Lothsahn

How did you "solve" the propeller problem? I always get less thrust and more torque with fewer blades? Details, man! Details! Ah. You dual-stacked the blades. Clever man!

Azimech: How do you see what the rad/s of the blades are? To solve the engine explosion, use tougher blades. Take a look at the Juno D211D--I use the 1x1 panels, which support collisions up to 80 m/s. I also make sure that if they collide, they'll hit the i-beams (not the jets!), which also have a 80 m/s impact tolerance. This ensures that I get jams (or in severe cases, the shaft dislodges), but no explosions. It does require a *slightly* larger engine space to have the jets above the i-beams, but I consider it a good tradeoff. The problem with the plates is they are big, so they'll start impacting sooner than the smaller blades you use right now. To solve that, I tilt them in the Juno engine, which increases the gap between the i-beams (and therefore, the max speed) before they start colliding. Interestingly enough, testing shows little or no loss of RPM by tilting the panels, which I would not expect. As a result, the Juno doesn't explode during overspeed conditions--only jams--and usually is recoverable from jams with a throttle down. You can probably use this strategy to make your engine indestructible. The only time I've gotten an engine explosion is from diving with the Yak at 160 m/s. I'm not sure the cause, but I think the shaft might be ramming into the rear of the engine--Juno was designed for a puller prop. I think there's a parts collision at the rear of the engine, as it's stressed for pulling forces, not pushing ones. I tested adding rear wheels to make it work as a pusher, but adding more wheels lowered the efficiency slightly, so I never kept those modifications. Redshift also recommended strutting the turbine blades to the shaft, as this might help separation. I haven't really worked with it much, as tilting the blades resolved all of the issues for me, but it's something you might try. Also, if you're getting vibrations, you might try strutting the wheels holding the structural fuselage together. Reducing their vibration goes a long way to making a much more smooth running engine.

Azimech, I wouldn't give up on tanks and adapters yet! The Juno D211 uses them quite effectively, partially based on your Yelling Gazelle. It provides roughly 20% more thrust than the Yak's engine and weight 1T less. I think the NCS must be more slippery or your angled wheels are adding more drag. In any case, even with my engine, I was unable to break your speed or altitude record--it's pretty much limited by the ability of the control surfaces to counter the propeller thrust--the same thing I was seeing with Stuka. I actually had to throttle down the engine to 75%, or the plane became uncontrollable around 7500m. I also tried the modified Yak in a dive, resulting in a massive explosion at 160m/s. Things came apart so fast I couldn't figure out what the root cause was. Craft file here: Yodeling Yak with Juno D211 Feel free to use my engine in any of your designs. It's small, light, and high RPM. Its only drawback is it cannot handle extremely heavy props. Fun Note: The altered COM on the Yak when using the Juno means you have to structurally reinforce the Yak's tail or the tail will slam into the ground and explode when loading the craft. The Yak is beautiful as heck. I'd love to see a P38, if you have time. I think the counter-rotating props would allow for even higher altitude and faster speed records, as the forces would balance themselves out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-38_Lightning

Yeah, but you cheated! You're getting all that extra speed from the ion engine in the cockpit! I LOVE the inside cockpit detail. It's AMAAAZING. Just checked out your engine. Pretty interesting design--should have a high max RPM--you've got wheels directly on high m/s parts. Very nice.

That's insane. I thought you broke the prop. That's just rotor separation. Haha.

Just mounted this on the Yelling Gazelle. The propellers are very large, and they put out so much torque that it actually pulls the shaft out the front. Looks like I'll have to reinforce the front wheels for larger props. Hadn't tested on any props this large yet. I got the engines fixed to test the thrust, and I think I'm getting thrust that's comparable or better than the stock Gazelle engines. I'll do some more testing and let you know some better results tomorrow.

1) Interesting. I'll look at this. Be careful though--the engine MUST be above the frame, or you'll have RUD when the turbine blades crash into the engine. The whole point of the engine is that the lowest point is the i-beam, NOT the jets. Also, it would save parts, but those parts are physicsless, so I don't think they'll affect performance that much... I guess if you're solely looking at parts count it'll make it look better. 2) I'll try adding struts. This might increase the maximum RPM easily. Thanks for the input!

