120,000ft, Flying at the edge of space [spaceplane]

[keptin]

The AtmoScraper

-All vanilla parts, simple construction

-Capable of 120,000ft, crossing the ocean and landing on the next continent.

1. 1st Stage, start main ascent engines, maximum thrust

2. Takeoff and climb with Adv SAS locked to 25 degrees.

3. 30,000ft, reduce climb to 15 degrees, 2nd Stage, start aerospike, maximum thrust

4. 45,000ft, 3rd stage, drop main engines

5. 50,000ft, increase climb to 30 degrees, climb until aerospike runs out of fuel

6. Coast across ocean, reducing altitude. At 15,000 ft, 4th stage, start conventional turbine

7. Land on two wheels on nearby landmass, approx 1/4th across the planet.

Download

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/66999462/AtmoScraper5.craft

[khyron42]

Why are you giving altitudes in feet? That would take a lot of converting to read what\'s on the metric altimeter.

[keptin]

Because when it comes to aircraft, I use feet and miles.

[semininja]

When you say 'feet', do you actually mean feet or do you mean what\'s on the altimeter?

[ChronicSilence]

He means feet, otherwise he\'d be in a nice high orbit and could land wherever he wanted (an would not need to specify that he can make it to the next continent).

[sss]

why not meters? it be so much easier

[keptin]

I mean feet, as in, I roughly converted meters to feet in my mind, then tossed those numbers up. Don\'t see why it even matters enough to comment on it. Everyone\'s getting their panties in a twist.

Moving on, a modification of this design currently holds the turbojet altitude record in this thread, http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=12572.0

[Melfice]

It means I, as a European metric user, need to break out a converter to get to values the game already lists as such.

How is it easier for you? 'Well... the game says I\'m at 100.000 meters (100 kilometers). Let\'s convert that into feet, because now I get a number that I won\'t be able to 'shrink', like I could with the metric system!'

But, y\'know... great job on the achievement... once you tell me what your actual altitude is without me having to break out a converter.

[keptin]

I know what you\'re complaining about, but I don\'t know why you care enough to--whiny internet peeps with nothing better to do. There\'s about 3 feet to a meter; pat yourself on the back for learning something today.

[lickstaph]

>2012

>still using imperial system

>wat

[Melfice]

I know what you\'re complaining about, but I don\'t know why you care enough to--whiny internet peeps with nothing better to do. There\'s about 3 feet to a meter; pat yourself on the back for learning something today.

Listen, this is just about ease of use, lad.

Metric\'s in the game already. It\'s what the majority of the world uses.

It\'s okay if you use it yourself - go right ahead, see if I care!

But once you share distances with an international community, it\'s common courtesy to, at the very least, list distances in both measuring systems. But preferable to just go ahead and use the easiest and most common of the two systems, being metric.

[keptin]

ICAO standards mean that a French pilot flying into a German airport is counting his altitude in hundreds of feet and speaking in English. Flight level is counted in feet, internationally, except for Russia and countries it is/was affiliated with.

I\'m used to using feet when referencing altitude. I get it, you\'re no pilot, but there\'s no need to be rude about it. Converting units is pretty effortless; in a fraction of time it took you to write a whiny reply, you could have Googled '1m to ft'.

[Mr_Orion]

ICAO standards mean that a French pilot flying into a German airport is counting his altitude in hundreds of feet and speaking in English. Flight level is counted in feet, internationally, except for Russia and countries it is/was affiliated with.

I\'m used to using feet when referencing altitude. I get it, you\'re no pilot, but there\'s no need to be rude about it. Converting units is pretty effortless; in a fraction of time it took you to write a whiny reply, you could have Googled '1m to ft'.

Sorry, but not all of us were brought up with imperial. I was actually brought up in a mixture (I live in britain, an officially 'metric' country, but many things like road signs and over major things are still in imperial), and although I am decent at converting feet to metric mentally, it\'s still not exactly the easiest system to use, especially considering that the game counts in meters.

To be honest, you mainly seem to be avoiding showing it in meters because you want to somehow prove that imperial is better.

[Newt0570]

The AtmoScraper

-All vanilla parts, simple construction

-Capable of 35,000m , crossing the ocean and landing on the next continent.

1. 1st Stage, start main ascent engines, maximum thrust

2. Takeoff and climb with Adv SAS locked to 25 degrees.

3. 9,000m, reduce climb to 15 degrees, 2nd Stage, start aerospike, maximum thrust

4. 14,000m, 3rd stage, drop main engines

5. 15,000m, increase climb to 30 degrees, climb until aerospike runs out of fuel

6. Coast across ocean, reducing altitude. At 4,500m, 4th stage, start conventional turbine

7. Land on two wheels on nearby landmass, approx 1/4th across the planet.

-------------------------------------

I\'m American and use imperial system and I\'d still rather see meters because the game uses meters. It\'s easiest to use the units where you have something to compare it to. example: I know that in KSP the edge of the thick part of the atmosphere is around 35,000 meters, and the atmosphere ends at around 70,000 meters. this gives me reference points. So now when I hear '40,000 meters' I instantly know that is in thin atmosphere. When someone tells me '120,000 feet', Suddenly the given numbers are useless. I either need to convert it into meters, or learn reference points in feet. Either solution takes a while, and it is time that nobody wants to waste. You wasted time converting to feet only to make us waste time converting it back.

[keptin]

You wasted time converting to feet only to make us waste time converting it back.

All of three seconds...so precious.

