Aanker

Aspiration Aerodynamics B-44B Sabre Build a fuselage, glue on some wings, attach eight or so jet engines and your typical heavy duty bomber is born. But for more clandestine or urgent missions, a more attentively designed airframe is necessary. Aspiration Aerodynamics is proud to present the B-44B Sabre, a supersonic bomber carefully fashioned to fulfill and exceed our expectations of performance excellence, intuitive flight characteristics and flexibility. Freely inspired by the Convair B-58 Hustler Specifications Parts: 124 Mass: 30.0t Crew: 2 Height: 7.3m Wingspan: 10.4m Length: 22.7m Powerplant(s): 4x J-X4 Whiplash Turbo Ramjet Engines Maximum SL Speed: Mach 1 Maximum Speed: Mach 3 @19.5 km altitude Armament: 1x 4.6t Hammerhead Fin Stabilized Bomb, externally mounted; 2x 1.0t Firefly Fin Stabilized Bombs, internally mounted Utility Equipment: 1x Airbrake, 1x Drogue Chute Operational Guide Commands 1 - Toggle engines 2 - Drop Hammerhead FSB 3 - Open/Close bomb bay doors 4 - Drop Firefly FSBs 5 - Open Drogue Chute (landing only!) 6 - Cut Drogue Chute (landing only!) Note: drop the Hammerhead FSB before dropping the Firefly FSBs. Takeoff Takeoff is straight and stable. Rotation is possible after 60-65 m/s. Engines will provide enough thrust to quickly accelerate the B-44B to Mach 1 at Sea Level. For ascent to high altitude, stay within 20-30 degrees to allow smooth leveling out to cruise altitude at 19km. 45 degree ascents are quicker but may result in overshooting the target altitude, with subsequent engine flameout. Flight The B-44B is very stable in flight. Roll maneuvers while the Hammerhead FSB is attached may appear unstable, but approach rolls carefully and the Sabre will handle the rest. Avoid overheating the intakes and engines by flying at maximum throttle at lower than 18-19km altitude. Mach 3 can be sustained at altitudes of 19-20km. This enables reaching either the western or eastern landmasses within 8-9 minutes. Landing Slow down to 100-120 m/s on approach. For the final approach, avoid dropping below 55 m/s, or a stall will ensue. Once on the runway, deploy the drogue chute and use both landing gear and the airbrake to slow down to a halt. Remember that the B-44B is not a fighter jet - it maneuvers gently and with reduced engine power pitching up is slightly slower. Bombing The Hammerhead FSB is heavy and streamlined. It will fly far before impacting the ground. The Firefly FSB is light and, while streamlined, has more drag per unit of weight. It will impact the ground relatively early. The Firefly FSB should not be dropped while flying too fast, or the rapidly decelerating bomb may impact the rear of the cargo bay. Stay within 200 m/s. Link http://kerbal.curseforge.com/shareables/230388-b-44b-sabre-stock Album Video

Questions! 1. Fuel drop tanks? Yes-no? 2. Merged together bombs? As in, one big x2 FLT-400 bomb for ease of drop? EDIT: So I attempted a run with my XB-44 'Sabre' today, hopeful that I could snatch the speed record while carrying an acceptable bomb load. But the game crashed on the way back. Here are the final seconds of that attempt:

Working on something that could potentially be interesting

So until then, our best guess is magic?

Hydrogen, Carbon, Tungsten... So difficult to choose...

So to my understanding, if the hypothesis behind the physics of the drive is correct, using a mismatched wavelength and cavity dimension would produce less or (preferably) no thrust? If so, I believe we have a negative control. Of course, assuming that cooling, materials etc. would not be an issue for those types of tests.

On the topic of negative tests - this discussion happened a few pages back so I won't quote - wouldn't using different types of EM waves (radio, X-ray, etc...) be possible (if not negative) controls? Can they apply different microwave wavelengths and see different results? What happens if they have the resonance chamber, and just leave it on the rig without anything beaming at it? etc

However, it would be nice to see some more negative controls. Remove this and that part - does it still work? Those experiments.

Smaller cross section than this or this Tell me more about your cross sections. Yes, I've learned more and more about what gets stuff into orbit and what doesn't in 1.0.2, but that doesn't mean I think we should rapier spam instead of just adding drag boxes for wings (as they should have, mind you, regardless of aesthetics).

