The Superbird MKII

[Wjolcz]

The Superbird MKII

The Superbird is an SSTO that came into my mind after seeing Plymouth's Superbird in CSR Classics. I loved the spoiler on the thing and thought I would make something similar in KSP. It's got the looks and is an SSTO, so I'm happy.

Here's the full album:

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Actually the first two pics show the MKI version. The only visible difference between those two are the engines moved slightly outward. Please pardon my derp. My internet kind of sucks right now and it would be painful to upload all this stuff all over again.

And it's pretty simple to fly:

-Action group 1 toggles engines.

-Action group 2 switches between Air and Closed Cycle, also toggles intakes.

-The cargo bay is opened manually

1. The plane doesn't climb very well with only 2 RAPIERs, so you need to get some speed first.

2. At about 1200m/s you should start a steady 30-45 degree climb.

3. Once the speed starts to drop switch to LF/O mode with action group 2.

4. Keep going, watch your dV and Apo height. 70km should be enough.

5. At Apo circuralize with RCS and SAS activated (The plane has some CoT/CoM issues. Still need to figure that one out.)

6. During reentry, for better pitch authority you may want to enable pitch control on the canards.

The payload it can carry is something yet to be determined.

Download:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbpp5ltusngxgab/Superbird%20MkII.craft?dl=0

Edited June 25, 2015 by Veeltch

[Space.exe]

I really like the back end of the plane looks very mean!

[Kagame]

*claps*

This is actually really cool. I've always loved the Superbird, and this just looks cool.

Now I want to make something with a really massive pair of vertical stabilizers and call it the Bel Air...

[Wjolcz]

So after some testing it became pretty obvious that MKII version is a bit underpowered and can't even lift 2.5 tons to orbit, so I upgraded it and created Superbird MKIII. Now it's able to carry a whole FL-T400 tank: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/FL-T400_Fuel_Tank. That's an equivalent of a science probe having about 3km/s of dV.

If anyone is still interested in this just let me know and I'll update the OP with the MKIII version of the craft.