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Lots of good stuff in this DLC! Could I ask you to consider re-texturing the Duna meteorites? I believe there does not exist a single example of a meteorite having small impact craters. Such features would all be erased from ablation during the fall through the atmosphere. Right now, they look like miniature asteroids rather than meteorites. Unless it is supposed to be covered by red Duna dust, a more likely colour would be black.

I took it up to a 250x200km Kerbin orbit on the solid boosters and chemical rockets without encountering problems - but frame rate was rather low. Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS Intel® Core™ i5-4590 CPU @ 3.30GHz × 4 , 8Gb RAM, GeForce GTX 960/PCIe/SSE2, NVidia driver 390.77

Here is a video of the Kierva in a feeble attempt to keep this thread alive Notice the dropping of the blades when stationary, followed by coning at low RPM, then flattening when approaching flying speed. A gentle takeoff to avoid rolling, followed by a lucky landing. Why, oh why? I have long been fascinated by the complex aerodynamics of helicopters, including autorotation. R/C hobby shop owners have grown wealthy from selling spare parts for my 450-size helicopter from all the failed autorotation attempts. With this size, there is little margin for error. (Symmetric blades with radius about 41cm. Weight 800g). After upgrading to a 550-size helicopter (55cm blade radius, weight 3kg), autos became much easier, and I usually finish every flight by one. In the mean time, I also got a couple of R/C model autogyros. With larger, asymmetric blades, flexible articulated rotor heads and lower flying weight, these can fly pretty well.

Here are a few simple autogyro designs: The first one is stock, while the rest use hinges and bearings from Infernal Robotics (IR) mod. The stock one is very limited in performance and realism, but I hope it manages to whet your appetite and try the IR ones. There is a lot of room for improvement - I hope you will tweak the designs or come up with completely new ones. AutoGyro (stock) Autogyro (stock) kerbalx download Guide to flying: Engange SAS and engines. Set throttle to 1/3 and stage to free bearing. Wait for rotor to spin up while using rudder to keep straight down the runway. When up to speed, increase throttle to 1/2, and it should take off by itself at about 42m/s. Be prepared to correct roll. If there is a strong rolling moment, rotor speed was too low. Use throttle to control climb - recommended 1/3 to 2/3. Cruise is around 1/2 throttle and 45m/s. Try not to go too fast or have too low AoA, as rotor will slow down. For power-off descents, keep a forward speed of 30m/s and a descent angle of 40 degrees. Some flare is possible, but landings are a bit firm. Landings with 1/6 throttle are much more gentle. When you get the hang of it, try to remove the reaction wheels in the cargo bay or set the wheel authority to zero, including the one in the cockpit. With a bit of care, it still flies reasonably. Considering that the stock autogyro has a rigid rotorhead, it flies remarkably well - maybe due to limitations in the physics model or play in the bearing?! The bearing was snatched from ThatSaneGuy's Stock helicopter: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1541278290 ----------------------- I have tried to make stock flapping hinges for the rotor blades, but they kept falling apart. For this reason, I moved on to using hinges from Infernal Robotics: Infernal Robotics v3.0.0 "Next" Beta 3 Patch 7 https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/170898-wip-infernal-robotics-next/ https://github.com/meirumeiru/InfernalRobotics/releases Kierva (IR) Kierva (IR) kerbalx download For your convenience, Separatrons are provided for spinning up the rotor - simply set half throttle, stage, and off you go. However, it is far more interesting to take off without the rocket boost: Set throttle to 1/6 and let the rotor spin up. At low RPM the disc will have a lot of coning - wait until it flattens, then increase throttle gradually to 1/2. Take off should occur at less than 40m/s. It flies quite well without SAS. Level speed is about 35m/s at 1/3 throttle. AutoGyro Light (IR) AutoGyro Light (IR) kerbalx download This uses the FAT-455 aileron for rotor blade - they look better but appear inferior to the "Wing Connector Type E" Flying: Take-off with wind-milling speed up of rotor quite difficult due to poor ground handling. Recommend full throttle and then engage Separatrons to speed up rotor. Needs 2/3 to full throttle in flight and 1/3 throttle for landing.

