Cal'Mihe

Well, it got the K-prize, so I put in a shot for this as well, ran some tries yesterday and got in a good round today 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 Qualifies for: Winnar; Monolithic; Speed Angel; (I would dearly have liked to have gotten precision pilot as well, but I just rolled off the runway at the end after touching down, so can't really claim it) Time before adjustments: 2137 seconds Time after adjustments: 2101 seconds I agree with Storm, the hard part is when to start comming down from 43k meters 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:

Your two extra outboard tanks (and engines ? Don't recognize them) is set higher than the rest of the fuselage. The trust from your jet engines is therefore below the center of mass. The problem becomes apparent at 17k meters because by then you have burnt a bit of fuel, the center fuel tanks therefore weight less in relation to the engines, your center of mass moves upwards, while your trust stays in place, causing your plane to flip nose up. Imagine pushing against the center of a big box, that causes the box to move straight forward. Now imagine that you are pushing against the lower edge of the box. Still pushing in the same direction. But now your box will start to rotate. Same thing is happening to your plane.

So I've been working steadily towards this challenge ever since I first brought the game, and I'm finally satisfied enough to put it to the post: Ladies and gentlekerbals, I present the Starspeeder: Main features are 3 Turbojets 2 LV-N nuclear engines a set of triple wings more air intakes than it should rightfully have (16 all told) docking port ASAS ejector system and parachute for the cockpit 1560 units of liquid fuel 1320 units of oxidizer Base weight is 30,5 tons before cargo is added, so its quite on the heavy side! It has carrying capacity for 4-5 tons extra, depending on how the weight is balanced. I normally add two extra sets of landing struts so that it can land vertically, and then tip it over onto the main landing gear. It is possible to land on the engine exhausts, but not really smart. If I am carrying cargo, normally I put either a rover in a dorsal mount and a satellite or science unit in a ventral Mount. It can take 6 small satellites with oscar tanks and ant engines, mounted above and below the fuselage. Possibly more in fact. Like so: It'll go to 27k on its turbojets alone, and with careful throttle adjustment will reach 1900 m/s before starting the burn with the rockets. Normally I ascend as fast as possible to 22k with a 70 degree inclination. Then I flatten out and by the time I am in level flight it should be at 24k. At that point I start to speed up towards the 1900 m/s. Ideally I use about 250 units of liquid fuel in doing that, so there's a little more than 1100 left for the rockets. A circularised orbit is reachable with around 1000 units of oxidiser left, having used 300 or so to reach orbit and circularize. Which, depending on the weight of the cargo, translates into around 3000 delta-v left. This is from my first Mün landing, I had a lot of inefficient burns, so the fuel supply was quite low, but had just enough fuel left to come back to orbit and do a transfeer to Kerbin for an aerobraking. I've gone to both Mün and Minmus with it, landing a rover of 0,9 tons on the Mün (Look how happy Kirgun is) Note that these are pictures from different flights, as I was doing small tweaks to the next iteration of the craft while waiting on travel times. It handles beautifully at all levels of fuel, allowing a glider landing on the runway at all weights below 22 tons, and a powered landing above that. It can be a tad heavy in the launch phase, and too much cargo towards the nose will mean it might require a touch of the rockets around 15k to come up sufficiently for the drag to be at good levels. Main weakness is the outboard engines are very far offset from the fuselage, meaning that any flameout on either of them is fatal. Next step is to see if it can reach Duna!

An alternative can be to extend the range of the physics calculation (requires tweaking the config files), though this may be bloody murder on your computer memory.

It can also be due to the balance of the craft on the landing gear. If too much weight is on a single wheel (the front one usually) it will buckle and veer. The reason it happens during the takeoff roll and not while resting idle on the runway is because of changing lift. If the wings are to the back, as the plane gains speed, the back end will start to lift before the front, thus putting more strain on the front wheel than while the plane was idle.

For some strange reason his screenshot is not showing the CoL correctly. When I load it into a Vanilla install, then the CoL is properly behind the CoM. Hyomoto, yep I use a joystick. Cheap old Logitech but it serves me well enough. I would say yes depending on if you play flight sims, or play KSP with a strong focus on spaceplanes. You can train yourself to fly flight sims using only keyboard and mouse, but I'd recommend a joystick for the flexibility.

Downloading now to take it for a spin and see. Edit: Ok, it looks like its the front landing gear that is not 100% vertical. On take-off it looks like the front gear buckles ever so slightly, which causes a turn, and on compensating for that, its easy to over compensate and crash it. Its probably caused by having the front gear attached to the seperator, which off-sets it slightly. Try moving the front gear back. Also, I've had bad experiences with attaching struts to the land gears, usually that causes the gears to be pushed and pulled in unpredictable ways during take off, leading to crashes. Also, attach the gears directly to the wings, I think you get stability issues with having them attached to a set of struts buried inside the wings. I was able to get it up though, once it is airborne it is quite stable and flies nicely, it has a tendency to be jittery in the roll, and the pitch is sluggish, but the Yaw control is excellent. I could touch-back down on the runway at 40 m/s. On a side note, I think you'll have problems getting it into orbit. The air intakes, while cool-looking, won't give you enough air at 10k+ to enable you to go into orbit. Edit Again: What Stochasty says is true, its a balance problem. When holding slightly back during the take-off roll, it is completly stable and stays straight on the runway all the time up to 80m/s where it lifts easily

Rather ironic that the problem develops just as they are about to switch crews and the commander is about to be rotated back. In an Hollywood movie with respect for itself that kind of thing would have been an immediate cue for dramatic disasters and heroic struggles.

They really need to borrow that idea for the next James Bond movie! Grand video as always

I don't think the engines have an effiency loss based on throttle setting, the rocket motors for sure don't. The jet engines shouldn't either, they are instead affected by both altitude and velocity.

Without knowing precisely how FAR handles a plane like that (looks cool by the way!) I would guess that it might be the moveable winglets that you are using for rudders that cause it grief. Try maybe replacing them with a more traditional fixed rudder with attached control surface ?

That's no ..... actually that IS a moon We've all seen a view like this, but each time it nevertheless fills me with foreboding all the same