Something doesn't seem right here....

[RogueMason]

I have some design recommendations for you if you'd like

-snip-

I made a mock up of the Ranger by eyeballing the design (awesome aesthetic design btw), and managed to get it to a 71km apoapsis with almost 500m/s dV. The modifications help, but it may also be ascent profile differences that needs to be taken into consideration too. I did a flat 25 degree pitch the whole way to orbit. (It had a very high TwR)

-snip-

Interesting, very interesting. My ascent profiles with spaceplanes have been the more typical 35 degree pitch up until 10km, then building up speed at 15 degrees, hopefully hitting 1200m/s or 1400m/s if the craft is capable and taking it from there. 25 degrees from literally the ground up is not something I considered, but I'll certainly try that out along with the modifications suggested; 500m/s dV is a bit over double (I think) what I had left over. I'll try the modifications with the bog-standard ascent profile, too.

Thanks

Never give up, never surrender, RogueMason.

Do not go gentle into that good night...

You know, to quote the poem in the film that inspired my Ranger line

[Rune]

Do not go gentle into that good night...

You know, to quote the poem in the film that inspired my Ranger line

That might be slightly overused lately....

d)either intakes crate less drag facing backwards, or they don't decrease the drag of the node they cap if they are moved to face inwards. That one is awaiting further experimental testing involving nosecones and rocket mode. I think it's the former, but it could go both ways. In any case, the difference is minuscule.

I think I have it confirmed. Out of three otherwise identical test rigs, the one without drag-reducing measures of any kind ends up slowest as we expected, but check this out: of the two others, the front-facing rear intake, the onehidden inside the engine so that it sees incoming air how an intake is supposed to, and thus gives more air to the engines (that last part is confirmed by a higher intake air reading throughout the whole flight) creates more drag than the rear-facing, 100% drag reduction one. That one ends up with the highest speed punching out of the atmosphere, even tough it has less frontal surface to give air to the engine!

So drag is a significant enough factor that the extra speed you get out of a cleaner design with a rear facing intake offsets the higher frontal area. That tells me there is a v^2 somewhere on the intake's equations! Also, that the intake drag is dependant somehow on how much air it's sucking (or the exposed frontal area to the airstream, which is the same thing since they are proportional to each other).

Rune. It also makes me happy to be sciencing it.

[eddiew]

These have been tested to improve aerodynamic flow of the aircraft and significantly improves dV performance:

Excellent work, and a disturbing conclusion. Really don't like that you have to stick things behind your engines to improve them... that's really quite immersion breaking, if such a claim makes sense in KSP xD

[Mister Kerman]

Will using the gizmo to bury the cone "spike" a little further into the rapier effect performance? I feel like if I was going to build one of those I'd feel like messing around with it a little for aesthetics.

[heng]

*Shrug* I'm using the forum's default settings on the number of posts to show per page...

sooo... you are playing the stock forum. huh? ;-)

I believe at lower speeds where drag is less of an issue, the lighter craft travels faster.

same weight... that's what bugged me.

When you get closer and over the sound barrier, the drag becomes significant enough to overcome the weight advantage...

ahh, ok. didn't know that. thanks!

anyway, going to continue trying to hide my struts... will tell if i found something conclusive. sorry for hijacking your thread

Will using the gizmo to bury the cone "spike" a little further into the rapier effect performance? I feel like if I was going to build one of those I'd feel like messing around with it a little for aesthetics.

clipping is kraken bait... :-P

[LordFjord]

@Levelord:

"Must spread some rep around..."

I have to say I would have never even attempted to put something on the "firey" side of an engine to improve its performance. Awesome.

Rapierspike is the way to go.

Will they not burn from the exhaust flames when they are placed like in your pic here: http://i.imgur.com/WJ7TXry.jpg ?

Another question: would this also help with other engines like nukes?

[heng]

Another question: would this also help with other engines like nukes?

wait. what? O.O

If you are flying nukes low enough and fast enough that drag becomes an issue... i want to see a video of your ship flying...

[LordFjord]

Ok, maybe the question was badly worded.

I meant: "does placing an ending nosecone on any parts with unused connection nodes reduce drag"?

If it does decrease drag on an inactive nuke, then it would help, wouldn't it?

edit: just take the pic from Levelord that I linked in my post above:

would putting another "spike" on the nuke, not only the rapiers, improve it?

[heng]

awww, *disappointed* i really wanted to see a hypersonic radioactive uni-directional fireball travelling at mach 2+ with Jebediah on a front seat hoping across kerbin :-D a man can dream, though... a man can dream.

if i understood everyone correctly, then yes, backfacing nose cones should reduce overall drag... it's not a "nose" cone anymore, though... uh. tail cone... butt implant? rear un-dragger? flow-shadow filler?

[Teilnehmer]

Conclusion: Other tests not shown, but have been tested with other nosecones. Tested against Aerodynamic Nosecone, Advanced Nosecone - Type B, Tail Connectors Type A/B and various other intakes. The Shock Cone outperforms all other nosecones, outcome is the same being opened or closed to collecting air. Shock Cones are recommended for all leading edges of SSTOs, planes and rockets to minimize drag as much as possible regardless of air breathing engine use.

In my tests, a Tail Connector A performed a bit better than a Shock Cone.

Apoapsis: 96 km vs 90 km.

Top speed: 1150 m/s vs 1040 m/s.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Teilnehmer

[SpaceChipmunk]

basically, yes, having a Butt implant will improve performance, though obviously with the nukes you would need to decouple the cone before you use the engine.

[heng]

In my tests, a Tail Connector A performed a bit better than a Shock Cone.

*sigh*

nose cones behind the engines, tail connectors ("Pinocchios"?) in front.

wings to cool nervas, less struts are better, airbrakes as parachutes.

what's next? roverwheels to get more lift? antennas as landing struts? scott manley running out of fuel?

[SpaceChipmunk]

Well the tail connector is really just an elongated nose cone, so it should have good performance. The question is should you have one on the front AND one on the back?

Also Scott Manley doesn't even use fuel. He gets to orbit by will alone!

[LordFjord]

*sigh*

nose cones behind the engines, tail connectors ("Pinocchios"?) in front.

wings to cool nervas, less struts are better, airbrakes as parachutes.

what's next? roverwheels to get more lift? antennas as landing struts? scott manley running out of fuel?

How about not retracting med/big landing gear to have less drag?

It's fascinating (but I hope Squad has interesting findings like this on the radar).

[Levelord]

In my tests, a Tail Connector A performed a bit better than a Shock Cone.

Apoapsis: 96 km vs 90 km.

Top speed: 1150 m/s vs 1040 m/s.

http://i.imgur.com/mn5or8o.png

http://i.imgur.com/Ee3kafi.png

http://i.imgur.com/e0dnKss.png

http://i.imgur.com/C0AxjzN.png

Fascinating. Perhaps I didn't let my rockets high enough to see if the tail connector would catch up again.

[Frybert]

*sigh*

nose cones behind the engines, tail connectors ("Pinocchios"?) in front.

wings to cool nervas, less struts are better, airbrakes as parachutes.

what's next? roverwheels to get more lift? antennas as landing struts? scott manley running out of fuel?

https://youtu.be/JmzuRXLzqKk