So now, because the meme word is 'panel van', adding the wings means the aircraft resembles a shoebox. OK. So much judgement, so little time. No, my spaceplanes did not resemble boxes. No, they did not have significantly larger cross sections than tubes with wings. They did not resemble flying bricks or whatever other presumption you might throw at me. Honest to god, I am also sick and tired of people who assume that the use of the wings was to exploit lift, in spite of me repeatedly saying that this was not the case. The case was always: wing parts currently add too much drag individually. Let's fix that. Surely you can see the logic in adding at least a drag box for wings - otherwise I'm not quite sure what you're doing here. You wouldn't then be interested either in realism or aesthetics. One poster got bogged down in resentfully hating on my suggestion of adding purely aesthetic parts with significantly less drag because I mentioned that a no-drag option would be simpler and not at all an exploit if the part was otherwise practically useless. But there wasn't actually a sensible counterargument to the former. So I guess we're stuck with wing parts for the job. Again, I stand by my assertion that wing parts could be realistically simulated without making them drag chutes. I think people take the "more wings" expression too literally - for the lack of parts better suited to the job, more wing parts does not translate into a riddiculous and random placement of wings across the fuselage in an attempt to get 'moar lift', it was one of the few ways to lego-style build planes into the shapes we liked. Now I'd love to have procedural fuselages and wings, nuFAR-style voxel simulation, being able to mold the shapes into the form that looks most aerodynamic... But we can't. We're stuck with the lego construction style, which doesn't go well with the higher drag unless you like mashing together fuselage sections and severely reducing the wing part count. At least try to construct sensible posts instead of attacking strawmen or the poster or using childish accusations of exploits. 60 or more pages spread over 5-8 threads. I have no idea where the first post to that effect was. Frankly, the first time I showed the creation it was as an open reply to that and other posters who made similar arguments. Now it's more of an example of a basically 4x straight winged aircraft making it to orbit.

SABRETOOTH CLASS MISSILE CRUISER Current Version: Mk I Introduction Built by the Ascension Corporation, the Sabretooth Class missile cruiser is the latest in a line of military spaceships built to perfect the mission of annihilating any and all enemies of the state. With a cargo bay capable of holding a wide range of missile types and sizes, as well as the style to match any modern orbital fleet, the Sabretooth is sure to satisfy the needs of any space warfare commander, anywhere. Tailored to precise, surgical attacks on distant targets, the Sabretooth is the stealthy ranger of the battlefield. Operational Guide - the Mk I Sabretooth is launched with an orange fuel tank in its cargo bay to ensure at least a 90x90 orbit around Kerbin. This orange fuel tank can and should then be emptied and ejected while in orbit to be replaced by the armament alternatives seen appropriate by the user. - the Mk I Sabretooth can perform an emergency ascension maneuver at sustained +25-30 degrees to orbit, but additional adjustments may be necessary. (note: experimental pilots only ever conducted this type of ascent, so there may be more optimal flight paths) - there is currently only one large docking port, so it is advisable to design refueling and armament utilities accordingly. Future Versions - the upcoming Mk II Sabretooth will have more docking ports, including airstream shielded ports outside the cargo bay to ensure rapid and practical refueling capability. - the engine system will be made partly modular, so that nuclear propulsion can be used instead of the current transatmospheric alternative. Ascension Corporation Production Licences - commanders may modify, add to and remove from the construction as seen fit and share these modifications freely as seen fit. Link http://kerbal.curseforge.com/shareables/230227-sabretooth-class-missile-cruiser (Link to project main page) Album Mk III(P) Version Preview No more orange fuel tank needed in cargo bay, small cargo carrying capacity to 100x100 orbit.

Makes it to orbit lel. -> it's not particularily creative though. It took me about ten minutes to plunk together the parts and the rest was just finetuning. Minimalism or building with fuselage sections seems to be the new thing. It's not creative - it literally took me five minutes to throw together and the devil is in the details, which I cannot add. Nope, plenty of posters throughout the aero threads made that point clear enough. Hence why I demonstrated it in the first place. I won't sift through the probably 50-60-ish odd pages of those discussions so you'll simply have to trust me on that one. Cheesy sci fi designs were specifically mentioned. They wouldn't knock off 550+ m/s though. And even then, I can sink them further into the fuselage, but that starts to eliminate even their aesthetic purpose and still won't take away the drag. Better build an X-wing instead. But that's the point! It's still not realistic. X-wings, battlecruisers built out of mk2 fuselages... But we can't build aerodynamically-looking craft using wing parts because wing part count is arbitrarily one of the most important factors of drag regardless of wing assembly. So effectively, they've sacrificed creative freedom for... nothing. I don't think you understood my argument then. I said we could have both realism and be able to use more wing parts in our designs. That's not me making everyone play my way, that's me saying I should be able to play my way and you should be able to play your way. Liberty. Freedom. Democracy. America. Because it's more realistic, it offers more creative freedom and we can share our craft with each other without bothering with drag settings, mods, or whatever else. It's not a hack. They would have no practical purpose except aesthetic. Even then, I am OK with (very) low levels of drag, as the current model would not take into account the placement of those same pieces. That's the point. With the lack of (very) procedural fuselages and fuselage/wing modeling to our satisfaction, we have to use the wings to approximate the shape we imagine. That means a lot of aesthetically placed parts, sometimes not perfectly, but on the whole the general shape that is modeled for is more aerodynamic than an x-wing. I can survive the new drag model. I can build spaceplanes in it. But I find less enjoyment doing so because I can't craft them the way I like to. I'm limited to fuselage mashing, which I did before too - but I also added small wing parts to create more realistic surfaces and transitions between fuselages and wings. Now, wing parts are drag chutes and as such doing so will simply punish my finished spaceplane. And it is totally unnecessary. We could have wing drag models, we could have a simple button that eliminates the lift and drag of a wing part... The possibilities are endless.

