Spatha. Six kerbals. 4km/s. 65 parts. One stage.

[Rune]

Ladies and gentlekerbs, feast your eyes in this marvel of engineering:

Looking sleek right? No point in doing awesome things if you don't look the part! Every detail has been polished, and every piece clipped with the smoothest finish, to hide all seams and struts and the like. And what kind of awesome things can you do with it? Well, this thing not only has a pretty face, it has legs. In atmosphere it is downright sporty, with low wing loading yet a high-ish TWR, while having a CoL close behind the CoM (that itself stays quite put, if anything it increases in stability as you go lighter to compensate for it) and ample control authority. Meaning it handles like a fighter, yet it will stabilize itself if you let go of the controls (if you have the time for it, of course). At high altitudes, the air routing solution will keep both engines lit as they spool down until one of them goes for good, and the nuke, while having lowish TWR, is more than enough to complete the push to orbit, and it makes the best out of the ample supply of fuel to give over 4km/s of delta-v from low orbit. With that kind of propulsion system (and I'll freely admit, some sorcery is involved), you can visit petty much any rock, if only to fly by it, and you can actually plant flags in a lot of places, including Laythe and Duna. Though I'm doubtful about safely landing on Duna without an additional VTOL system or some chutes, there is ample delta-v and TWR to try (note that the RCS system is placed where the CoM is, and it hardly moves).

And you do all that with ample crew space, at a ridiculous cost in fuel and with minimal part count! I actually use this obscene delta-v to perform what I call "rapid crew assembly" in my career save: train a lot of crews to lvl 3 really quick because I have launch windows to make and infrastructure to service. Goes like this, if you are interested: you take two standard crews (pilot, scientist, and engineer), zip off the runway, and if you burn the excess delta-v in a smart way (i.e: you do a fast-ish initial transfer to Minmus, but not too much into hyperbolic territory, and then you try to cut the travel time by flooring the pedal to the floor going outside kerbin's SOI and, especially, on the way back), have them put boots on Minmus, zip to outside kerbin's SOI, then turn around and scream back to base flying by Mun with all the m/s you can manage while timing it right so the Mun is in the right place when you cross its orbit. I've completed such a tour of the kerbin system in about two weeks, kerbal time, which is somewhere between three and four Earth days. Minimal delta-v Minmus missions are longer than that!

IMGUR ALBUM:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

DOWNLOAD:

http://www./download/k9htahbmbh7su5c/SSTO+Mk+XLIIIb+-+Spatha.craft

Rune. This is my space Lamborghini, family version. But you may want to swap the crew cabin with extra fuel and make the "extra Lambo" version, of course!

Edited March 2, 2015 by Rune

[inigma]

Show off.

Not really, lol - a great runecraft. I love it!

inigma. diggin' through Rune's Slightly Used Vehicles since .17

[Robotengineer]

Nice craft, probably go farther with FAR?

[FishInferno]

And he's done it again:)

[Rune]

Show off.

Not really, lol - a great runecraft. I love it!

inigma. diggin' through Rune's Slightly Used Vehicles since .17

And a shameless one at that! Glad you like it.

Nice craft, probably go farther with FAR?

I wouldn't know, since I've never used that mod, and starting now when the stock fixes to the admittedly wrong stock model are on the horizon doesn't make much sense (lift scaling with v and not v^2 hurts a lot, especially, but the rest I can almost live with... for a while). But you can always try it out and tell us!

And he's done it again:)

One does one's best!

Rune. R-SUV was lacking plain SSTOs, and that can't stand.

[TheGamingNoobster]

Hey Rune, I decided to test your craft with FAR. On take off it requires the whole runway and produces little lift when subsonic. The angle of attack required on take off is near stalling altitude. The body makes most of the lift and makes the SSTO tend to flip upwards, especially while angled in the airflow. Flat tailspins also can become induced on launch. The idea of replacing the crew cabin with fuel looks like a better idea right now! For some reason, the NERVA (LV-N) engine creates about 3x more drag than the cockpit. The craft flat tailspins very easily at all altitudes (not just on take off as mentioned above) and accelerates very slowly. I managed to get to around mach 1 at ~10km. This was at 20 degrees of inclination. Mach 1 = Inescapable stall/spin limit that abuses the small tails of the craft. With a the nose flat it glides at about 13 degrees down. Minimum speed under 1km = ~85m/s, recommended cruising speed under 1km ~ 125m/s. How did I figure all this out? In a similar way that the USSR found out that the N-1 would not take them to the Moon.

