speedboiae86

I might have time over Thanksgiving to do it, but it'll only be one day as I work Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You know she got rich off of just that one sentence?

Haha, cool!! I don't know if I would have the patience to take it all the way to Laythe like that though. I knew that the Xenon gas stores, ion drives, and solar panels would weigh less than those drop tanks. I would've gone with at least 4 ion drives on a ship that size, maybe I'll do some testing. Any ion crafts I have taken to Laythe have usually been very small, and usually on board a carrier powered by atomic engines.

I remember fitting a pair of ion drives onto the bottom side of my reverse engineered version of your Stratos, and it wound up being too heavy to lift off, even with a stacked pair of turbofan engines. They may look small, but I guess Xenon gas is pretty heavy... The only way I could even fly it up to orbit was to flick on infinite fuel and engage the LV-T30 liquid engine. Once it was up though, I turned off infinite fuel, and 2 pairs of Gigantor XL Arrays and 4 RTG's was enough to give full power to the ion drives in full sunlight.

Okay, now I have to try and do this... but question is, would the weight be too much for the turbojets to overcome upon lift off? So in other words... CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!

Cool beans on the Queen Bee there Cupcake!! Where do you find the inspiration to do all these? I can't wait for it to be released, I'm looking forward to taking it for a test flight and seeing if I can reverse-engineer something that's equally as impressive!! I've been in such a dry spell as of late, work hasn't afforded me much time for engineering anything impressive, but I am wanting to make a carrier type vessel that VTOL and reach orbit.

I think whoever uploaded it sped it up a bit to avoid any copyright claims from the original artists.

It'd be awesome if you did a video of that to this music:

Looks neat Cupcake, you just crank these little numbers out don't ya? Still waiting to see that Mainsail powered VTOL.

Another glorious VTOL-SSTO Cupcake!!

Haha, if only... I'd love it if I could turn some of my designs and a few of yours into toys. Your Tadpole and my little rover that I've packaged with the Bison. Right now, I'm currently working on another off world colony lander ship. I wanna load it with Kerbals and take it somewhere, like Duna, Eve, or Laythe...

Awww, they're so cute!! I just wanna snuggle 'em up!!

That's an awesome looking transport shuttle!!

Supersonic SSTO - Icarus Mk.III - Upgraded over the original, now capable of getting up to speed much faster with 5 Turbofan Jet Engines, arranged with StaboJet technology. Jets are angled through the center of mass, so if one flames out, it is quite easy to recover by throttling back, and reigniting the engine. Sitting on the runway, standing by for takeoff. On a stable 80km orbit around Kerbin.

Haven't seen it yet.

Kinda looks like something that's "Cupcake..." inspired. Nevertheless, black does make everything look better.

What I like: The overall design. It kind've reminds me of a stealth fighter, and has potential to be so much more. I'm tempted to try arming this with missiles. The overall ease of flight and control. It's very "newbie-friendly", although I'm not by any means a KSP Newbie. I've been playing this game since 0.16. The overall speed. With the 5 stacked Turbofan jets propelling it, it feels like this jet easily has the ability to go supersonic (I personally, just got this up to 2km/s on the jet engines alone). It's also very easy to take into orbit, and it airhogs like a champ. The fact that you made it into a VTOL. I love VTOL-SSTO's. What I don't like: Lack of RCS. Easily fixable, one could always throw some on there. The "wheel on the nose" design. It looks a little silly to me, kind've looks like a platypus. Lack of rear landing legs. If you ask me, an SSTO craft should be able to land anywhere, on worlds of atmosphere, and worlds in a vacuum. Vertical landing functionality would greatly improve this ship. Overall score: 8.5/10 ::EDIT:: I hope you don't mind, I took a few creative liberties with your ship. Due to lack of space, I was not able to add rear landing legs, so vacuum landings are out of the question. I did however add solar panels to keep the battery charged, and I added RCS, maneuvering thrusters, and a docking light for your topside docking port to make docking easier. I'm still not crazy about how the wings up front clip into the nose though... but I suppose it can't be avoided.