To be honest, you mainly seem to be avoiding showing it in meters because you want to somehow prove that imperial is better.

Imperial isn\'t better, it\'s confusing as hell. I\'m not changing it because I received a bunch of snotty replies on a post I was just trying to share for fun. On that note, good night lovely Kerbal community.

[Melfice]

All of three seconds...so precious.

Imperial isn\'t better, it\'s confusing as hell. I\'m not changing it because I received a bunch of snotty replies on a post I was just trying to share for fun. On that note, good night lovely Kerbal community.

Basically being snotty, and being confusing for the hell of it.

[Extemporary]

Normally, I would have agreed with using feet for aircraft . I\'m a pilot and am used to using feet while in the atmosphere. However, this game uses metres. The atmosphere is different than Earth\'s anyway, so an altitude of 120 000 ft is entirely different. It\'s best if we just use metres, with which we immediately know both what the atmosphere is like, and how far it is in scientific units (This is a space game, after all).

[Charzy]

To wait, imperial easier than metric? Let me just explain why that\'s wrong:

Imperial:

inch (in)= 1000 thou

foot (ft)=12 inches

yard (yd)=3 feet

chain (ch)=22 yards

furlong (fur)=10 chains

mile (mi)=8 furlongs

league (lea)=3 miles

Things are multiplied in totally random numbers that make no actual sense.

Metric:

Centimeter = 10 milimeters

Decimeter = 10 centimeters

Meter = 10 decimeters

Kilometer = 1000 meters

Things are always multiplied in tens or multiples of tens which is naturally easier.

So yeah, how is metric confusing at all compared to imperial?

You took the trouble of converting it from meters in game, to feet, just so that we could take time converting it back to meters again.

[Crass]

Yeah but guys, keptin is a bad ass pilot. Thinking in feet is the only way he can operate, because hes an awesome real world pilot, its what they do in france and germany for chissakes! We should all be respecting this guy and converting everything to feet.

Also 1 meter = is actually 3.2 feet. So using the three to one ratio is a flawed method and very inaccurate.

But remember guys, we\'re the whiny bitchy ones acting like kids, not Keptin, hes a pilot.

[RayneCloud]

He\'s using feet, guess what? GET OVER IT! Stay on topic and stop getting bent out of shape for no reason. There\'s 3 feet in a meter people, easy enough for a child to convert. If you people can\'t stay on topic and talk about the plane, I\'ll lock this thread.

You\'ve been warned.

[RC1062]

About 36,000 m at a guess (1m = 3 1/3ish ft).

[khyron42]

The plane is impressive for its wingspan and its ability to run 3 different types of engine without the thrust or lift getting imbalanced during the transition. It doesn\'t look very elegant, but that\'s what you get for compromise designs like that. Good job of using the engine types for what they are stated to be for.

The engines tend to perform differently than the stated performance, though. The high-altitude turbojet engines work reasonably well as low-altitude engines as well, thus making the low-altitude ones pretty much obsolete except for craft never intended to go to high altitudes; When designing for suborbital hops, there seems to be no reason at all to include the low-altitude engines. Avoiding them and planning for a glide landing might have saved enough weight to get outside the atmosphere, plus allowed for a smaller wingspan and therefore even less drag, leading to more altitude and range.

I made the initial question about why you were using feet, and I apologize if that\'s what caused everyone else to focus on it; I think instead it was your own response to my question that caused that focus, since you had more of an interest in real-world aviation standards than Kerbal Space Program standards, and this became a barrier to getting people to appreciate and try out your aircraft. (Damion, I hope you can forgive this; I\'m trying to explain to him why people got sidetracked, since he really didn\'t seem to get why. If not, let me know and I\'ll remove this paragraph - the rest of it is actual feedback on the craft and I\'d like that to survive.)

I still haven\'t tried out the aircraft, but I definitely have learned from it. My usual inclination in design is to go for delta wings, and your design points out that it\'s better to put a broad wingspan right at CoM (or CoP, but once you go with a broad wingspan in this game, it tends to put CoP where ever the wing is.)

[noneyabidnis]

I haven\'t spent much time using planes in the game yet, so I downloaded this one and gave it a go. I really like it. Thanks for sharing.

I also like that you used feet. I constantly do the math in my head when playing, but I do wish the game gave us the ability to switch between meters \ feet and km \ miles. Maybe I\'ll figure out how to create such a plug-in.

[keptin]

I made the initial question about why you were using feet, and I apologize if that\'s what caused everyone else to focus on it

No worries, I\'m over it.

High-aspect wings are the way to go for ultra-high altitude flying. I was able to manage 38,008m with this design:

Inspired by the U-2 and Global Hawk,

The high-altitude turbojet engines work reasonably well as low-altitude engines as well, thus making the low-altitude ones pretty much obsolete

In this design, yeah probably.

I agree that the conventional jet part is useless and think the part.cfg for jets and turbojets should be tweaked a bit so jets work fine at reasonable altitudes like a commercial plane would fly at and the turbojets at least breath air above 16000m. U-2 spyplanes fly at around 80000ft (~25000m) on air breathing turbojet engines, so it makes sense for the game\'s turbojet to be adjusted or a vanilla 'high-altitude engine' to be made.

It would be fun if we had to use conventional jet engines in our designs because the turbojets could barely function at low altitude, SR-71 style.

I really like it. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, glad to hear someone enjoyed it.

[ToadDude]

>2012

>still using imperial system

>wat

Americans.