Hodo

I am glad you both enjoyed it. It was a simple fun little side project for me. I thought long and hard over which to enter, and I decided to go with something I don't often do. I had considered adding a docking port to it, but didn't think of it at the time. I use that craft as a test craft because it is a such a stable platform. And I had no intention on trying to win this challenge, I just wanted to see what others have started doing and let some of you "new blood" SSTO designers shine. And honestly several of you impressed me with your craft and I may have to borrow some of you design theories and add them to my own. Thanks for the reviews! The ejection system is a standard on all of my SSTOs now.

VTOLs work fine in FAR with B9 parts. Been making VTOLs for a LONG time with B9 parts and without in FAR. The thing is make sure you are going fast enough to transition to level flight or have a steep enough AoA to generate lift in level flight.

All you would do is add thrust to the regular bomb and have it lock on a target to hit it. A JDAM doesn't do anything but go to a GPS location, otherwise it is just a bomb.

I voted for the Kerbadine Migration, after all of the craft that I tested, I think 4 or 5 total, it was a very good craft the best in my opinion. It was honestly close between that and the Laythe Wing. Which was another outstanding craft.

I actually removed that file 2 days ago. This sliding issue only started with this latest release of the pack. Otherwise everything else works fine. LOL, someone will probably cry about this statement right here and report you for being mean. Like someone did me a few weeks ago.

I thought you wanted sidewaysStiffness = 0.01 not 2.

Didn't notice that, but I fixed the issue in my cfg. HEAT GENERATION from 550 to 275, and from 450 to 225. Problem solved. But the biggest issue is with the landing gear. You slide sideways on the runway, while sitting still without the brakes on. Not just roll forward like normal, but slide sideways.

@ Sirine, Thanks. And how does the voting work, are we to vote for one per thread? Or one total?

Ok landing gear now have the grip of none... my craft slide sideways sitting still on the runway. Also the SABRE engines overheat WAY to fast with DRE. I can sit on the runway and throttle up to 100% and they will burn up and explode in less than 10 seconds.

That craft in those pictures is 104 tons on take off. If that is lightweight to you, then you are playing on a different scale.

Oh... I think that is the version with the MJ module in it... I didn't think of that. I will fix it. EDIT- fixed it, redownload the craft from the original post link. I forgot that I have two sets of stock cockpits, ones with MJ and ones without.

There is a trick to VTOLs. Design your craft so the CoM does not move or does not move enough to affect your VTOL ability. It used aerospike rockets for its VTOL engines. They were the only thing powerful enough to lift its bulk on Kerbin, and a bit of an overkill on Ike.

I have done a few VTOL lander space planes, and the CoM thing is made a lot easier with 2 mods, TAC Fuel Balancer, and RCS build aid. If you just use one RCS build aid is the best of the two. If you built it right your CoM shouldn't move, or shouldn't move enough to affect your hover stability when in VTOL mode. The biggest thing I have found is all of my VTOLs bring additional RCS, because they will need it on worlds that do not have an air atmosphere. Ones that have oxygen atmospheres I will use the B9 air thrust nozzles for RCS. And i have built some pretty massive VTOLs. 149 tons. 146 tons. Went to Ike 240 tons with a 80 ton cargo load capacity in VTOL and 110 ton cargo capacity STOVL. Again... it took dozens of hours of work to get those designs functional back then, and I am currently working on rebuilding some of them now.

Sirine, you forgot to add my craft to the front page. It made it in before the deadline.

I have noticed the engines heat up faster now, with DRE. Not sure why, so I have done some minor tweaking.. again. Reduced heat production by a factor of .5.

I rarely trust the simulation numbers. I like to use them as a base to see if it will reach some speeds, then I go out on a series of test flights. The craft will be tested on take off and landing never going above 10km. Then tested for supersonic flight then hyper sonic flight. Then finally I will take it to space to its test alt of 100km by 100km orbit, the final test is a full operational mission of some type. Usually at this point I am happy with the design and it may make it into service into my fleet. But pictures of the craft would be helpful in diagnosing any issues with it. The best pictures are the ones in the SPH with CoM, CoL and CoT icons on, taken from the side and from the top, a third angle is helpful usually a 45deg angle from the front top is a good angle for a final pic but not required. This is a sample picture of how a SSTO in FAR using stock parts should have its CoM and CoL.

I did something like this with a model for another mod, that I don't use anymore. Except I modeled the weapon after a Russian design.

Here it is.. a stock FAR craft for this challenge. It is a simple cheap SSTO space plane for science missions. SP-10 The instructions are in the description box for the craft. It is a simple plane to fly. Highly suggest flying with SAS on. But I believe it can be flown with it off, never tried. Mods used. FAR, Stock, and TAC Fuel Balance. I do suggest some kind of fuel balancing option but it is fine without it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gkqmh3cqdgme54v/SP-10A.craft?dl=0 Check the action groups should be setup as follows. ABORT- decouple and toggle sepetrons. 1- Toggle Turbojet 2- Toggle 24-77 rockets 3- Toggle RAM Intakes 8- Toggle ladder Brakes should only have the rear landing gear on it. WARNING, LOCK STAGING to prevent accidental crew cockpit ejection. Have fun testing it out, it is a fun plane for me, and it has a science nose cone for testing things while going around. I debated long and hard about what craft to post, but I decided the one with the least amount of mods used in it. I didn't want to try and remember which ones had TAC life support or Procedural wings or Procedural tanks on them. So I went with my stock SP-10 test craft that I use for most of my game changing tests. I could have went with a standard RAPIER setup but wanted something old fashioned and so I left it that way. Overall it is not a work horse for me, I realized most of my work horse SSTO space planes are MASSIVE and are very much a work horse, no frills kind of craft. This almost ended up being my entry, but I wasn't sure how many people had started using the new B9 parts. It is modeled after the C-17 Starlifter.

One minor thing I have noticed. -Landing gear are still very wobbly.

I would like more landing gear. Like someone else said ones that are flush with the craft, not tacted on. I would also like larger and longer landing gear options.

There are a lot of assumptions and incorrect usage of RAPIER/SABRE engines out there, most of the time these faults in fuel use are pilot error related. People try and fly them like a rocket when that isn't the best way to do anything. I use RAPIERs quite a bit, and SABREs which are just bigger RAPIERs mainly because I am trying to reduce part count and keep life simple when building a craft. Not because I want something that can Single Stage To Eeloo. I follow the same flight profile as the planned Skylon craft. Which means I gain as much speed as possible between 15-25km altitude on jet engines before I switch over to closed cycle, then I change my climb rate to climb as fast as I can while using closed cycle. This is one of my designs that I am currently using. It uses 4 RAPIERs and has no problems hauling up to 20 tons to orbit. I have made larger FAR larger craft that can haul over 120 tons into orbit using SABRE-M 2.5m engines, which are almost 5 times more powerful then the RAPIER, and use almost 9 times the fuel. If you fly it wrong YES you are going to have horrible fuel consumption. If you fly it right you can get the simplest things into orbit.

I have considered throwing a design in even though I have said I would not. But I will say I have been overall impressed by the innovative designs and original concepts that have come out in this challenge.

DRE is the only one, I have both, and nothing in TACLS does anything like that.

This is refreshing. How .21 of you to bring up a hot topic from last year. Before everyone started jumping down anyones throat who uses FAR or NEAR, or those who don't. I used to hate MJ, but now I have it and I actually come to love it for a lot of things.

Nope, unfortunately I don't think it is being supported by the OP anymore.