Spartan 300 Industries proudly presents, our latest and greatest single stage to orbit spaceship, Project Icarus Mk. II Icarus is capable of reaching a stable 80x80 km orbit around Kerbin, with fuel leftover for some small delta-v maneuvers, such as rendezvousing with a space station to refuel. It carries three Turbofan Jet engines, and single LV-T30 liquid engine. It is capable of supersonic speeds, this SSTO was built to go fast. The cost of making this beast so fast, is that it's light on fuel and oxidizer, so skillful piloting is required. A plethora of Ram Air intakes will keep the jets breathing upwards of 25km. She has plenty of onboard RCS for docking maneuvers, and a topside Clamp-o-tron Jr. docking port allows the ship to dock at a space station for refuelling. It features a vertical landing system for airless worlds in the form of retractable rear mounted landing legs. A single radiothermal generator supplies all this ships power needs. Should s*it hit the fan, this ship features a safety system that ejects the pilot capsule. A top mounted parachute brings the capsule safely to the ground. All stock parts, Mechanical Jeb only shown in the photos. Craft file will be up as soon as I have it uploaded.

She is a fat bird, but she looks good.

It is quite adorable, isn't it? I wanted it to look like something out of the movie "Wall-E", hence the name, "Bug-E". On another note, I've developed another VTOL-SSTO: KA-F VTOL SSTO Hornet Mk. II It's able to reach orbit, although it uses almost everything it has on board. The spacing of the turbojets means I can't let them flame out, or it'll result in a deadly spin.

I don't know, I may have to give it a try. Being as it is a purely VTOL craft, it'd be more suited to say, rescue a stranded capsule from the island runway and bringing it back to KSC.

I finally decided that this thing needs it's own thread. [Requires Mechjeb, stock version available upon request] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXESUYhfRE4 Powered by 5 Turbojet Engines (4 on the main body, 1 on the fuel assist pod) and 2 Toroidal Aerospike Rocket Engines. A plethora of air intakes gives the jet engines plenty of breathable air even as far up as 30,000m before having to shut the intakes and switch to the Aerospikes. It reaches a stable 80km orbit with more than enough delta-v to reach any sort of refuelling platforms to refuel. It possesses enough delta-v to go pretty much anywhere it's needed, so long as there are refuelling platforms to keep it's fuel tanks full. Of course, this thing de-orbits like a boss!! I never get tired of the re-entry effects!! Parachutes are standard for those who don't possess the skill (or confidence) to make powered landings, but it is capable of doing a powered landing with it's on-board turbojets and aerospike engines. Currently in development - Support Modules: So far, only the "Bug-E" rescue module rover has been released, but other modules are in development. "Bug-E" Rescue Rover is able to be operated via remote control, can also be piloted from the inside via the lander can cockpit. Topside docking port is standard for docking beneath the Bison VTOL craft. Side mounted parachutes allow the rover to de-orbit on it's own and land safely. Bison Mk. VI with Fuel Assist pod craft file can be found HERE!! Be sure to check the action groups before taking off, and to switch control over to the top docking port.

A Mainsail powered VTOL? Now that's insane... I kinda wanna try making a "Family sedan" VTOL... That is, a VTOL that can hold a couple of Hitch hiker storage containers and serve as a crew transport of sorts. Just need to work out some sort of design for it. Then again, the Bison can already serve that purpose... Just have to dock a Hitch hiker storage container underneath and dock the booster mule underneath it. So, back to Google to look for design ideas...

I envy you... I haven't really had any good ideas since I came out with the Bison Mk. VI... My minds kind of gone dry as far as ideas go...

I just wanted to share this epic re-entry shot with you all. Took it last night while doing a standard de-orbit and landing test. Before you all ask, yes, I did land safely.

So I did take Cupcake's advice, sort of, when he (or she?) said I should add more intakes, by redesigning the drop tank module so that more intakes could be stacked on. Of course as always, there were bugs to work out, but I'm much happier with how this looks now compared to how it looked before. For one, and this is a major improvement, the drop tank's jet engine doesn't extend past the landing gear and run into the ground anymore!! Secondly, the drop tank is now recoverable, as I have given it a probe brain and parachutes to deploy after it has been dropped, as well as it's own set of landing gear. I have updated the craft file to reflect the new drop tanks, and it is available here: http://www./download/lxqcedwaz6oraod/Bison_Mk_VI_Proto.craft Of course, for those who wanna just mess around, I have also made the Bison Mk. VI without the drop pods available here: http://www./download/lxqcedwaz6oraod/Bison_Mk_VI.craft