Jet Engine Speed Challenge.

[Salda007]

...especially if you\'re coming from a hardcore-stock-parts-only viewpoint.

Ehh, 'hardcore' isn\'t really the word for it. More like, 'can\'t keep track of all of the mods out there any more'.

In my defence I see this challenge more as a test of design acumen rather than piloting skill...

I respectfully disagree; as we\'ve seen, piloting skill and the ability to keep envelope-pushing craft pointed in the right direction have had large effects on the results. Don\'t get me wrong, I don\'t object to you using MechJeb in this at all, I just object to you calling it 'stock'. If you want to put up a stock speed, I invite you to remove it and see how fast you can get your ship moving while flying it manually. Heck, I look forward to it! 8)

[khyron42]

I haven\'t seen anyone with pure stock break my 959 m/s yet - but I haven\'t tried that with my final craft with ASAS instead of MechJeb, either. 8)

[antbin]

Pure stock, 979 m/s.

Launched from pad, so no gear. ASAS a must, though. Descended through 16000m as the fuel ran out.

[Salda007]

Pure stock, vertical launch, 1006 m/s absolute in a 100 m/s dive, 1003 m/s overland.

This was taken just after the peak run as the craft dropped back into the heavier air.

Final stats with high speed.

Edit:

Kkyron, I think 1010m/s will be VERY hard to attain with stock engines and tanks.

1013 m/s absolute speed while diving. 1005 m/s overland, again. I wouldn\'t be surprised if this design can crack 1020 m/s diving and 1010 m/s level, though.

Again, this is while slowing down...

Final results.

Edit 2:

Yup, I was right: 1030 m/s absolute, 1018 m/s overland.

[Nooblet68]

I\'m on my third attempt and at 880 901m/s.

Just 120 99m/s more until 1000m/s...

[khyron42]

Nice work, Salda007!

I had forgotten the lighter dry mass on the small rocket fuel tanks - because I was trying to use only jet fuel tanks for this challenge, but I don\'t see anything in the challenge description that says it\'s needed. I had tried using the mk 1 to mk 2 adapter fuel tanks and discovered they wouldn\'t connect to each other\'s sides. Clever design!

Khyron42 wanders out of the thread, already working on a 40-engine FL-T250 variant...

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the experimental aircraft Rama\'s Arrow. 1024 m/s over land, actually in a slight climb at the end. None of this diving stuff; I had been too slow in lowering the nose in the initial ascent and had to descend from above 18000m, but I was in relatively level flight around 16500m for the last 2-3 minutes of the flight.

It was surprisingly stable, I probably could drop the ASAS if I had a good joystick. Unfortunately, it only has 39 engines, not 40.

[Cooly568]

Gonna go for at least 500 M/S, on my SLIGHTLY ADJUSTED FRIKIN HUGE MUNAR JET LINER!

[Cooly568]

Wow, who thought I could pull of 650 M/S with this thing. (Here if you wanna learn more about this plane)

I adjusted it so it only has jet engines. Some mods were used.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=15080.msg227425#msg227425

First run out to sea. 659.2 M/S or 1474.5 Miles Per Hour

Second run heading back out to KSP. 647.4 M/S or 1448.1

To end the fight I did a Mach 2 speed dive over KSP.

I hit mach 1.937171 with a FRIKIN MASSIVE MUNAR JET LINER.

[Phoenix Aerospace]

How are you all able to launch craft vertically? Whenever I do that, resting on the engines, the craft explodes!

[Excalibur]

Ehh, 'hardcore' isn\'t really the word for it. More like, 'can\'t keep track of all of the mods out there any more'.

I respectfully disagree; as we\'ve seen, piloting skill and the ability to keep envelope-pushing craft pointed in the right direction have had large effects on the results. Don\'t get me wrong, I don\'t object to you using MechJeb in this at all, I just object to you calling it 'stock'. If you want to put up a stock speed, I invite you to remove it and see how fast you can get your ship moving while flying it manually. Heck, I look forward to it! 8)

You\'re right, as I use MechJeb I can\'t call it stock. I just see MechJeb as \'psuedo-stock\' and sometimes my answers reflect this. I think I was just arguing with you for the sake of it which I apologise for. I snapped an Achilles tendon a few days ago so I\'m liable to snap myself rather easily at the moment!

Pure stock, vertical launch, 1006 m/s absolute in a 100 m/s dive, 1003 m/s overland.

This was taken just after the peak run as the craft dropped back into the heavier air.

Final stats with high speed.

Edit:1013 m/s absolute speed while diving. 1005 m/s overland, again. I wouldn\'t be surprised if this design can crack 1020 m/s diving and 1010 m/s level, though.

Again, this is while slowing down...

Final results.

Edit 2:

Yup, I was right: 1030 m/s absolute, 1018 m/s overland.

Something I will disagree on though is posting speeds attained in a dive! When I said 1010 would be hard to beat I did mean in level flight!