Introducing the Stuka JU 87B. Fully stock. (forgot to tag it in the thread title) Featuring a realistic 3-bladed prop, bombs, improved realism on the airframe, and the Juno 211D turboprop, this tries to make a flyable airplane while keeping realism as much as possible. It's also fun to bomb your spaceport. Comes in two versions, the realistic version, and the fun/easier to fly version. Both are the same, but the fun version has an 8-bladed prop and wing reinforcement to prevent RUD during dive bombing runs. All performance characteristics below are of the fun version. Credit goes to Azimech for original turboprop engine design and some design ideas for improving the engine. Specifications: Crew: 2 Loaded Weight: 26.29T Powerplant: 1xJuno 211D 4 jet turboprop engine Maximum Speed: 50.4 m/s Cruise: 4100m @ 38.9 m/s (50% throttle, 14% Angle of attack) Ceiling: 5700m @ 50.4 m/s Endurance: 6360 seconds @ cruise (after takeoff) Range: 247 kilometers (153 miles) Armament: 1× 550 lb bomb beneath the fuselage and 4× 110 lb, two bombs underneath each wing. Craft File: Stuka Lothsahn JU 87B (realistic) Stuka Lothsahn JU 87v4 (Fun)

Posted my upgraded Stuka on a new thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/111103-Stuka-JU-87B

That's pretty creative, reversing the travel parts. I did not think of that. However, the Juno 211D accomplishes the reliability without the power loss. It's roughly twice as powerful as your Screaming Turtle engine, without any added jets! I'm not sure how it compares to your strongest engine--please test and let me know. In the event of overspeed, the engine will start randomly tugging on the airframe, which lets you know to throttle down. If you continue to overspeed, the engine will stop spinning until power is reduced, with no part breakage. With at least a 3 bladed prop attached, I've been unable to break the engine at any speed, altitude, or throttle setting unless I use physics warp. With 8 blades (as shown in the Stuka V4), it will not overspeed at any altitude that the Stuka is flyable at. With 3 blades, overspeed starts to occur around 800m at 100% throttle. Design Specs: This engine is designed to be high RPM's and high power, while keeping a compact profile (length and width). Some power is sacrificed to keep the profile smaller. Engine weight: 8.7T This engine is capable of pushing the Stuka to a maximum speed of 50.4 m/s @ 5700m altitude. The limiting factor actually becomes the loss of tail authority, as there is not a second prop to counter-balance the forces. Design Details (for future modders): Rotating parts in kerbal tend to expand as they rotate faster. You can see this in the propellers as they spin. This happens to the turbine blades too. By designing the engine to have high strength parts (1x1 panels & ibeams) be the collision points, you can cause the engine to jam without part loss. The bearing in the engine are modeled after the yelling gazelle, but using higher strength angled parts. These bearings mean that unless the shaft completely leaves the wheels, it will automatically reset itself when the engine is powered down. The maximum RPM of this engine is directly dependent on the gap between the turbine blades and the i-beams. To keep the profile smaller, I had to rotate the turbine blades. This means they are not perpendicular with the jets, which (I think) is causing a small power loss. With a larger case, I believe the engine could provide even more power if it had perpendicular blades. Craft File: Juno 211D

Sorry about that. I deleted the post. I meant to put it in your stock craft turboprops. It's here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/109511-STOCK-HELICOPTERS-TURBOPROPS-New-Yelling-Gazelle!?p=1742358&viewfull=1#post1742358 It uses the engine from the 77I-7A2O "Screaming Turtle".

Using Azimech's turboshaft engine from the 77I-7A2O "Screaming Turtle", I've built a much less ugly plane. Introducing, the WWII German dive bomber, the Stuka. It's only 175 parts. I prioritized making it look as realistic as possible, but still able to fly. Because of this, the flight characteristics are rather poor--it has very little power. If you want more power, you can add a fin to each engine blade, or use wider blades, and it will fly MUCH better. Also, there are a large number of control surfaces (to replicate the look of the original stuka's dive brakes, etc), so there may be *some* infiniglide effects going on, but the prop provides the majority of the thrust. The purists may cry a tear or three. Other things of note: 1) After flying Stuka, when you revert to launch, spaceplane hanger, or go to the space center, the game can crash. This is a bug in Kerbal, and I've reported it to the devs. This appears due to the engine--using Tsevion's engine I never had any crashes. However, it was too heavy to take off. 2) I strengthened Azimech's engine by adding a couple wheels, specifically on the top. This is because the load on the engine is not uniform, as the engine is horizontal. Other than that, it's his stock engine. 3) At full throttle, due to the small blades, there is a small chance that you can overspeed the RCS tanks in Azimech's engine, causing them to explode. If this happens, the prop will jam and stop operating. I recommend using 90% throttle, unless you want to live on the edge. Consider 100% war emergency--the engine may self-destruct. 4) Because of minimal thrust, I needed to reduce weight and removed most fuel. This puts the CG far forward, so I added reaction wheels to allow you to lower the tail. Without these (in the cargohold), you will not be able to lift off the ground. If you make a much larger prop, you can fill all of the fuel tanks, and you can remove the RCS wheels. I plan to try to design my own engine, particularly to reduce weight and fix the overspeed explosions. I have a few ideas on how I might achieve that. However, if anyone wants to propose a lightweight engine, I'd be happy to use it in the Stuka. Craft file: http://lothsahn.com:3172/kerbal/Stuka-Lothsahn.craft

