Hodo

The "Farscape atmosphere push" maneuver would only work in RO RSS. Where the scales and gravities are the correct scale. Basically the idea is you come into a gravitic SOI at a really steep angle where your PE is just within the atmosphere of the largest gravity body, and use that acceleration to overcome the loss of velocity from atmospheric drag, and slingshot yourself back out into space.

Not sure what you mean by STTO, Single Tank To Orbit? All I build is SSTOs in KSP because the atmosphere isn't anywhere near scaled right for realism. I also run FAR+DRE and have been since 2013 and I rarely have problems with craft burning up or needing drop tanks to achieve orbit. The trick is designing an efficient design that works. If it looks like junk it will fly like junk, if it looks right it will fly right. Simple pilot saying that actually works.

Capi, I just want to say congrats, but now comes the fun part, advancing the design. May I suggest building a multipart wing so you can kill that long thin tail, unless that is the look you are going for. You can end up with a wing that looks more like this, and you will still have great pitch authority, supersonic flight control and pretty decent low speed landing characteristics. That craft can haul 70tons into orbit with ease and it is only 127 parts. Or a wing like this for a true tailess delta design without canards. Again that is a SSTO and more than capable of reaching 100km orbit. If you look at most modern supersonic aircraft, I suggest researching Russian Fighters or US Fighters of the 4th generation, this is closer to the technology you are dealing with in KSP. You will see that the wings change sweep angle at some point along the wing.

Sorry but that thing is HIDEOUS, and wouldn't even consider flying in the real world, which is what FAR does. FAR isn't that complex as long as you keep in mind that there are certain laws that can not be broken, but can be bent. And of course the number one rule for aircraft, "If it looks right it will fly right!"

Thats right they do start in position 2, it has been awhile since I bothered looking. But air brakes can be placed on any part of the aircraft. There are a few real world examples that come to mind. F-16 Falcon Dauntless SBD F-86 Sabre Just a few real life examples.

You are right that is a topic of another very heated discussion. Which for the life of me I dont understand why people dont like FAR or NEAR, but hey each their own. But yet these same people are cheering at the new aerodynamic model which maybe much like NEAR. Go figure.

They work together I have both. There was a weird bug in B9 procedural that was unrelated to Pwings. There was a fix posted by crzydm that works.

Its actually it does quite the opposite. And flaps wont help you slow down, flaps just help keep the wing from stalling at a low speed. EDIT- As for your action group setting, you have to set them up to raise on one action group and to lower on another action group. They start in full deployment. What you need are spoilers or air brakes. In your FAR control surface editor in the SPH choose the option for spoiler and increase the deflection angle of those spoilers to around 60-80deg, this will cause them to act as big air brakes slowing the craft down. You can see the airbrakes in this picture here.

Ok I am looking at your SSTO in the last pics... I see several minor issues that will cause bigger issues. First, the CoM and CoT are not lined up, they are slightly off due to the engines, intakes and liquid fuel tanks being below the wings and bringing the CoM down below the CoT. This with the mass of the wings being below the center line of the craft this would further this shift in mass. The fix for this is simple. You can shift your turbojets up into the wing by using the movement tool in the SPH. With this you can even remove the pylons they are on which will help with some of the additional mass. Downside to this is your landing gear are going to have be moved. Second, your wings are attached to the 1.25m tanks which are then attached to the hull of the craft, which means you have a pretty weak flex point that is between your wings and the actual body of the craft. I prefer to attach my wings to the craft then rotate the fuel tanks through them so they clip through the wings. This will keep some things attached at their strongest points. I would also reduce the thickness of the wings to the minimum to place struts from the wings to other parts of the body to increase strength. Then once the struts are placed I would return the wings to the thickness you want, this will hide them inside the wings. Last but not least the I would remove that MASSIVE horizontal section of the tail. You should not need anything like that if you shift your mass forward just a bit or your CoL back.

This is what I usually do. I will sometimes design the craft with an empty fuel tank just for shifting fuel around during flight.

I may have to find my old download for that version of B9 and snatch that out and put it back in my install. That was the best looking cockpit in B9, granted its lack of an IVA is a minor issue.

