Hodo

FAR doesn't make it harder... it makes it so aircraft react like aircraft. But in that picture I see nothing wrong with the design. It should work fine you have plenty of d/V, your TWR is high enough. Even you Nerva TWR is pretty decent. Other than perhaps a few struts needed to shore up the design so it doesn't come apart under high G maneuvers you should be fine. MJ is horrible for all things aircraft related. I love it for the information and making orbital burns but past that it is just an information display for me.

Do you have a picture with the CoM and CoL on? Oh and are you using FAR?

Looks like you have 2 reaction wheels, you only need one at most on that craft. You should be able to get to orbit with either craft, the RAPIER or the NERVA/Turbojet craft. If the design is about the same the one pictured then it is light enough with enough fuel. The trick I found is climb as fast as you can to 15-20km altitude, then bring the accent angle down to about 5-10deg, but make sure you keep climbing, I generally slow my rate of climb down to 10-20m/s. This way I am gaining as much speed as possible. By the time you hit 25km you should be going close to 1600m/s or about when your turbojets stop making power. At that point turn on the nuke and boost the rest of the way.

Sorry you missed the reference, Monty Python....

It just looks like a bird, a Swallow to be exact, and because it is a cargo hauling bird, it would be a laden swallow.... so the question would be, how fast is a laden swallow?

Your computer is worth more than your car...lol

KSP vs Real Life... 1 mod pack will answer that for you, Realism Overhaul. The difference is about 60-66% from KSP to Real life. Kerbin's atmosphere effectively ends at 69.1km, Earth 104km. Delta Velocity for orbit around Kerbin-2.3km/s roughly. Earth 9.4km/s. I have used both RO and stock KSP size. The most successful rocket I had in the RO was a copy of the Ares V rocket, with a 19m SRB first stage, with a 150s burn time. I could push it to an altitude of around 70-80km before I had to drop it and go to the second stage.

How many of these are you going to post?

MJ isn't cheating. It is a tool just like KER, and all the other plugins. It is your game use what you want. I have used both MJ and KER, and currently I am using MJ, because I don't need all the information that KER provides and MJ I can configure just a bit better. The only time I use MJ autopilot feature is when I am doing LONG burns and just don't want to be bothered with them.

O-Doc I look forward to seeing this mission, it really looks like it will be exciting. And why name it Airwolf when it looks like a Swallow? You should have named it, Laiden Swallow.

Oh no problem, I took 2 minutes landing and taking pictures LOL. But it will wait till later. EDIT- Second attempt without messing around. 3:40s

It depends on the planet I am landing on. If it has an atmosphere I can land pretty much where ever I want because most of my craft are space plane designs with VTOL abilities. On airless moons it is a bit more challenging but only because my craft have a much larger footprint than a typical lander.

Because I could.... UAV-1 Hornet Every building 1 flight no reloading.

I don't think I have used my rocket pad since I have dropped RO. I just don't use rockets much, I can get far more into orbit using my space planes that I have designed then any rocket I have made.

I did run RPL, I loved it. But when I dumped RO I dropped it as well unfortunately.

You are aware that you don't have to use the 1960-70s tech rockets and engines. I used maybe 1/4 of the rocket engines that were available. And rarely used any of the old engines. Except when I was early in my career mode, when the calender starts at 1980 for me.

Fixed your album link. And your problem is simple. Your CoM is behind your CoL. It should be the other way around, Like in this SSTO spaceplane.

The thing is not all the RO mods make things harder than in real life. In real life it is amazingly hard to get an object of any substantial size into orbit. Using jet engines and having an overload of intakes on the aircraft and just going mach 7 isn't going to do it in the real world. Jets are over powered in KSP, they don't have to worry about compressor overheats, or overspeeds. In KSP a Turbojet engine creates 220kn of thrust and will push an aircraft well passed the mach 6 line. In the real world a "turbojet" engine will generally reach its maximum potential around mach 4, because the air flow speed. The engine ignitor mod, does something that real rockets have to worry about, engine restarts. Not all rockets can be restarted after they have left the launch pad. Even a jet engine in real life is difficult to restart once it is in flight. Both of the major life support mods, TAC, and ECLSS are outstanding mods to add, I am currently using ECLSS, but that is because I like the persistent resource use even when not focused. But if you want to give as close as you can get to real life space program, then I highly suggest the Realism Overhaul. Even though it is a ridiculous number of mods, it is the most realistic simulation of an actual space program you are going to get in KSP.

I can say this. I played with Realism Overhaul, RSS Real Earth system, AJE jets, FAR, DRE, Engine restarter/ignitor, and a whole slew of other mods including real fuels, and such. Most of the mods I used and still use are in my sig. You can go to 95% real or to 60% real or less if you are so inclined. There is no reason to come off as a pretentious prick. If you want full hardcore as close to 100% as you can so you can prove to yourself that you are not a complete useless waist of carbon, then so be it, don't let your self doubt and loathing rain down on others. And most importantly, have fun.

the_bT, I am quite impressed with that SSTO, nice craft there. The funny thing is my SP-406 is still sitting on the tarmac waiting to go, all I have to do is load another module into it and go.

If you are just using RSS+FAR no duna doesn't change anything other than scale. If you decide to run the full Realism Overhaul (RO) then Kerbin will become Earth, and each one of the planets will change into their real life counterpart. Which means Duna will turn into Mars both in scale and atmosphere.

I ran RO for a while, it just became to many mods to keep up with so I dropped it. But I did enjoy it. I can tell you now that going full RO is a challenge and a half to get to orbit, it isn't impossible but it is difficult. I know I was doing it with an Ares V design rocket and it worked quite well for most light weight missions.

First I would like to say, I like that you are not going the space plane route. I myself always sucked at any SSTO that wasn't a space plane design. Now that I have said that here comes the not so pretty part. Unfortunately your craft doesn't make enough power at higher speeds with those basic jet engines on it. You should use the Turbojet engines as they make much more power at a much higher speed letting you get closer to orbital velocities before you need to switch over to your rocket stage. But I also see other issues with that craft. Mainly it looks like it would have the flight characteristics of a brick wall, this means you would be using MORE energy trying to get it to go fast in atmosphere then you would if it had a more refined aerodynamic shape. ((But I use FAR and have never used the stock aerodynamic model)) On the plus side you don't need to have 20 intakes per engine like a great many SSTO builders use. You can get away with 2-3 per engine if you are feeling really greedy, and you can find real life examples of aircraft with two intakes per engine and even up to three. Here is one I made a few months ago for a challenge, it has I think 2 intakes per air breathing engine. And then there are these two tiny ugly things that have 1 intake per air breathing engine, but they are also VTOL SSTOs. Then my pride of my SSTO fleet that can haul 108 tons to orbit. But it has 3 intakes per air breathing engine I think. And my one working tail landing non-space plane SSTO. As you can see you can do a lot of different things, either stock or not, you may have to add more to your original design to get it to work or just change out that mainsail for something a bit more efficient. All I do is SSTOs so I have a bit of experience with them.

It's the landing gear.

Looks more like a Buffalo then the Wildcat. But looks good.