Cargo SSTO Basking Shark II

[Adester]

Hi,

this is my first post on this forum. Hi to all and please excuse my English.

I have to start with a sad matter: Lets keep silent for a mourning minute.

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This was the predecessor of the craft i want to show. Broken by 0.25 i had still one of these in orbit... but i was able to land it backwards in water, no kerbals lost. I learned a lot from this SSTO and build a new one:

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~630 Parts

AG 1: 4 Rockets (Atom Engines)

AG 2: 6 Jet Engines

AG 3: 2 Jet Engines

AG 4: 2 Jet Engines (Bottom)

AG 5: Nose RAS Helper

AG 0: 1.5 Million Air Intakes

http://www.filedropper.com/ssto-riesenhaiklasse

The center of thrust lies under the center of mass, this way it can handle +80t of cargo. Even cargo, which protrudes far out of the front can be lifted. I chosen the front-end loader design to make this possible. Landing on Mun and Minmus is possible. The landing wheels are positioned between "sligtly behind mass" and "i have to land this without air!". That way most cargo won't allow you to take off until the end of the runway arrives. Landing on Mun is a little tricky, because of the bad TWR. I did a pretty bad job at placing the air intakes. There are much to much. They aren't placed by Air Intake, Jet Engine, Air Intake, Jet Engine... just all intakes and afterwards the engines.

Some data (this is proved, more could be possible):

92t to 240km orbit

15t to Mun

32t to Minmus

21t to LKO while half of the cargo hanging out of the front

Laythe with some extra fuel as cargo (2 orange tanks)

Duna with refueling in LKO

As you see, its more a lifter, than a traveller.

I am very proud of the contraption, but i have to admit, that it behaves like a diva >10km and it is not user friendly. Here is the way up:

AG = Action Group

1. AG 2, 3, 4; throttle up, SAS on;

2. [optional] alternately press W and S to swing the nose up before the end of the runway

3. pull up to 30° - 50° (depends on the weight of the cargo)

5. [optional] press R and AG 5 to help it get its nose up. Don't forget to press R and AG 5 again, when its not needed anymore.

6. above of 28km you have to watch your SAS. You have to throttle down the 2 jet engines at the bottom, when it starts to push down. Do that on the Fly or you shut down the engines with AG 4 (i would recommend to use point [5.] to stabilize the plane while doing that). Or just shut them down, when not needed.

7. gain speed between 31km and 33km height. you won't reach 2100m/s on heavy cargo. if it becomes tought to gain speed, go on to point [8.]

8. AG 4 to shut down the bottom 2 jet engines. pull up to 20°.

9. Alternate AG 1 (atom engines) to stay/get above 2100m/s.

9. watch your air intake. throttle down to 1/3 to hold it above 0.06. then press AG 2 to disable 6 more engines. throtle up to 100%.

10. Throttle the remaining engine on the left to 80% and reduce global throttle gaining height.

11. Go to space.

Some additional Heavy Metal:

not relevant at all... wait, these toys were delivered by this SSTO

Space biplane, front loader, off center thrust/mass. There are many questionable design decisions on this SSTO. Please discuss.

[bakanando]

Hi! and welcome to the forums.

It's too bad about your defunct ssto, I had the same problem with some ships.

A very unique ship and nice solution to huge cargo transport.

I like the design of the vehicles.

[Adester]

thanks, your shuttle doens't look bad, too.