Found a bug. Anytime I'm in the VAB and I try to load ships, the menu will not work--nothing loads. Ship file shown below. Workaround: Deleting the affected ship file allows me to load ships. Error: [EXC 20:28:41.671] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object ShipTemplate.SetIfControllable () ShipTemplate.LoadShip (.ConfigNode root) CraftBrowser+..ctor (System.IO.FileInfo ) CraftBrowser.buildCraftList () CraftBrowser..ctor (Rect rect, EditorFacility facility, System.String profile, System.String title, .SelectedCallback onFileSelected, .CancelledCallback onCancel, UnityEngine.GUISkin guiSkin, UnityEngine.Texture2D fileIcon, Boolean showFlagButton) EditorLogic.loadShip () [ERR 20:28:41.814] [shipTemplate]: Could not locate root part in Optaztron MK III as 0 entries remain after eliminating all parts listed as children. This is probably wrong. Ship file (entire contents): ship = Optaztron MK III version = 0.90.0 description = type = VAB size = 0,0,0

I'm wondering the same thing. I tried and was unable to fly it. I had to unpower half the wheels, and then it didn't have power for takeoff. Author: Any instructions for how to fly the thing?

This is one of the most awesome things I've seen in KSP. Very well done!

Could you remake this stock, or is the part integral? I'd be happy to land this on Laythe and mess around with it. I've been looking for a good sturdy rover, and this one looks pure awesome.

To post the image, I put the image on my webserver, then I clicked the "insert image" button and provided the URL. You'd need to post the image to flikr or some website first, though, if you don't have your own. Let me know if you make your .craft files available. Definitely would love to take a look.

I need some cruisers or something. I can reliably get tons of mass to orbit, and nothing to have fun with it. I found that going above this much tonnage starts to scale part counts exponentially to strut everything together without catastrophic failure. How many parts were in your 300T lifter?

Any chance you could provide a full download of his ships and yours? I'd love to launch the XC-700!

Very cool little efficient rocket! You can feel free to use my lower booster, if you want: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65982-Lothsahn-s-Super-Heavy-Lifter-250T-LKO-%28Stock%29 That should at least give you a lower stage where you can attach all sorts of cool looking ships like this one for roaming on eeloo, tylo, or whatever you want.

So I've been playing Kerbal a while and I've still got a lot to learn about orbital mechanics, changing orbits, and gravity assists. Because I've been playing around with those concepts, I've found what I need is LOTS OF FUEL in my interplanetary probes to account for noob mistakes, non-optimal orbital shifts, etc. I've found a number of "heavy lifters" on this site that can lift between 40-80T into LKO, and that's great... but I wanted more. Because bigger is better! And everyone needs a 200T fuel depot orbiting Eeloo! This craft launched my Eeloo lander (attached) with 250T of fuel into LKO. I then traveled to Eeloo and landed on the surface with 150T of fuel total (most still in orbit). This craft also works for launching huge space stations or fuel depots into LKO. Design considerations: 1) "Low" partcount--457 parts! (plus lander). This ensures as minimal lag as I could with a design this large. 2) Stable construction. While occasionally I do find a part break (<10% of launches), it appears to be pretty rare. This is due to extensive strutting. 3) No part clipping or cheating during construction of the ship 4) Easy to fly--ASAS should work without ripping the ship apart 5) Every other tweak I could find to ensure maximum payload delivery (asparagus staging) 6) My main hope is that this lifter helps some new people to the game to be able to launch ships that can travel to wherever they want, and have plenty of fuel and parts to spare. Hopefully this ship can be featured in the first post as a super heavy lifter platform. 7) Ugly. It must be ugly. Apparently... Remaining Bugs: 1) Rarely I will have an attachment break. I'd be interested if anyone can improve the strutting to eliminate that without drastic increase in partcount. 2) The ship begins to rotate, especially in upper atmosphere. I'm not sure, but I think this might be related to the fuel transferring between stages, and I've added a number of RCS thrusters to stop the rolling. You may have to switch off ASAS and manually maneuver to stop the rolling. I'd love if someone could eliminate this problem. Instructions for Modification: 1) If you change the probe or lander on top, be sure to strut appropriately to reduce wobble 2) If you change the fuel middle stage (above the decoupler), be sure to strut at least 2 struts per orange Rockomax tank to replace the ones there. These are vital to structrual integrity. 3) If you change the fuel middle stage, you may need to change the root module with the SelectRoot mod. 4) I strongly recommend at least 4 nuclear engines on the lander (if not more). If you have less engines, you'll find orbital maneuvers take a very very long time. 5) You may wish to put a decoupler on the bottom center mainsail engine to jettison it once you get to orbit. Instructions for Use: Unlike most massive ships, you can safely use ASAS with mine! This makes it a breeze to fly (mostly). 1) Enable ASAS and disable RCS 2) Throttle to 75% 3) Hit the first stage to release the docking clamps. Once the clamps release, immediately go to 100% throttle 4) Remain at 100% throttle throughout the entire ascent 5) Go to a 45 degree attitude at 25k altitude and finally nearly level at 50-55k to finish the ascent and attain orbital velocity 6) After you drop all of the outer tanks and the lower two sets of orange tanks, enable RCS to control the rolling of the ship. The ship will start to roll agressively above 25k-30k without RCS. 7) You may have to disable ASAS at 40-60k altitude and manually correct the rolling. You can then re-enable ASAS. 8) All upper-stage tanks are connected by docking clamps. Transfer fuel and jettison them as they become empty. 9) Switch to the control module on the lander and use nuclear engines from your lander or probe for orbital maneuvering for optimal fuel-efficiency. I recommend at least 4 to avoid boredom, as the entire craft is quite sluggish when the 3 orange rockomax tanks are still connected. Craft File: http://illatia.yhbt.com/Lothsahn%20Heavy%20Lifter.craft (Right click and save as)