I would like to have this cockpit back.... Why was it removed?

The biggest problem with Torpedoes in KSP is water isnt water in KSP. It is more like nearly dry concrete. So if a vessel goes to fast underwater it will just explode from the force. And if you run Ferram4s Better Buoyancy mod, then your torpedo may just sink and not work at all.

I dont think anyone is arguing the point, I said all that in the second post on this thread.

First I would like to say that flaps are part of your problem on take off, your flaps are to far back away from your CoM thus they are acting like elevators and pushing the nose down instead of creating lift. This isnt helping your take off speeds at all. As for your CoM and CoL, I think they are to far apart, right now your CoL indicator is set roughly at the center of your wings which is correct for subsonic flight but as soon as you start going super sonic it will move back towards the rear of your wings, further away from your CoM. This will make the nose VERY heavy at supersonic speeds and it will only get worse at higher mach speeds. I suggest moving your CoL closer to your CoM. Ideally you want it just behind the CoM. About like this craft, granted this craft it was a bit to close but its CoM shifted forwards as fuel drained. To fix your problem I would do two things. Add a Leading Edge Extensions (LEX) to the front of the delta wing... like the F-18 Hornet. I have done it on several craft that had issues with the CoL being to far back and canards weren't an viable option. Like this craft, and this craft also utilizes leading edge slats and flaps for take off.

Technically yes. If you drop any part of the craft prior to achieving orbit it is no longer a Single Stage To Orbit craft. Now if you can achieve orbit and then you drop those tanks you are fine, but if you can do that why do you need drop tanks.

I know the feeling, the craft in the second pic was because of a similar train of thought. I wanted to know how reverse swept wings handled at supersonic speeds, and found that they are a bit more stable at those speeds. Now I am starting to toy with new forward swept wing designs and super agile fighters. It has really reshaped my thinking process. This is an early design in that train of thought.... And it far exceeded expectations.

Most of my designs have a take off TWR of around 0.5-0.9 depending on the craft. Some of my smaller "fighters" are a fair bit more higher on the TWR scale around 0.9-1.1 again depending on the craft. I love that your designs are different and I am just trying to find out some of the thoughts behind them. I am always erroring on the side of caution in my designs. I often have an escape system designed into them also. Granted I use it less now that I have the Kerbal Parachutes mod, so they can just eject out and deploy their individual chutes.

In short yes. It is a matter of finding the balance on the CoL and the right speed for that design, much like modern 4th gen fighters.

So basically you have really high TWR, manned missiles. That is a completely different design philosophy than any of my craft, fascinating. Most of my craft have very good low speed handling characteristics and are a breeze to fly at low speeds down to 70m/s on some and yet still capable of achieving a 100km orbit with ease. Have you ever considered increasing your wing area for more low speed handling? Much like this craft, that is nothing more than a flying wing, and has an amazing glide slope.

The funny thing is Wanderfound I have downloaded some of your craft to test out and compare to my designs, and I dont understand how you fly craft with such high stall speeds due to such small wings. You are essentially fling manned missiles. Have you ever considered adding a bit more wing to your craft to increase your low speed handling?

You dont need to post the URL for imgur pics, it should have a "link option" when you click on the image in your album. Like this. Which for your picture would be found under the picture in your Imgur account, click on it, then highlight and copy the BBCode link. Past that link here without adding anything else to it. DONE! It isnt rocket science. And it sounds like you have a conflict somewhere. Try checking your output.log for errors, or hitting ALT+F2 this is probably spamming a steady stream of red NULREF errors.

This also depends if there are any mods involved. But getting rid of debris will help especially on lower end systems.

I like your designs there, but I have a couple of questions. Do you use FAR or NEAR? Because those look like they would work pretty well in either of those. Also why didnt you use the cockpit with those designs instead of the probe core? And I may "borrow" and modify one of your smaller designs for something to fit inside of one of my larger SSTOs for a lander craft.

Without de-railing this thread any further and placing it back on topic. Yes it is very possible. The thing is if you are landing on an airless surface you will really consider a VTOL landing option for the craft.