Verdict. DO NOT USE WITH FAR UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!

Now for me to make some changes and report them.

NERVA drag fix. I removed the 0.675-1.25m adapter (I re-wired the fuel pumps and the fuel tank attached) and placed a Mk2 CRG-04 in its place. I used the offset tool to move it closer to the centre of the craft. Fuel pipes needed to be adjusted for this. This increased the terminal velocity of the craft and max speed.

Flat tailspins fix-ish. By placing wing strakes on the bottom (and top if you want) of the craft near the rear and offsetting them inwards I could keep the sleek design and increase the horizontal lift more than 2 fold. Tighter turns are available now!

Stalling and CoM/CoL issue. By moving the canards that are within the nose I could increase the default stability without out changing the ∆v of the craft.

TWR problem. The only way to make the turbofans create more than 60kN of thrust (I got around 53kN each) is to make the craft go supersonic. Catch 22.

This makes the SSTO a bit better in FAR. I have not tested this in stock KSP though.

I will attempt to see if I can land it on Laythe. If so, there will be pics! Admittedly, I am a pretty good player but I am no Scott Manley. If I can make it with some room for error others would be able to make the journey.

I would like to thank alt F5 and alt F9. I could select which quicksave to load and I could name the quicksaves. Additionally, cheers to Rune for this and many other crafts! Sorry how negative this sounded...

Edited March 3, 2015 by TheGamingNoobster

[Rune]

Hey Rune, I decided to test your craft with FAR. On take off it requires the whole runway and produces little lift when subsonic. The angle of attack required on take off is near stalling altitude. The body makes most of the lift and makes the SSTO tend to flip upwards, especially while angled in the airflow. Flat tailspins also can become induced on launch. The idea of replacing the crew cabin with fuel looks like a better idea right now! For some reason, the NERVA (LV-N) engine creates about 3x more drag than the cockpit. The craft flat tailspins very easily at all altitudes (not just on take off as mentioned above) and accelerates very slowly. I managed to get to around mach 1 at ~10km. This was at 20 degrees of inclination. Mach 1 = Inescapable stall/spin limit that abuses the small tails of the craft. With a the nose flat it glides at about 13 degrees down. Minimum speed under 1km = ~85m/s, recommended cruising speed under 1km ~ 125m/s. How did I figure all this out? In a similar way that the USSR found out that the N-1 would not take them to the Moon.

Verdict. DO NOT USE WITH FAR UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!

Now for me to make some changes and report them.

NERVA drag fix. I removed the 0.675-1.25m adapter (I re-wired the fuel pumps and the fuel tank attached) and placed a Mk2 CRG-04 in its place. I used the offset tool to move it closer to the centre of the craft. Fuel pipes needed to be adjusted for this. This increased the terminal velocity of the craft and max speed.

Flat tailspins fix-ish. By placing wing strakes on the bottom (and top if you want) of the craft near the rear and offsetting them inwards I could keep the sleek design and increase the horizontal lift more than 2 fold. Tighter turns are available now!

Stalling and CoM/CoL issue. By moving the canards that are within the nose I could increase the default stability without out changing the ∆v of the craft.

TWR problem. The only way to make the turbofans create more than 60kN of thrust (I got around 53kN each) is to make the craft go supersonic. Catch 22.

This makes the SSTO a bit better in FAR. I have not tested this in stock KSP though.

I will attempt to see if I can land it on Laythe. If so, there will be pics! Admittedly, I am a pretty good player but I am no Scott Manley. If I can make it with some room for error others would be able to make the journey.

I would like to thank alt F5 and alt F9. I could select which quicksave to load and I could name the quicksaves. Additionally, cheers to Rune for this and many other crafts! Sorry how negative this sounded...

Well, I guess we have an answer then: do not try in FAR! Good thing it has the stock tag on it I guess . Probably needs much bigger stabilizers to be a "real world design", and more wing surfaces (or more accurately, a rearrangement of the ones it has, only not "cheating" them inside stuff... especially the canards, and enlarging the tails). Still, I salute the scientific effort to find out empirically.

As to going to Laythe, if you go stock, you should have no issues as long as you use aerobraking to stop there (preferably directly in Laythe, so fiddle around with maneuvers before entering the Joolian system). For the way back, be sure to exit Laythe retrograde, so you drop back close to Jool to make the escape burn, Oberth and all that, done that way it's peanuts (and worry about rendezvousing with kerbin later, that's only amatter of figuring out an orbital period that will make you coincide when you cross its orbit). You have about 1 km/s left for Laythe landing and takeoff, which should be a breeze since it has a smaller gravity well than kerbin. There, that should be all you need to know in order to do it like Scott himself would.