Some nice crafts though dude. Looks like I\'ve got some catching up to do!

[Diio]

My first try!

I forgot to take a screenshot when i got to max xD

[Salda007]

You\'re right, as I use MechJeb I can\'t call it stock. I just see MechJeb as \'psuedo-stock\' and sometimes my answers reflect this. I think I was just arguing with you for the sake of it which I apologise for. I snapped an Achilles tendon a few days ago so I\'m liable to snap myself rather easily at the moment!

No worries! I sprained my ankle a couple years ago--I can totally sympathize. Take care, and get well soon!

Something I will disagree on though is posting speeds attained in a dive! When I said 1010 would be hard to beat I did mean in level flight!

The challenge here is to get as fast as possible only using air breathing jet engines.

<snip>

Rules are.

Only air breathing engines.

Tell us the m/s you achieved (I can do the math for kph later if anyone is interested).

Post a screenshot of the plane so others can try to replicate using the same plane.

If you want to provide screenshots of the peak speed or video you can but not required.

I don\'t see nothin\' about no level flight! 8) ;P The dive was ~125 m/s

I did skip the bit about posting the ship, though, so please let me remedy that here:

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How are you all able to launch craft vertically? Whenever I do that, resting on the engines, the craft explodes!

Very carefully? Seriously, though, I had more problems with explosions due to side-by-side collisions than due to the ship weight on the pad. There\'s a reason I wound up going with such an open plan for the Demon-8; a more condensed grid had explosion issues.

------

Anyway, looking at my Demon-8 and khyron42\'s Rama\'s Arrow, it seems like the winning formula for stock craft is the Mk2 cockpit with as many FL-T250/TurboJet stacks as you can squish together behind it, with the absolute minimal amount of other parts needed to make the thing flyable, which would mean that at this point it\'s just a matter of who can go the biggest. Of course, I would love to be proved wrong, so I look forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with!

[vexx32]

I think there comes a point at which such a design becomes simply too big; the resistance becomes too much a factor. I think the optimum would be likely between 8 and 25 engines, each with single fuel tanks attached, whatever the type of fuel tank.

We\'ve seen well over 1000m/s with such designs, so I suppose it\'s just a matter of finding the optimum configuration for it...

[khyron42]

Vexx32, in KSP\'s current physics, drag is not affected by anything other than the sum of each part\'s drag parameter.

Therefore, as long as the thrust added is greater than the drag added, there\'s continuing gain for all additional engines. Each fuel tank and engine has a drag factor, and they add linearly. A bare engine with one fuel tank would be the optimal design for minimal drag/thrust ratio and would perform equally well as 10, or 100, bare engines with a single fuel tank; however, since there are other parts involved (pod, ASAS, landing gear, wings/canards) the best performance can be found by minimizing the percentage of your mass and drag that those other parts contribute. You can do that by either removing every non-optimal part possible, increasing the number of optimal thrust-adding components, or both.

This is best achieved in a wingless vertical-launcher like Salda007\'s; my current 1024 m/s record-holder is a compromise solution to allow for horizontal takeoff and only gets better results because the canards are very light and low-drag, and the sheer number of engines spreads the non-optimal drag percentage very thin.

[Guest butt head]

ill take 2nd place please

top speed 906

[Diio]

ill take 2nd place please

top speed 906

nice one! then will be on third place i guess.. vill beat you tonight! ;P

[Limit]

Pure stock parts in version 0.16

Top speed of 1042 m/s in horizontal flight at approx 17,000m

Takeoff sequence is from a different run (just pics to get an idea of the design)

Ive managed 1043m/s but didn't get the screenshot unfortunately

Ready for takeoff

Climbing to optimum altitude

Waiting for all the fuel to run out

Top speed!

Edited August 8, 2012 by Limit

[borzwazie]

785 m/sec, level flight. Could have gone faster but ran out of gas. All stock.

[zekes]

I got 913.

[zgubilembulke]

x

Edited May 15, 2018 by zgubilembulke

[Limit]

The flying engine:

top speed: 1050m/s

[Limit]

The Flying Brick!

Top speed = 1055.2 m/s or Mach 3.1

[Archangel Lucifer]

Hi all, here's my first entry into this mighty fun challenge. Top Speed = 1011.1 m/s.

I tried not to just strap a whole bunch of engines together and went for something with a little more...style than the other entries I've seen so far.

I'm sure there's room for improvement but it's not a bad start.

[Archangel Lucifer]

So I mucked around some more and came up with these baby's, they are similar to some I saw earlier in this thread but surely nobody has attained 1021 m/s with just 3 engines!

And I'm pretty sure this is the fastest yet with a single engine, well posted in this thread anyway.

Can anyone confirm this?

This was all done using stock parts from v0.16

[vrga]

*image removed by me*

here's my attempt

non-stock parts are the fuel tank and the things on which the small control surfaces are mounted on i think. and mechjeb of course.

Edited April 8, 2014 by vrga