British_Rover

@giggle The Bullfrog was super twitchy in its first version so I removed the large control surfaces for ailerons and replaced them with small control surfaces. Even that was still a bit to quick for a Trainer style plane, at least IMO and I have flown real planes so I think that counts somewhat, so I removed all ailerons and the Bullfrog flies much more smoothly. The torque from the cockpit plus the elevators provide plenty of roll control to pull 90 degree bank turns at close to 9 gs when at high sub-sonic to transonic speeds.

My submission. Just the base 50 pts currently. I took one of my old SSTOs from a couple of game versions ago and stripped the rockets and RCS from it. I still left some of the rocket fuel but it will break 2,000 m/s at under 25,000 meters of atmo.

Fixed link for my craft sorry about that. For some reason the sharing setting was not set to public.

I did one last edit with right craft file.

Thanks for that stupid embed code. Just updated post with craft file too. Just dl from my google drive account.

Never did a challenge before but I do love planes. (in character) Gentel-kerbals I present to you the TR-32 Bull Frog the latest design from QUASAR industries. She is not the prettiest jet out there but she is great for short hops and is very forgiving. The Bull Frog is designed to be a high performance trainer for new KSC trainees experiencing their first taste of jet powered flight or more experienced trainees that are moving onto level two or three training. Level one trainees are limited to a ceiling of 6,000 meters which keeps the Bullfrog from exceeding the speed of sound. High subsonic flight to the edge of transonic flight is possible at this altitude with the single basic engine. Because of the dual ramjet design the Bullfrog can reach supersonic speeds in excess of Mach two when at its maximum ceiling of 20,000 meters. This is limited to level three trainees or instructors. Level two trainees are limited to 12,000 meters which lets them get their first taste of supersonic flight. The Bullfrog lets a new pilot become experienced with how action groups are used in two ways. Custom action group one is the parking group. It sets toggles the rear brakes, engine and ladder deployment. The abort action group is also used to eject from a disabled aircraft. The engine is cut then the cockpit ejected from the airframe before two parachutes are deployed. The Bullfrog is also a capable glider when needed and can easily glide at under 80 m/s. (out of character) Engaging fine controls by using the caps lock key is recommended for pilots just starting out till they are more familiar with the controls. Once the Bullfrog lifts off it will settle at a 25 or so degree ascent path. Simply engage computer control then and level out at 4,000 to 6,000 meters. My original design had more control surfaces on the wings which allowed for auto take off at under 80 m/s but it made the plane much too twitchy. I first tried to use smaller controls but that didn't help much and just made it prone to stalls. The best flying version so far is this final version without ailerons but with the extra weight of the separator. Pictures below and I have to upload the craft file a bit later. TR-32_Bullfrog https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1b53G-UMsskbzIyRENET0s4ajQ/edit?usp=sharing One more edit correct staging. And batteries to help with torque. Best not to fly with less then quarter fuel becomes hard to nose down. Only 21 parts just over 4 tons full of fuel and minimal parts clipping just to get air intakes looking right. http://imgur.com/a/APABX/ Also because we know that everyone really wants a plane with mach effects and reentry effects I made the super bull frog. Easy for a new player to make a mach 4 plus plane simply by replacing the basic jet with a turbojet. Flameouts don't matter because there is only one engine so a flameout doesn't induce a flat spin.

Real rockets are much faster and much more powerful. The TWR of a liquid rocket engine like NASA is using is probably better then 30:1. That rocket was doing 6 km a sec at I think they said 260 kms.

My first instrument only landing. Just using the enhanced mecjeb readouts I put my proof of concept kethane explorer into the bottom of a very deep munar creator in total pitch blackness.

Just use stage lock.

This almost sounds like the Fulton recovery system. I suppose this is doable but how do you get the lander on the Mun if it has no fuel or thrusters? I don't see how you could make something that would lithobrake on the mun light enough to survive with a kerbal in it and land with the hook in an upright position. A better challenge would to be pose this as an emergency rescue scenario. Your one man lander has been damaged in someway and cannot fire its rockets. KSC planned for this situation and installed the Kulton Skyhook recovery system on both the lander and CM. The CM can't land for various reasons, no landing legs and/or too heavy, but it can approach the surface at a low speed and catch the LM's hook with its own hook. If you brought the CM in slow enough you should be able to hook the LM without breaking anything. Assuming you can design a hook that will actually hold the LM as it flops around at liftoff. Bonus points to make it more like the Fulton system if you can figure out a way to use a winch from the KAS and sepatrons to fire the winch line up for the CM to catch. Not sure if that last part is doable with the way switching between ships is done at low altitudes and how physics load is set at approach distances. I think you would have to put the CM in an extremely low orbit, then switch to the LM and time the launch of the winch so that the CM reaches it before it falls back down. This is a 100% doable using the magnet on KAS to grab the LM but I don't know if you can design a hook with stock parts that won't let go as you accelerate to orbital speed.

I did all that how do you activate it? I clicked on it both left and right and with ALT but got nothing? How close does the kerbal need to be? Nevermind got it to work he has to be basically touching it and I wasn't close enough to even activate the module.

OK so I am trying to use the Unreconstitutionator and I must be doing something wrong because nothing happens. Does it need to be on the command pod on the kethane tank or somewhere else to work? I click on it and nothing even happens. I am testing my orbiting kethane module before I send it to my Mun orbiting station and I need kethane in the tanks to test. What do I need to do?