Rune. And take pics! I would love pics!

[TheGamingNoobster]

Well, I guess we have an answer then: do not try in FAR! Good thing it has the stock tag on it I guess . Probably needs much bigger stabilizers to be a "real world design", and more wing surfaces (or more accurately, a rearrangement of the ones it has, only not "cheating" them inside stuff... especially the canards, and enlarging the tails). Still, I salute the scientific effort to find out empirically.

As to going to Laythe, if you go stock, you should have no issues as long as you use aerobraking to stop there (preferably directly in Laythe, so fiddle around with maneuvers before entering the Joolian system). For the way back, be sure to exit Laythe retrograde, so you drop back close to Jool to make the escape burn, Oberth and all that, done that way it's peanuts (and worry about rendezvousing with kerbin later, that's only amatter of figuring out an orbital period that will make you coincide when you cross its orbit). You have about 1 km/s left for Laythe landing and takeoff, which should be a breeze since it has a smaller gravity well than kerbin. There, that should be all you need to know in order to do it like Scott himself would.

Rune. And take pics! I would love pics!

I gave all of the info as I remember being told 'If you are going to tell someone they did something wrong or if they have an issue tell them and also tell them how to improve'. Part of the scientific method *cough* doing 2 sciences gets to you *cough*. I have some difficulty achieving orbit. A different ascent path to my SSTO's (everybody is different). Am I correct to use a steep ascent in low atmosphere and flatten it out at 20km+?

And on a completely different topic, the eucl3d website is very cool. Now that they accept .craft files as 3d models... I want... (The shipping to Australia will probably cost the soul of a young child though)

[Mesklin]

Very interesting craft and friendly for pilots too. You inspired me for make my own similar craft

[Rune]

I gave all of the info as I remember being told 'If you are going to tell someone they did something wrong or if they have an issue tell them and also tell them how to improve'. Part of the scientific method *cough* doing 2 sciences gets to you *cough*. I have some difficulty achieving orbit. A different ascent path to my SSTO's (everybody is different). Am I correct to use a steep ascent in low atmosphere and flatten it out at 20km+?

And on a completely different topic, the eucl3d website is very cool. Now that they accept .craft files as 3d models... I want... (The shipping to Australia will probably cost the soul of a young child though)

Some difficulty reaching orbit? Well, let's throw in a quick stock guide: I also speed my way to 20kms and then do a speed run, then setting a climb rate of about 10m/s (keeping control of your climb rate is the key to flying SSTOs efficiently). Afterwards I let it increase as I build speed to about ~100m/s by the time I get to ~27kms. Then, usually, the turbojets start whining and spooling down, so I light the nuke to give an extra oomph, and start flying it like a usual rocket building time to apoapsis to around one minute, then keeping it there. The jets give out their last effort by the time you apoapsis is going over 60kms, so don't worry if they spin you a bit when they go out completely.

As to the offtopic comment... well, any guy with a 3d printer can do just what the guys at eucl3d do from a blender file, and there's already a thread about exporting those from .craft files somewhere in the forums. So you might find some friend and/or geek somewhere close to where you live that owns a 3d printer, and get a much better prize, then paint yourself. Google around, there are a lot of people offering 3d printing rental services out there (I mean, one of my friends does just this short of thing for RPG miniatures and such).

Very interesting craft and friendly for pilots too. You inspired me for make my own similar craft

Well, then it's about time, I usually pick ideas from you! I wouldn't know about pilot-friendly, though: though it handles quite nice in the air, I put the landing gear so that it sits very low on the ground, making it perfectly capable of tail-striking both on takeoff or landing, if you are not careful.

Rune. Note that I am not advocating not using the eucl3d printing service! Just saying, there are DIY options, and they should be even legal and stuff.

[LordFjord]

Nice plane Rune, as always. Will take a closer look "under the hood". I guess there's a nuke clipped into the back engine and what else?

Fjord. You never know what Rune's hiding there under the hood. And yeah I answer in Rune-style to Rune posts

[Rune]

Nice plane Rune, as always. Will take a closer look "under the hood". I guess there's a nuke clipped into the back engine and what else?

