Hodo

Not sure what all the hate is about with his craft. I am not a fan of non-FAR challenges but I have been watching this thread for a while. The last set of "challenges" have been interesting to say the least. And the craft in question is just small, and doesnt have a big heat signature to start with. It easily just avoids heat seeking missiles on head on engagements. And to be honest the AIM-9s are not that good in BDA.

I found for leading edge slats your settings should be between 3-6 deg no more than 7. I have them set to AoA not to roll, pitch, or yaw. This craft is an older design of mine using AJE+FAR and BDA. You can actually see them deflected slightly in this pic. I started toying with the idea of slats a while ago, here is one of my early test fighters. It had its drawbacks but did a good job of being a test platform for me, and actually lead to designs like this... That is the same two craft, it has IR to move its wings forward into that position.

You have too much wing surface area compared to the F-15. It is actually REALLY close to the MiG-25 Foxbat.

The Concorde did have an experimental version, it just never had the "X" designation because that is a USAF military designation, and the Concorde was a French aircraft.

There are several ways to approach your design. For me I look at it from the limited picture you show, and I can see the CoL is quite a bit back from the CoM, causing the craft to be nose heavy or overally stable. If you were running in FAR this craft would never pitch up and actually not fly at all. But to help that craft I would reduce its size, the scale of that craft is a bit too beefy to be "maneuverable". No matter what it will handle like the Exon Valdez. The suggestions of increasing the wing size is a good one. And one I would say myself. But wings are ultimately dead weight in space. Same for intakes and air breathing engines. I would find a way to move your CoL closer to your CoM, I would then increase the amount of lift the craft generates at low speeds. This will help with landing and take off speeds. The sooner the craft is off the ground and above 10km the less fuel it will use getting to space. After that I would work on figuring out the optimal flight profile for it. This is the hard part. Not every craft flies the same. No jets and works just fine. I have even upscaled it and made it able to haul a 20t cargo to orbit.

It would have to pass REAL close. And does it carry ANY weapons? Because I doubt most missiles will survive those speeds.

Being a Dodge and Nissan man.. not to mention a hardcore Trekki, I can say I love both the Dodge Challenger, AND the USS Excelsior. Great job on both.

There is nothing more satisfying than launching your first manned rocket into orbit in Realism Overhaul, with Real Fuels and recovering the capsule and crew intact.

No that would be Mechjeb. MJ has landing autopilot... although I have NEVER had any luck with it.. but I also dont trust a machine to land anything.

Your craft reminds me of my escape system for some of my older cargo craft.

This is or was my best craft, or I should say my most used. SP-407

I love this challenge and I may give it a try but I doubt I will have the success most of you have had due to the fact I run FAR. I have always had very successful military aircraft selection. May see if some of my old designs are still up to the challenge of the ever changing combat environment.

Nukes are horrible landing engines. They are to heavy for the TWR. I would suggest using Aerospikes for landing engines. While not as efficient they are more powerful and lighter. I would also consider a lighter lander instead. There is nothing wrong with sending it as one craft, with a lander docked inside of it. I do that quite a bit now. Found it cheaper and safer to just send a lander down to the surface of most moons. But one problem I noticed with your craft. Your nukes are not inline with your CoM, this means the CoT will be over your CoM, causing the vessel to pitch down in space, meaning you will burn a LOT of RCS monoprop to keep the nose on target.

This was my first and last probe sent to Eve.... Done with DRE, FAR, and Remote Tech signal delay... OH was it a nightmare... I may go back one day. There was some technical issues but it still achieved its mission.

I have built some Variable Geometry wings before, but not like Mr. Elmetian. His design is far better than my own. But I am also a huge fan of the leading edge slats or variable camber leading edge. I use those on most of my current designs to limit wing stall when possible. Leading edges on that only move a max of 6 deg.

The myth of the Aerospike engine being a poor choice for SSTOs is just that a myth. This SSTO is powered by 4 Aerospikes and one small maneuver engine. It took off like a rocket from the KSP launch pad, and lands like a plane. Kind of like the Venture Star program. Which also uses a aerospike engine. The Aerospike has one of the best all around ISPs of any rocket engine in game. Its biggest drawback is the lack of gimbals. As for the launch profile, in normal KSP not FAR, is this... -Climb to 10-12km as fast as possible. -Bring your nose down to about 5-10deg to fly mostly level with a slight climb no more than 10m/s till you reach 1200-1500m/s on jet power. -Switch to rockets and pitch up to 30-45deg (gradually as to not stall your craft), and climb to desired AP, then circularize as normal.

Ok being a former RSS/RO player, and a FAR/AJE player now... I can say I think your problem is two fold. 1- Your engine is clipped into or through the bottom wing/heat shield this is causing it to heat up first. That and that engine has a lower heat tolerance than your craft. Check the max temp on that engine you maybe surprised. 2- Your craft is conducting a lot of heat to the engine which, as stated before has a lower heat tolerance than the rest of the craft. This is causing it to overheat then explode. To fix this place some small radiators or some kind of intercooler between the engine and the craft. This or get a higher temp range engine. EDIT- last thing.. the engine cfg file maybe messed up. Your temp range looks correct but it is overheating at a MUCH lower level than it should. 380k out of 2000k.

There is this one... I use it with AJE which gives me a pretty reasonable realistic atmospheric engine with FAR installed.

I dont understand all this "Hate" over a youtuber. He is posting videos of what he does in a game. A game that we all play, if he uses hyperedit or modified files that is on him. It doesnt make anything anyone makes any less cool or neat. I can say now without a shadow of a doubt that a large portion of the stuff posted in the spacecraft exchange forums wont work without some cheats, mods, edited files or hyper edit. Some of the challenge submissions have been proven to be faked or cheated. This is some cat on youtube... who cares what he does. It is for entertainment and that is it. Scott Manley is the sameway, I like him but I dont care if he uses cheats.

Cool design... But doesnt SSTM, mean Single Stage To Mun/Minmus? I dont mean to be a stickler but, if it is dropping ANYTHING, it isnt a single stage.

I can concur on the 700AGL is a good altitude. 400 is pushing it but I have had a kerbal bounce and survive.

Mach 2 without leaving the ground.. nice!

Val couldnt resist buzzing the tower.... She would be grounded if we werent so short handed on pilots.... (no really I have 3 pilots TOTAL in my program, and 1 in on a long term assignment.) Good ol' simple fighters... they do a lot of my testing work.

As Alshain asked is it a "rocket" or a "Plane"?? The other question is it stock install or with mods? But ultimately a SSTO craft of any type you want to have enough delta V to get to space and orbit without dropping anything from the craft. Make sure you get above 10km as fast as you can, then start to build up as much horizontal speed as you can. This is best with a turbojet engine or a RAPIER engine in airbreathing mode. After you get above mach 4, or around 1200m/s I would turn to climb up at 35deg angle or better till I hit target AP.

So I have started my exploration into space again.... with the DSE-1 vessel... Deep Space Explorer. Leaving Kerbin for the Mun for its shakedown cruise. Arriving at the Mun to begin its first landing operation with one of the two landers, both of which can be remotely piloted down or back.