"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Robert Oppenheimer quoting a Hindu text.

ouch That modular rover is fantastic and so is that solar cargo plane. Here are pictures of my KMD_MK2 in the kerbal testing phase. I wanted a mobile Kethane driller that had limited VTOL capability to hop out of craters or across canyons. I have landed it multiple times pretty hard with minimal damage, just blown out tires that the kerbals can fix, and once with moderate damage where I lost an engine. Still even with that moderate damage it could still drill and move around after wheel repairs. That moderate damage landing was at close to 20 m/s vertical and about 15 m/s horizontal after I ran out of fuel so a fairly extreme test.

I just got my massive, at almost 47 tons empty its not the heaviest cargo I put into LKO but it is the most awkward, KMD_MK2 into LKO. I initially was going to use docking ports for the kethane transfer but I decided against it and installed KAS. My initial prototype was heavier but too unstable for short VTOL hops. The MK2 successfully hopped the length of the KAS runway and landed at about 15 m/s horizontal and 5m/s vertical. I blew out three tires on that landing and I think it is the hardest it can survive. Here it is in the VAB before being attached to my asymmetrical launcher. My initial plan was to land it on its own fuel supply but now instead I am going to make a gantry system for my heaviest skycrane to set it down on the Mun. I just don't think 753 m/s of Delta V is enough of a safety margin to set it down under its own power. Of course now that I have it up there I realized I didn't put a ladder on the Can. Good think for RCS packs.

grrrrr I wanted to say that.

Aren't they going to overheat each other at anything more then half throttle being so close? My Large Rescue Lander nearly overheats its center Nuke engine and that is with the four outer engines about 3 meters away from it.

Ah damn I was thinking of that one. How about Kape Kanaveral. I also like New Jeb City and Rokochester.

I have three different heavy landers you could try out. These are all based off my heavy probe design and two of them are set up as probes now. They Rescue Lander is what I used to rescue my two stranded three man crews on the Mun. It can get the the Mun or Minimus easily and return. There is a single three man pod at the top along with a four man crew module under it. The launch can be a little tricky but it is easily doable you just have to be careful with the center engine and how it fires. The rescue Rover is a probe designed to drop a rover with a four man crew pod attached underneath. It can work as a skycrane and both the rover and probe have enough battery power and panels to make it through a Munar night. I don't recommend driving the Rover at night though and Keep your speed under 15 m/s. The Space Truckin probe is the third version I have worked out which carries more fuel and has a wider stance to carry larger payloads. I am working on it to be a modular spacecraft that can work almost like a train to carry large payloads interplanetary distances. I just tested out to Minimus by taking a Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank out there landing it then bringing it back to LKO. I did need to use some of the 32's fuel tank reserve to get back to LKO but I didn't need any of it to land on Minimus. My plan is to use three of these docked together to haul a huge colony out to Laythe. The file as it is saved currently has no cargo so attached whatever you want to the docking port under the lander just make sure you strut it to the big adapters to keep it from flopping around during the gravity turn. When you jettison the last of the lifter the struts will detach from the cargo. Space Truckin put 16 tons on Minimus no problem so it can haul whatever you want pretty much. Just remember it is not set up for Kerbol reentry stock so add a detachable module with parachutes if you want to return. Otherwise just use the rescue lander. Keep in mind only the rescue Lander has parachutes attached as the other landers are probes not intended to get back to land on Kerbol. Special notes for the rescue lander and Space truckin at launch when the small aux tanks empty just jettison them. They will bounce off the SRBs but that doesn't hurt anything. Lastly the rescue rover lander has the SRBs and aux tanks inverted to the center of the lifter. Wait till the srbs are empty then jettison everything. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1b53G-UMsskUmttSi10bERGek0/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1b53G-UMsskUUhXS0xHZWVqRnc/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1b53G-UMsskazl2UHg3OFpGVGs/edit?usp=sharing Here are screen shots in the VAB I don't have any inflight shots on this computer.

You know I have been killing myself with docking and that is a great way to learn how to do it. Currently I have done it twice but used up enormous amounts of fuel doing it. The whole point of docking was to build and refuel the space station I am construction. By the time I managed to dock the first time I had used up all but 1 unit of RCS so it was almost a wasted trip even though I could transfer half a load of fuel over.

If you have twitter and you are interested in History you should follow Michael Beschloss. He always posts the best historic photos and he posted a few over the weekend from Apollo 11. https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/358636738903674880/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/358648640086097921/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/358639991489970176/photo/1 I assume that third shot is just as the Saturn V goes transonic from the condensation cloud. https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/358652696212934657/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/358960207927320576/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/358964192616804352/photo/1 Last shot not from Apollo 11 but Apollo 14.

I don't think I have enough experience for an Apollo Style Mun landing, I can barely dock around Kerbin, but I did send my rescue lander to the Mun today to pick up my last stranded crew. I made an ok landing about 6 clicks from their position then took off again to reposition. There was just enough fuel left in my stranded crews lander to take off and cover the remaining distance so I ended up only 600 meters apart at the end. A quick hop from the jet packs and my three macn crew was rescued. Then I managed my best landing on Kerbol yet. I ended up setting down only about 10 clicks from the Space Center