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Showing results for tags 'air'.
Found 7 results
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Not sure if the suggestions forum allows for new content suggestions, but I was wondering whether anyone else thinks it would be useful to have an RCS variant that is powered off intake air to be used with jet contraptions to increase maneuverability. Obviously something like this would balance itself the same way the jet engines are balanced: by needing an atmosphere to work so they could be allowed to provide a little bit more thrust than the other mono/methalox variants. (OK I'll admit it, I just want to build a VTOL airplane and not needing extra fuel will make it a lot easier lol)
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I built a small plane powered by electric ducted fans and a few RTGs, which is capable of infinite flight. I was flying it on long flights around Kerbin where I set MechJeb to cruise at 4000 m altitude. I noticed something interesting, which is that the maximum cruise speed decreases as latitude increases. At the equator, it could cruise at 280 m/s but this speed gradually drops to 250 m/s at 60° latitude, which is a difference of more than 10%. As I flew back towards the equator, it gradually increased back up to 280 m/s. Even more interestingly, the blade pitch at which this maximum cruise speed occurs decreases from 49° at the equator to 46° at 60° latitude. The electric motors are always at constant (maximum) RPM and the mass of the aircraft is strictly constant as no fuel is involved at all. This is not an issue of bad controls as the plane is just not physically capable of cruising at 280 m/s at 60° latitude. I think the reason has to do with the temperature, pressure and density of air varying with latitude. Can anyone explain? -
I remember some mod that had engines that heated up air using nuclear fuel and made propulsion. Does anyone know what that mod was?
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More realistic surface interactions
Guest posted a topic in KSP1 Suggestions & Development Discussion
I understand waterskiing or hovercraft are not exactly core functionality for KSP but since I have struggled with this I'm going to list it anyway. Problem 1: Waterskiing When landing something on water, it immediately sinks in, which causes a massive drag spike. In reality, if you're going at all fast, water behaves more like a solid surface to start with: you would skip or ski on the surface until you slow down enough to sink. Consequently, things like seaplanes do not behave like in real life. If this was made more realistic, seaplanes, fast boats, and similar craft would become possible. Conversely, splashdowns might become more dangerous. Problem 2: Ground effect In real life, a plane flying close to the ground experiences a good deal of additional lift from an air cushion that forms beneath its wings. This makes aerodynamic landings easier and vessels like hovercraft or ekranoplans possible. Since KSP does not model ground effect, we can't do this. I think this would be a pretty simple change as you'd only need to adjust the amount of lift generated by distance to the surface up to 15 m or so to get close enough that it felt more or less right. This would significantly expand the range of craft we can make, as well as making planes easier to fly and things more realistic in general. -
I've got a bit of a desire to get a Redbull air race type course set up in KSP. I know it's possible but I'm not sure exactly how to do it. Also, KAX is the only mod I know with a similar type engine but it's severely under-performing. Is there another mod with a better engine?
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Today was a great occasion to leave the boredom of the Tampa Bay for the Lakeland's SUN 'n Fun air show with the French national demonstration team present for their 2017 US tour, celebrating the century of the country engagement in the First World War. It's also the first time for them to fly over the US land for more than 31 years, as they already came in 1986 to celebrate the century of the Statue of Liberty. t It was the 8th time for me to see my birthland national team and I have to say that this year's team has changed some things and the result now is way more punchy, vigorous, reflecting what still can be done with this little pearl that is the Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jet. I discovered with suprise that their support aircraft now was an Airbus A400M Grizzly, replacing the good old Transall C-160 which was ensuring the role for more than 30 years. The guys onboard were really nice, inviting us to came onboard the transport aircraft for some minutes while the team members were at the breifing. It also was the first time to me to go inside an A400M and one thing can be compared with the C-160 for sure : the paras/troopers seats still are as comfy as rocks... One pretty cool demonstration of about 20 minutes that they completed with the famous "éclaté". Thank you for this awesome time! I was just extremely disapointed to be arrived too late and to leave way too soon... one beautiful B-25 Mitchell made an awesome demo... ... while a T-33 Shooting Star was turning all around in a melodious noise : I'm not sure but suppose it was much more a Canadair CT-133 Silver Star as I looked under it some minutes before its display and it got a lot of marks of different Canadian teams (Snow Birds etc...) and its engine noise sounds different than the J33 to me. As the Canadian placed a license-built Rolls Royce Nene in their training jet that could be the explanation. I will try to upload the videos tomorrow but still have to work a bit on them (34 gb of film...).
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Since 1.1.0 was released and continued into v1.1.1, the once air intake readout that used to be up in the top right hand corner of the screen (where the electricity readout is among other things) now seems to have been removed. My question is, has it been removed or has it been moved elsewhere? I used to find this readout very helpful when making SSTO's. It was of major benefit when trying to achieve the maximum height before switching to oxygen burning fuel from air breathing.