The Xtra-Wing makes orbit! Granted, it's a measly 85x85 orbit with only a full FLT-400 fuel tank as cargo (and I used up 100 units of monopropellant completing the burn, as well as all my LF), but then I did that on an outright impatient 40 degree ascent path to space.

Your lack of faith is disturbing?

For the body lift, did you try Mk 2 parts? Those are the liftiest airplane fuselages.

They also need rolling animations, currently they slide across the ground. More landing gear in general would be nice You can never have enough.

Indeed. I often hear the argument that "[communist country] wasn't really communist/control economy". That doesn't mean we should try it again. It means that in spite of several real world attempts the idea behind the political-economic system is broken and it cannot be realized.

Thank you, and yeah I tried it myself and it worked. I prefer this over using an upload site for what is basically a .txt document

I don't think, under any circumstances, that wings with that shape would be viable for a spaceplane. Yes. The superficial resemblance to a sci fi craft is also what bothers people. Numerous posters have said, "I dont want x wings in the game/I dont want 80s cheesy sci fi spaceplanes in the game" - well, you can already have those, so why shouldn't I be able to add 30ish more wing parts that are out of the airstream, actually make the craft look more aerodynamic, should not contribute to drag or lift, and are not intended to exploit the aero model? I don't even want to build X Wings, because they look unrealistic. But I can. So why can't I build my more detailed and fleshed out spaceplanes? It's because a few players feel like everyone should play the game in their way. They think aesthetics building is cheesy, or lame, or unrealistic (which as I've demonstrated over and over again, it isn't)... and so think it's fine to limit creative freedom. Well, it isn't. Because we can have both realism and more creative freedom than 5-minute X-wings. We can add drag modules to wings. We can add structural parts without either lift or drag. We can turn down the drag value a notch or two. We can specifically reduce the drag of wing parts... see what I'm getting at? And no one has so far managed to produce a good counterargument to any of those suggestions. Why? They're too busy accusing me and others of whining or being newbs or whatever.

Wait, you mean to say that the new drag model increased realism? 1. Look, the problem here isn't that we're trying to build unrealistic stuff. To be honest, my most aesthetically-minded designs (inspired by for instance the SR-72) look a ton more realistic than something I threw together in ten minutes and still makes orbit (see the X-wing). 2. Why can't we have both realism and aesthetics? As suggested in the wing drag module thread. Or is it something about building cool spaceplanes that goes against your gaming 'philosophy'? I get it. You just want me to be forced to play this game the way you like it, don't you? Because it's 'hardcore'. 3. 16 small wing parts fused together with the fuselage should not knock off 550 m/s sea level speed. 4. Of course any complaint about the new drag model is just whining. Of course it is. This type of immature 'you mutht jutht learn the game, you are thimply a noob!" gets us nowhere nearer a better and more freely creative KSP.

Again, the issue isn't the wing area relative to craft size. It's that we can't build the wing area using smaller parts in the first place because the model currently just treats them as "more wings!" I posted this earlier in the thread: The difference between the two craft is 16 small wing pieces added on the right variant to 'panel together' the fuselage sections. That reduced the sea level top speed from 960+ to 400ish m/s. With a simple wing drag module solution as suggested in another thread, this wouldn't even happen. Heck, with a simple 'no lift, no drag' button the panels could be for purely aesthetic purposes (as they are intended to be) and not affect the flight characteristics noticeably. The distance of the engine fuselage sections relative to the centerline had no effect whatsoever. It was all down to those 16 small wing pieces (eight on top, eight on the bottom) gently fused together with the fuselage.

We didn't add the wing panels to exploit lift. Lift wasn't even a concern in the old souposphere (and isn't in the new one either) - the reason was for aesthetics. This suggested solution would at least allow us to spend more time building spaceplanes the way we like them.

If he wants to share his aesthetically crafted spaceplanes, for instance, that solution becomes a complicating factor. I think it's more important to fix the drag, add aero model features or adjust the way wings work in stock, than refer to the .cfg file. Even though it is a temporary fix, yes.

I think people will still want to have children, regardless of robots, so cybernetic-biological (sorry, I can't help but get the feeling that this sounds like technobabble) integration would seem more likely if this kind of transition occurs. The thing is, there might be more than just a few areas in which biological solutions simply beat silicon chips and copper wire. Even nano-computers, if they are possible. Things like practicality and sustainability might just preclude the 'inevitable' robotics takeover. We have had many amazing inventions before, and none have really completely infiltrated every single corner of our lives. I'm betting on the cynical reality nerf to rear its ugly head in robotics as well.

So is this a robots replace humanity thread? Or a workforce automatization thread? I'm confused