Ablative Drag Shield (1930m/s level flight under 6km)

[Leonon]

This thread over here inspired me to try putting cubic octagonal struts on the front of my test high speed air breather to lessen the drag. (click pics to embiggen)

The thread I linked stated things that implied that if I put a very small part in front of a larger part it would reduce overall drag. I'm quite pleased with the results.

[r_rolo1]

Hum, ablative shields made out of cubic struts in a row in front of a ship ... That is a good one, and a tribute to the inventive minds of the KSP players

[panzer1b]

INGENIOUS, why didnt i think of this......those things are dirt cheap, and basically disposeable anyways. And you can use in-line intakes too, which is basically shielded by crap in front. That or a stack of ablatives, stacking like 5 in a row ive managed to pull off over 1500 at sea level without tweaking heat amount.

Also, one thing thats AMAZING at blocking stuff in the mk1 pod, and the shielded port, both having incredible heat tolerances, with a precooler behind those you can pull off some insane speed. Stilll love the new rapiers (despite no more pure jet mode to 400km AP), 1000kn thrust at sea level FTW!