Fjord. You never know what Rune's hiding there under the hood. And yeah I answer in Rune-style to Rune posts

Yeah the tail is pretty much the only clipped thing... (well, and a couple of canards on the nose and the way I attached the wings, but those are simple aesthetic solutions from before we had gizmos, when I built the first airframe for this).

The really tricky way is how the nuke is clipped inside the back: I have a tank attached to the final node of the conical adaptor (where the nozzle visually starts), then turned and moved with the gizmos all the way to the other side so the model actually starts at the end of the Mk2 adaptor, and it sits completely inside that tank invisible from the outside. Which BTW, I should perhaps have mentioned earlier: in case you want to refuel this, you have to move the camera inside there to click on that tank, can't see it from the outside... ' Then the nuke goes into the free attachment node of the tank, meaning there is a perfectly legit fuel route with no nodes used twice, and the nukes only shows it's nozzle to the world. Call it high density fuel, call it cheating, whichever way you choose to look at it, it works and it looks pretty cool.

Oh, and I totally dig you replying the same way I do.

Rune. I love talking construction!

[eddiew]

This plane has made me realise that some of my birds are lifting way too much of their own fuel to be efficient...

The quest for a graceful 6-manner with 3km/s at LKO and a cargo bay continues ¬_¬

[Rune]

This plane has made me realise that some of my birds are lifting way too much of their own fuel to be efficient...

The quest for a graceful 6-manner with 3km/s at LKO and a cargo bay continues ¬_¬

Look carefully at the numbers I show: there is a hidden tank, and I have both a light powerplant and payload, so my mass ratio is not that bad actually. The trick is to put just as many engines as you need for a given payload, those tend to dominate the dry weight for SSTOs. And of course the twinjet+NERVA combo is probably the most efficient SSTO powerplant, even though it requires a pretty decent pilot.

Rune. Which, now that I think about it, makes me wonder about a TurboRAPIER+nuke combo...

[Guest]

I am quite disappointed with this craft, and the general reception I read "marvel of engineering", I see a minimalistic simple SSTO. Some tubes put together barely, a couple of struts

Maybe part efficiency is its purpose? Because handling isn't fighter like AT ALL... Kerbals are massless while in a cabin btw.

Don't get me wrong it's nice and clean but I see nothing innovative, or great, or cool-looking, far far from a Lamborghini, even a very austere one.

Looks like you used the parts as they were "the most intended to be used", and that's about it.

One more thing, I ain't sure if the LV-N ISP gain is worth it for such a lightweight ship compared to the LV-909.

Lastly I found some badly placed parts on first sight, the RCS thrusters are quite obvious, but I like the squair (get it?) intake.

Hope you don't mind constructive criticism.

Edited March 4, 2015 by RevanCorana

[vitekc45c]

,,You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Rune again."

Damn it!

[Rune]

I am quite disappointed with this craft, and the general reception I read "marvel of engineering", I see a minimalistic simple SSTO. Some tubes put together barely, a couple of struts

Maybe part efficiency is its purpose? Because handling isn't fighter like AT ALL... Kerbals are massless while in a cabin btw.

Don't get me wrong it's nice and clean but I see nothing innovative, or great, or cool-looking, far far from a Lamborghini, even a very austere one.

Looks like you used the parts as they were "the most intended to be used", and that's about it.

One more thing, I ain't sure if the LV-N ISP gain is worth it for such a lightweight ship compared to the LV-909.

Lastly I found some badly placed parts on first sight, the RCS thrusters are quite obvious, but I like the squair (get it?) intake.

Hope you don't mind constructive criticism.

See the title? Well, I dare you: build any SSTO with 4km/s in the tanks once it reaches LKO on the stock game. Then compare payload fraction, part count, and the cleanness of lines, and we'll see how easy it is to come up with these "simple" designs.

A zippo is also a very simple lighter design: so simple, in fact, that is remains in production after 80 years and 500 million units sold. I don't see going away any time soon either. See, in engineering, you don't get extra points for making your designs more complicated than they absolutely have to be, and in fact you often get an inferior design, as the Shuttle can also illustrate. Every time I heard a NASA spokeperson claim the shuttle was "the most complicated vehicle ever built", I pitied them: that's most emphatically NOT a good thing. If, on the other hand, you think about the problem a lot, you usually can find a good balance that gets the most out of every single part, often making them do double or triple duty. In general, doing more with less seems to always be better for me.

Rune. We clearly have two different views on the issue. Mine seems to be popular, at the very least, and I won't apologize for that.

- - - Updated - - -

,,You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Rune again."

Damn it!

