Seaplanes in 1.0.4?

[Grumman]

I am planning a mission to Laythe and I'd like to be able to have some seaplanes to explore in. I've tried using the USI Survivability Pack floats and airbags but neither have been successful. Has anyone built any seaplanes in the new patch yet, either in Stock or with mods?

Edited July 1, 2015 by Grumman

[nicky4096]

they are definitely possible with the XM-G50 radial intakes and high crash tolerance parts. the radial intakes float *really* well and have a crash tolerance of 80 m/s, which is fast enough to land & takeoff from. hang on a moment, i'll build one in a sec.

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yep, here you go:

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just land it under 70 m/s.

it can also take off from the water.

craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v19tg5hhsowq3x7/G3.craft?dl=0

now, you'll definitely want to make your own design because mine is just a quick proof-of-concept I built in 10 minutes. basically, build a normal plane, stick some structural fuslage under it, and then attach some XM-G50's to the underside. just don't land it too fast

[Grumman]

Thanks for that, Nicky. I'm not a fan of the look of the XM-G50 based seaplanes so I think I'll add my own part that fulfills the same role, but you've given me a good starting point for comparison.

[nicky4096]

no problem! if you don't like the look, you may be able to fix it even with stock, by clipping the intake into the fuselage

[Grumman]

I've always preferred the Structural Intake for this purpose since it's got a nice ski shape if you put it on backwards, but then they nerfed it to 7 m/s impact resistance. So I'm making a new part based on that.

[Yukon0009]

Why not just write a MM config that restores it's old toughness?

[wasml]

If you're willing to go the mod route check out Better Buoyancy - Makes contact with the water less deadly

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/105094

[Geschosskopf]

I am planning a mission to Laythe and I'd like to be able to have some seaplanes to explore in. I've tried using the USI Survivability Pack floats and airbags but neither have been successful. Has anyone built any seaplanes in the new patch yet, either in Stock or with mods?

Firespitter has seaplane floats what work wonderfully. I used to use them on all my Laythe planes. They float well (if you raise their buoyancy setting), they have rudders that work in the water, and they have retractable, powered wheels so your plane can taxi up onto the beach. Problem is, nowadays they make huge amounts of drag so it's a pain getting a seaplane SSTO off Kerbin without compromising on its design somehow (like way more power than you'd really like for its size). But OTOH, you can ModuleManager the drag to some extent.

Intakes aren't as good in 1.x as they were before, either. You need rather more of them than you used to, which gets into ridiculous part counts. And the radial intakes now also have beaucoup drag regardless of which way they're facing, so that kills you as well. The Firespitter floats are far superior in all respects.

[Grumman]

If you're willing to go the mod route check out Better Buoyancy - Makes contact with the water less deadly

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/105094

I've tried it out and it did work better, but not quite enough. Some of the time she test craft survived landing, others it got sheared in half at the drone core.

Firespitter has seaplane floats what work wonderfully. I used to use them on all my Laythe planes. They float well (if you raise their buoyancy setting), they have rudders that work in the water, and they have retractable, powered wheels so your plane can taxi up onto the beach. Problem is, nowadays they make huge amounts of drag so it's a pain getting a seaplane SSTO off Kerbin without compromising on its design somehow (like way more power than you'd really like for its size). But OTOH, you can ModuleManager the drag to some extent.

Okay, thanks. My only exposure to Firespitter so far has been the USI Exploration ducted fans, so I didn't realise that they had what I wanted. If the drag's too bad, I might have a go at having them retract into nacelles and see if that changes anything. Or I might just remake the Jart and make the seaplane a parasite fighter that goes to orbit in a cargo container.

[Geschosskopf]

Okay, thanks. My only exposure to Firespitter so far has been the USI Exploration ducted fans, so I didn't realise that they had what I wanted. If the drag's too bad, I might have a go at having them retract into nacelles and see if that changes anything. Or I might just remake the Jart and make the seaplane a parasite fighter that goes to orbit in a cargo container.