So I've been playing Kerbal a while and I've still got a lot to learn about orbital mechanics, changing orbits, and gravity assists. Because I've been playing around with those concepts, I've found what I need is LOTS OF FUEL in my interplanetary probes to account for noob mistakes, non-optimal orbital shifts, etc. I've found a number of "heavy lifters" on this site that can lift between 40-80T into LKO, and that's great... but I wanted more. Because bigger is better! And everyone needs a 200T fuel depot orbiting Eeloo! This craft launched my Eeloo lander (attached) with 250T of fuel into LKO. I then traveled to Eeloo and landed on the surface with 150T of fuel total (most still in orbit). This craft also works for launching huge space stations or fuel depots into LKO. Design considerations: 1) "Low" partcount--457 parts! (plus lander). This ensures as minimal lag as I could with a design this large. 2) Stable construction. While occasionally I do find a part break (<10% of launches), it appears to be pretty rare. This is due to extensive strutting. 3) No part clipping or cheating during construction of the ship 4) Easy to fly--ASAS should work without ripping the ship apart 5) Every other tweak I could find to ensure maximum payload delivery (asparagus staging) 6) My main hope is that this lifter helps some new people to the game to be able to launch ships that can travel to wherever they want, and have plenty of fuel and parts to spare. Hopefully this ship can be featured in the first post as a super heavy lifter platform. Remaining Bugs: 1) Rarely I will have an attachment break. I'd be interested if anyone can improve the strutting to eliminate that without drastic increase in partcount. 2) The ship begins to rotate, especially in upper atmosphere. I'm not sure, but I think this might be related to the fuel transferring between stages, and I've added a number of RCS thrusters to stop the rolling. You may have to switch off ASAS and manually maneuver to stop the rolling. I'd love if someone could eliminate this problem. Instructions for Modification: 1) If you change the probe or lander on top, be sure to strut appropriately to reduce wobble 2) If you change the fuel middle stage (above the decoupler), be sure to strut at least 2 struts per orange Rockomax tank to replace the ones there. These are vital to structrual integrity. 3) If you change the fuel middle stage, you may need to change the root module with the SelectRoot mod. 4) I strongly recommend at least 4 nuclear engines on the lander (if not more). If you have less engines, you'll find orbital maneuvers take a very very long time. Instructions for Use: Unlike most massive ships, you can safely use ASAS with mine! This makes it a breeze to fly (mostly). 1) Enable ASAS and disable RCS 2) Throttle to 75% 3) Hit the first stage to release the docking clamps. Once the clamps release, immediately go to 100% throttle 4) Remain at 100% throttle throughout the entire ascent 5) Go to a 45 degree attitude at 25k altitude and finally nearly level at 50-55k to finish the ascent and attain orbital velocity 6) After you drop all of the outer tanks and the lower two sets of orange tanks, enable RCS to control the rolling of the ship. The ship will start to roll agressively above 25k-30k without RCS. 7) You may have to disable ASAS at 40-60k altitude and manually correct the rolling. You can then re-enable ASAS. 8) All upper-stage tanks are connected by docking clamps. Transfer fuel and jettison them as they become empty. 9) Switch to the control module on the lander and use nuclear engines from your lander or probe for orbital maneuvering for optimal fuel-efficiency. I recommend at least 4 to avoid boredom, as the entire craft is quite sluggish when the 3 orange rockomax tanks are still connected. Craft File: http://illatia.yhbt.com/Lothsahn%20Heavy%20Lifter.craft (Right click and save as)