eye the off-set needed for (for instance) 15 or 30 minutes worth of rotation when I have these navigational aids. Lastly, here is a shot at one of the beacons, they could be anything really, essentially just a piece of debris will do, I just thought I'd make something resembling a beacon For reference, if you want to put a series of beacons up like this, or calculate it directly, then your beacons will need to be at the following longitude coordinates (as measured by Kerbal Engineer): Beacon 0 (KSC) : -74.575 Beacon East 60 : -14.575 Beacon East 120 : 45.425 Beacon 180 : 105.425 Beacon West 120 : 165.425 Beacon West 60 : -134.575 Or these if you're using the coordinates as pr the tracking station: Beacon 0 (KSC) : 74.57 W Beacon East 60 : 14.57 W Beacon East 120 : 45.42 E Beacon 180 : 105.42 E Beacon West 120 : 194.35 W Beacon West 60 : 134.57 W Note that it looks like the zero-point for the tracking station coordinates are off, as no longitude coordinate should be above 180. The principle can be used for all the other planets as well, such as a base on Duna, just look up the rotational period and put down beacons accordingly

This is precisely the reason ejector seats came into being for jets Historically, escaping from a crippled WW2-era jet aircraft was extremely difficult when the craft was going at high speeds. Either the force of the slipstream would be so strong that the pilot would be unable to pull himself out of the cockpit, or when the pilot did bail out, he would be struck by the rudder or tail before he could drift clear, either killing him outright or knocking him unconcious so he could not deploy the parachute. So the operating procedure became that the pilot would try to slow down the jet (as far as possible) and then bail out when it had reached tolerable speeds, either by inverting the plane and dropping out of the cockpit, or standing up on the cockpit seat and letting the slipstream pull him out of the craft. Essentially, it was the proximity to the damaged jet that was dangerous, so ejector seats solved the problem by enabling the pilot to get away from the plane as fast as possible and as reliably as possible. For KSP, you can try something similar where you position a set of seperatrons along the side of the cockpit, pointing upwards, and linked to the same action group that seperates the cockpit from the plane. They then bring the cockpit clear of the craft. Notice also that most ejector seats propel the seat both forwards and upwards. Of course, if you need to bail out and are flying inverted at low altitude, then you're out of luck. So if you're in a bad spin at low altitude, then you may need to time the bail out just right, in order not to eject directly into the ground.

Thicker atmosphere also means that wings generate more lift, so there's some balancing possible. I do recall someone had made an Eve Ion glider somewhere, but that was also back in .18 or .19 I think.

Actually I think it is a legit submission. I just tried for myself with the same setup, just with 5 sets of wings instead of 4, and it seems at around 16km altitude you can hit a sweet spot in the glide-slope which has -5m vertical and 120m horisontal, and the glide path will improve even more as you come down to denser atmosphere. The glide path is otherwise completly stable and it seems like you can hold it for quite a while. It does take some continued pressure on the stick, but not even terribly much.

Though it would disturb the clean lines of your fuselage, you could move the rocket fuel tank to between the cockpit and the engines. As you yourself point out, the movement of the fuel creates an imbalance. Alternatively look at the position of the wings. If you can move enough of the lift backwards, then the shift in center of mass would matter less.

Damage from exhaust also heats up the parts in question, which might cause a part to overheat or melt, thereby leading to !!FUN!!

Since you have to continously hold the nose down, its clear the craft is unbalanced, however with both the gimbals on the turbojets and the control surfaces you're able to componsate. As you tell, when you switch the turbojets off and ignite the rockets, the crafts nose rises beyond your ability to hold it stable. Two main reasons possible: Your center of thrust has moved down below the center of mass, this would cause it to backflip. Your center of lift has moved forwards of the center of mass, this would cause the nose to rise uncontrollably. It might also be a combintation. As its a sudden shift when you go from jets to rockets, I would look at what happens in that precise moment, check what is the fuel left in each tank at the moment when you would have turned on the rockets, try to estimate how much the CoM has moved, and then look at what happens when the rockets thrust replace the jets. Also try running it on rockets at low altitude, switch back and forth, see if you can get it to replicate the behaviour at low altitude under more controlled circumstances.

I read a playthrough on subsim.com forums and was intrigued by how it described Building rockets, planes, whimsical space stations etc. It appeared on Steam some days later and I got it immediatly. Haven't looked back

They will work, but they will also damage the part situated below the thrusters. You'll see it in the mission log (F3) that "Part So-and-so was damaged by exhaust from thruster This-and-That"

MOAR BOOSTERS! Sorry, it had to be said Either you'd bring more fuel, cut down on the weight of your mun-craft to make the fuel last longer, or use a more efficient engine (if you are not already doing that) Depending on how efficient you are with your burns and ascent profile, it might also be that you can optimize your fuel use with the existing craft somewhat. But seriously, try adding more boosters in the initial stage and use them instead of the liquid engines to get up into the lower atmosphere

Mun has a much more shallow hilly terrain than Minmus, you might try one of the two very large craters, (The "Eyes of the Mun" sorta), they're the best place I can think of. And if your rover can go up to 40 m/s before it starts to lose control then you are doing very well indeed with that design! Best I can do before a flip-out is certain is around 18-20 m/s Incidently, come 0.21, the Mun terrain is likely to get even more irregular due to the many small craters which seem to be in store.

If you have too much roll authority, even slight movements or jiggling could send the plane rolling. Roll authority depends on how many ailerons you have and how far away from the centerline they are placed. If you have the big ailerons, try switching them out for the small ones, or if you have multiple, try taking some ailerons away or moving them closer to the centerline. If it is able to run down the runway completly without issues, then it doesn't seem like its a landing gear issue. If it was, then you'd have the plane yawing all over the place while still on the runway. Kinda curious that it happens with all the planes though, I know at least the Albatross is roll stable. I would second switching on ASAS and letting the plane take off on its own, see what happens.

I am Cal'Mihe and I approve of this message On a related note Kimberly, though it is not really the topic of this tread, I did a small test and it *can* actually haul 9 tonnes to LKO and have around 800 oxidizer to spare. Simulated here with two 4,5 tanks in the outboard spaces between the wings. However with the extra weight that only translates into ~2000 dV left after circularization (screenshot is off, I had messed up the fuel connections), so it would need refueling in LKO in order to proceede to the Mun. This could be done by a second Starspeeder flying in tandem with the first one, up to LKO, and then transfeering fuel to the payload carrier for the Mun trip. Sorry for the temporary de-railment, back on topic

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