The USI stuff only uses the Firespitter.dll AFAIK. To get the actual pontoon parts, you need to get the whole Firespitter mod. This is a big mod and you probably won't want much in it. I tend to cull parts out of it until it's just the pontoons, the electric propeller engines, and a few other things.

Here's how the pontoons look and attach (this is a prototype boat for the Elcano challenge, not a plane, but the pontoons are the same):

There are 5 types of pontoon parts. Front end, back end (includes rudder), wheel bay, center section, and strut. You start with the strut part, which is a thin slice of pontoon cross-section with a vertical attachment leg. Stick this on the underside of the main vehicle. Then you build the pontoons forwards and backwards from the strut adding whichever of the other parts you need. Then brace the whole thing off with normal struts.

Each pontoon part has a tweakable menu with a slider to adjust buoyancy. The default setting is 50%. Always slide this to 100% for all parts in the pontoon. The wheels can also be tweaked to steer and drive as needed.

So the parts themselves are pretty much inescapably bulky and not amenable to retracting due to the need for struts (they're kinda wobbly without struts). HOWEVER, thanks to ModuleManager, there's a way to work around this by NOT actually using the Firespitter pontoon parts. The pontoon parts get their properties from a module called FSbuoyancy. Using ModuleManager, you can add this module to any other parts you desire, making those parts float just as well as the pontoons. You can also had FSrudder, so you can steer in the water, FSwheel to stock aircraft wheels to give them rover power and steering, etc.

In fact, you can do this already if you have the Firespitter.dll in your game (this is an extremely useful dll, which is why so many other mods use it). You don't really need to download the whole mod. But I recommend that you do so you can look at the provided parts and learn how the various modules work.

[KerikBalm]

Problem is, nowadays they make huge amounts of drag so it's a pain getting a seaplane SSTO off Kerbin without compromising on its design somehow (like way more power than you'd really like for its size). But OTOH, you can ModuleManager the drag to some extent.

Why "cheat" your way to orbit... just add more power, and then jettison that excess power when you don't need it.

Ie... MOAR BOOSTERS

If you want, the boosters can even be 100% recoverable

I modded my own electric propulsion, and got this to duna:

Its got a lot of drag at high speed, because its got a lot of wing...

How would one get that to orbit in 1.02?

Here's how I launched it:

(more or less, the first times, I didn't have nosecones on the back of the rapiers)

And when it was in orbit, the boosters came off (pylons give a clean separation, with nothing left on the payload):

Each one fully capable of deorbiting and landing at KSC's runway.

I don't see why you couldn't do the same thing to get a laythe seaplane to orbit - no "cheating" with temporary drag changes, just get rid of excess engines once in orbit.

[Wanderfound]

Structural fuselages also make good floats:

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Unfortunately, the impact tolerance of the nosecones is slightly lower than that of the fuselages, so it's difficult to streamline them in a way that will survive landings. A very minor ModuleManager tweak to raise the nosecone impact speeds to match the fuselage would sort that out, though.

[klesh]

Ooh, thanks for the reminder. This was my most successful seaplane in older versions. I'll have to recreate it and see if she still works.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=345018415

[Geschosskopf]

Why "cheat" your way to orbit... just add more power, and then jettison that excess power when you don't need it.

Ie... MOAR BOOSTERS

Yah, you can do that as well.

How would one get that to orbit in 1.02?

Or any version, really. Big wings have always been a challenge to launch.

Ooh, thanks for the reminder. This was my most successful seaplane in older versions. I'll have to recreate it and see if she still works.

Unfortunately, the impact tolerance of the structural intakes got reduced to nearly nothing so they don't make good floats these days.

[klesh]

Unfortunately, the impact tolerance of the structural intakes got reduced to nearly nothing so they don't make good floats these days.

Gah! 7m/s!!! Yeah, thats not gonna work. Too bad, those things were sweet for nautical applications. I used them on the ships that I refueled those seaplanes with too.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=346574421