Kind of related to the discussion above: When my space station (manned and with probe cores) runs out of EC, functions of Life Support, Agroponics and Habitat very reasonably stop. It is perhaps also reasonable (but tedious) that they have to be manually re-enabled when power returns. But it is quite confusing that the right-click settings with the blue toggle buttons does not reflect the disabled state - they still say "Stop [function]" as state, and have to be toggled twice to return to working state.

Ok, so here is my entry: A STOL-ish MK3 transport was used for all missions - it was developed slightly along the way, as I got a better idea of fuel consumption and improved pitch authority with flaps deployed. Cruise to each location was assisted by Waypoint Manager and Kramax Autopilot Continued. Typically cruising at 8000m, 200m/s. The ground station from the provided save file was used with a slightly widened wheel base, still fitting into the MK3 bay. First, easy, mission was to VoIP Valley - sent a scout plane ahead to figure out the procedures. Then followed Package Peak, CODEC Crater, Megabit Mountain. Router Reef was a bit tricky, as it was hard to find a parking spot where the vehicles did not slide down. Synchronous Summit was saved for last, as it seemed the most daunting. A few re-loads were required before a landing was completed with only a few bits missing. Overall a nice challenge, and certainly a save file with some interesting surprises. I guess my score will be 6 * 30 = 180 points. http://imgur.com/a/saPN5

An attempt with Jeb at the controls in a cockpit: http://imgur.com/gallery/WcA2t I guess you can see that this one is built for the task rather than good looks...

Here is my entry: http://imgur.com/a/YVF0D Two landings are shown where I am just beyond the third line, so must be 100 points. Five more points is certainly possible with this craft, given enough accuracy/patience/luck. A landing is simply cutting the throttle, whereafter it dives down and stops in like one turn of the main gear. Neither pretty or safe. It is hardly a surprise that real carrier landings are not rated by how short you stop.

Realistically, not feasible, I would think. An EDF would work best for subsonic speeds at low and medium altitudes, similar to a propeller or high-bypass ratio jet engine. It would be difficult to extend to other ranges.

If you want to implement something that is reasonably feasible, you might want to consider Electric Ducted Fans. Quite popular for R/C model aircraft, and also used in experimental full scale aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-Fan

I am enjoying this mod GAP 1.2.5, but also having some issues: After accepting the missions: "Achieve Mach 3" and "Fly an airplane to 35.000m", and then finding I did not have the technology to complete them yet, I did some space missions. When coming back to the contracts, they were in a strange state, where they could not be completed, so I had to cancel them. Also, "Barnstorm Jeb's tool shed" and "Fly a spaceplane to the edge of space" failed because I accepted them and then went on to space missions. The "safely/without destroying your aircraft" condition failed. Most of the contracts have re-appeared and have been completed. But when "Barnstorm Jeb's tool shed" re-appeared, the waypoint was at the correct position, but the shed was halfway inside the hangar. During the mission, the barn and hangar exploded, but the contract could be completed by flying under the waypoint.

Poster Severely Annoying

Yesterday, I was given a similar rescue mission, that happened to be one of the greatest challenges so far. A two-star rescue mission, that turned out to be to a retrograde circular orbit just inside the Mun's orbit. Well, not circular for long, with both the stranded and the rescue craft having up to two gravitational encounters with the Mun each orbit. That was hilariously, frustratingly impossible(?). It of course ended with the stranded getting ejected into the solar system with a periapsis inside Eve, and having to abort the rescue mission and send out another interplanetary rescue vessel - mission still ongoing.

So far in 1.0.5, I have returned several times from Minmus with no heat shield and only the Terrier engine protecting the MK1 Lander Can stacked with the new 2-person flight cabin. Typically aerobraking a few times with periapsis around 40-38km. That feels rather silly - an engine like that should easily be destroyed by overheating without any fuel flowing to cool it.