Hehe, it's the tought that counts!

[LordFjord]

So, finally @home, I've taken a look at the insides.

I like the perfect alignment of wings, the total shape and especially the top/bottom cover of the nuke - also the adapter which I will possibly shamelessly steal for future designs. Also nice subtle attena placement.

What I didn't like and what's not visible, is the tank clipped inside another tank thing - but as you said, all a matter of personal taste. I usually empty tanks that clip each other at least to an extent that it feels ok.

Of course this enables your plane to have a CoM/CoL balance that shifts less as if you'd have another tank somewhere else in the hull. But regardless, great range and payload for its size!

I sometimes also clip nukes inside an engine with a modular girder segment where I mostly do not adjust the fuel amounts - so yeah, its weird and up to personal prederence.

I love craft review stuff as it's where you can learn a lot. Anyone wanna take a look at these tincans?

Fjord. ++ to the construction talk.

edit: just noticed that the long tank on the backside has no oxy filled, then the clipped tank isn't that bad

Edited March 4, 2015 by LordFjord

[Guest]

Didnt mean to sound rude.

I dont want to argue about simplicity of design versus over complicated ones cos that was not my point...

Just trying to help, pointing out some issue with your design, which you shouldn't ignore.

Negative feedbacks actually improve the design, too bad you can't take it.

Finally let me point out how easy it is building a more efficient SSTO by just strapping an engine to a tank, it eont make handling good tho, in KSP.

You're proving me (you and others) how little sense the rep system makes, I like simplicity yet I don' like this design.

[TheGamingNoobster]

Some difficulty reaching orbit? Well, let's throw in a quick stock guide: I also speed my way to 20kms and then do a speed run, then setting a climb rate of about 10m/s (keeping control of your climb rate is the key to flying SSTOs efficiently). Afterwards I let it increase as I build speed to about ~100m/s by the time I get to ~27kms. Then, usually, the turbojets start whining and spooling down, so I light the nuke to give an extra oomph, and start flying it like a usual rocket building time to apoapsis to around one minute, then keeping it there. The jets give out their last effort by the time you apoapsis is going over 60kms, so don't worry if they spin you a bit when they go out completely.

Ah, thanks. Usually airhog my way getting to 1.2km/s under 30km.

[TheGamingNoobster]

Didnt mean to sound rude.

I dont want to argue about simplicity of design versus over complicated ones cos that was not my point...

Just trying to help, pointing out some issue with your design, which you shouldn't ignore.

Negative feedbacks actually improve the design, too bad you can't take it.

Finally let me point out how easy it is building a more efficient SSTO by just strapping an engine to a tank, it eont make handling good tho, in KSP.

You're proving me (you and others) how little sense the rep system makes, I like simplicity yet I don' like this design.

Hey, Revan. I think where your clash with Rune is coming from is the wording. When making a complaint it is best to also have an idea on how it could be improved and mention it. Additionally, express that you understand the effort put in (just as a little extra). Also, understand that this craft may get updated but not changed (severely anyway). The comment 'Negative feedbacks actually improve the design, too bad you can't take it' was quite inflammatory and would be seen as offensive by many. If you do not like something on here just tell the creator HOW it can be improved and WHY and then just move along. Rune did mention that he has been working on this since 0.25.

Sorry if this itself may have been rude to you but I just want to help improve things here in the forums. I am no mod or admin but everyone can do their own part. Hopefully this has sorted out the problems between you two

[eddiew]

Rune. Which, now that I think about it, makes me wonder about a TurboRAPIER+nuke combo...

Careful, it may reach critical mass and collapse into one tiny superdense engine

You could teach a clipping-class on how to stack things inside other things...

[TheGamingNoobster]

Flies like a brick. Mind you, not many bricks can go to orbit though... And how many bricks have the potential to get to Laythe? Yep, still getting used to this kind of SSTO Rune. I will persist and get it on a significant rock. I mean minimal offence with the brick part. The lift ratio (as we have already discussed) is holding me back but I will prevail! A man can only take so many sub orbital hops... I know that the problem isn't the craft but me before you take offence.

Edit: I'd probably be done if it weren't for my Math assignment. Calculate pi to 6 digits using Monte carlo, Archimedes and then using matrices for a completely different thing. I have got the first two done...

Edited March 5, 2015 by TheGamingNoobster

[Rune]

Ah, thanks. Usually airhog my way getting to 1.2km/s under 30km.

Actually, you can probably do better if you learn to stay with a lower vertical speed longer. In this design, it is perfectly reasonable to get to 1,800m/s (surface), with the jets engines still providing thrust, and though that happens at about 32kms, by 30 you should already be well over 1,600m/s. Maybe you are giving up on them early? You can perfectly well ride the slight thrust asymmetry when the engines are starting to spool down, and that lets you keep them lit almost until you apo is outside the atmosphere.

Careful, it may reach critical mass and collapse into one tiny superdense engine

You could teach a clipping-class on how to stack things inside other things...

It does take a long time to learn all the tricks that the UI allows. And the multitude of bugs, too! Lately, I've been trying to spread the word on the part parenting bug... it's the one that causes more head-scratching in my opinion. Still, sadly, my time is limited, and a new job is not going to make things any easier on that front. You will have to keep on relying on asking for bits of advice! (or being subjected to them, depending on opinion ) And, you know, I don't even clip that much, I rarely put tanks inside other tanks. Intakes and engines? well, there I do make a lot of exceptions, mainly for aesthetics (you run out of places to put intakes that look good, fast) but also in some cases for performance itself, a Turbo-RAPIER being a perfect example of both (the flames sure look pretty, but I'm also taking advantage by putting their thrust vectors in line with a single attachment point). But I still usually respect the laws of physics with regards to the amount of stuff that fits in a given volume.

Then again, sometimes, you have to throw the rules out of the window, just for the fun of it:

Flies like a brick. Mind you, not many bricks can go to orbit though... And how many bricks have the potential to get to Laythe? Yep, still getting used to this kind of SSTO Rune. I will persist and get it on a significant rock. I mean minimal offence with the brick part. The lift ratio (as we have already discussed) is holding me back but I will prevail! A man can only take so many sub orbital hops... I know that the problem isn't the craft but me before you take offence.

...mmm let's see if I can guess what is going on here. You are having some trouble with high altitude flight in the stock atmosphere? If so, that is probably because you are accustomed to fly high TWR designs, things that don't really need the wings and could go on a vertical climb without issues. Well, this is not one of those things! TWR is never over one, I think, so you need to know how to use those wings to actually do useful work. That is also the source of it's enormous delta-v, BTW, I save a lot of engine weight! But the problem comes when you get to the high atmosphere: due to it being modelled as it is (lift scales with v, not v^2 as in RL), the wings pretty much do nothing there and you can't trust them to keep you going up. And, as I said, you don't have TWR over one so you can't just point up. So how the hell can this go to orbit, then? Well, simple, but simple does not mean easy: a proper zoom climb. That means you keep momentum going up always, and as long as you can keep you time form apoapsis from going down, you can make orbit with TWR 0.8 or 0.7. Re-read what I said about the climb profile: vertical speed of ~10m/s at 25kms at ~1km/s (surface), then 50-100m/s at 25kms and over 1,500m/s (surface), then let it stick to that last heading, light the nukes and watch vertical velocity climb as kerbin's gravity starts being more and more counteracted by your "centrifugal" (centripetal, actually) acceleration. Oh, and keep the turbojets lit until one of them gives out completely: I worked the intakes so after a slight imbalance, the engines will spool down on their own as the air starts to run out, and that way you can keep the nuke going full blast beside them, and you can keep accelerating quickly. That should leave you with a >60kms apoapsis, >1,800m/s (surface), or in other words >2,00m/s (orbit), and more than a minute to raise it over 70 and circularizing on the nuke.

Rune. Of course, this should all change for the better with 1.0, when wings give proper lift all the way to the Karman line. I can't wait to get a plane with a TWR of 0.5 to orbit!

[eddiew]

Found a triple stack example from last year; http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43086-Open-Source-Construction-Techniques-for-Craft-Aesthetics?p=943756&viewfull=1#post943756

...And, you know, I don't even clip that much, I rarely put tanks inside other tanks. Intakes and engines? well, there I do make a lot of exceptions, mainly for aesthetics (you run out of places to put intakes that look good, fast) but also in some cases for performance itself, a Turbo-RAPIER being a perfect example of both (the flames sure look pretty, but I'm also taking advantage by putting their thrust vectors in line with a single attachment point)...

I may have to try a turbo-nuke some time... there might be potential for a really light drone that could carry a nerva. No other way of having just 1 jet engine and 1 lv-n without horrible thrust imbalance.

All I need now is a contract that can be fulfilled by an MK2 plane... seem to only be getting stations with science labs at the mo, and that called for something a bit bigger