Here is my entry for the STS Pilot I qualification badge, flown with the STS-7E, named Tordenskjold. I tried this nice shuttle shortly after the challenge was posted, but got distracted and downloaded again yesterday. After a few tests, today was the time for an entry attempt. The launch and orbit insertion went so-so, with the periapsis of the first "orbit" only at 55km, but after emptying the main tank, the orbit was at an impressive 225x233km. The tank was threatening to break up, and failure of the tank had caused some problems in my earlier tests. This time, only a few bits fell off, and it could be safely decoupled. Then on to a 405x405km orbit using monopropellant and deployment of the payload consisting of the full orange tank. It ended in a 405,124x405,211 orbit, still completely full. Now for de-orbit - wait intil KSC appeared roughly in the right place and retro-burn every drop of the monopropellant. Periapsis now 31.5km - this just might be enough, provided the shuttle can withstand the steep descent?! Well, the shuttle slowed down to below 1km/s, 30 km above KSC without blowing up, so things are looking promising. Then turned around for the island runway and approached low and slow. Rapid disassembly on the hill before the runway, but the crew was alive. Hmm, hit F9 and tried again from 29km height. Same result. F9 again, and finally nailed it with a complete shuttle stopped on the island runway and a happy crew.

Thanks for the mod links. I just tried the scramjet mod - it gets really wild! While "surface" speed was still displayed on the navball, I reached Mach 8.01 / 2557.6 m/s: And just before reaching the 50K ceiling, Mach 9.01, and 2701.5 m/s displayed by Kerbal Engineer Redux: The ship went into a high atmosphere-grazing orbit, and only re-entered after the second orbit and was able to glide to a landing you could walk away from near KSC.

While Mach 6 still seems out of reach, Steltina and Halrim Kerman made it to Mach 5.02 (according to Kerbal Engineer Redux), or 1482.6m/s in level flight. @Lego_8bit : You write "allow opt mod Aka the ADVANCED TURBORAMJET! and the scramjet mods" and "DRE". I have no idea about these. Could you please explain further, e.g. by providing links to these mods?

Even breaking Mach 5 seems very difficult to me in stock 1.0.4. Got to Mach 4.99, but may be using a bad approach...

Watching a few other trainees get out and back with better fuel economy, Lesa got a second attempt: After getting to an orbit of 75.5x76.1km, there was only fuel left for a very shallow reentry. KSC was passed at a height of more than 30km, but after yet another split-S, the Fearow landed dead-stick on the runway. Consumed 671.14 LF and 495 LOX. https://picasaweb.google.com/105600781576952248354/JebSFlightSchoolLesa2?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Lesa made it too! She was the third pupil since the local instance of the flight school opened, and the first one to perform according to the briefing. A 75.1 x 76.1 orbit was achieved, and the plane was landed dead-stick after a rather aggressive split-S maneuver over KSC. Consumed 1055 LF and 722 LOX, starting with full tanks. https://picasaweb.google.com/105600781576952248354/KSPFlightSchoolLesa?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Nice job, million_lights! I tried making a similar design, but could not get it stable under braking, while yours behave nicely. It consistently reaches 592m/s on my PC.

This entry is not optimised for a good score in this challenge, but rather to resemble the part of the Falcon9 recovery I found the most incredible when first reading about it: Returning the first stage to the launchpad. The first stage is shut down at 29km, a velocity vector of about 45 inclination and an orbital speed of approx 1.0km/s. A quicksave is made here, and the 2nd stage is ignited and lifted to a circular orbit of 73x73km, with 437m/s dV left. The quicksave is loaded and the first stage performs a horizontal retro-burn (900m/s dV), sending it back towards the launch site. With airbrakes at the top, the 1st stage is stable and easy to land without toppling over, from a ballistic orbit. A suicide burn can be made from about 800-1000m. Maneuvering for a precision landing is much harder - I have not managed that. Launch cost: 100.243 Payload cost: 2.979 ( Large Holding Tank w. 450 Ore : 6.5 tonnes ) Recovered part cost: 74.900 (excl fuel) Land on land: 2X multiplier Score: 15.40

I see no rules against these. The only thing not allowed is liquid fuel braking rockets. I used chutes.

Tried a lot of designs, only to find they became unstable or did not follow the rules. This should be ok, and behaves nicely, but is rather slow: 345m/s, all stock.

Going for realism? Starting at 100% throttle is a good way to make the engine go CATO aka. boom! Recently, Copenhagen Suborbitals found that the ideal pre-stage throttle setting for their tiny BPM-2 engine similar to the LV-1R Spider, is not 50%, but 42%! Link to article (in Danish): http://ing.dk/blog/42-175851