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Farnsworth Weasel SSTO for Career mode


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Good news everyone!

Farnsworth rocket surgery and rubber toaster delivery is proud to announce the production of the Weasel, a SSTO that actually works. All of the previous Farnsworth SSTO's mostly, or nearly worked. some of them almost made it to the highly acclaimed sort of worked status.

The Weasel features nifty improvements to previous designs such as but not limited to:

Wings, they seem to help keep the ground from hitting you after you leave it.

Fuel, who knew that you had to light things on fire to accelerate, interesting discovery.

Electricity, we were shocked as much as you, lights don't stay on by themselves.

RRRERT, we don't know what to call them so we made our own name for the Round Rubber Return Explosion Reduction Thingies. Some of our more intelligent engineers have started calling them Lando-Cal-Gear-z-ans, but I don't think the name will stick.

Anyways, the specificity of the specifics on the Weasel are as such forth and so on.

40 measly parts and 15.9 tons of flaming fun fully fueled and fired up.

The weasel was made to transport one kerbal and requisite toast fro and to, or to and fro (depends on the direction your heading) the KSC to a LKO station with a moderate level of reliability and survivability.

Every part should be easily seen and easy to duplicate from the pictures. There is some hidden fuel lines to feed the central tanks fuel to the terriers and a stashed battery, other than that it's just like it looks. Just keep in mind that the thing likes a low attitude flight out of the atmosphere, stay about about 15 to 25 deg.

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I'm curious as to how exactly one can have a 'low attitude flight out of the atmosphere'. I may not be a spaceplane scientist, but I'm quite certain that exiting the atmosphere necessitates a high altitude. Correct me if I'm wrong, old chap. :wink:

Also: Where the Devil do you keep the terriers?

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I'm curious as to how exactly one can have a 'low attitude flight out of the atmosphere'. I may not be a spaceplane scientist, but I'm quite certain that exiting the atmosphere necessitates a high altitude. Correct me if I'm wrong, old chap. :wink:

Also: Where the Devil do you keep the terriers?

The Farnsworth test pilots say to climb to about 9k at 45 or so degrees using the two whiplash engines and mid to 70% throttle. From there, level out to 15 to 25 degrees and hit full throttle-ness, the whiplashes give up around 22/23k, flip on the chemical eating terriers (release the hounds!...or terriers) and stay that way until the weasel is heading sub orbital going almost 2k per second. At 70'ish km our engineers report that they are still going fast enough that they have to spend minimal fuel to make a pretty circle.

This is completely different to how the previous Farnsworth SSTO's flew pre 1.03. It took our engineers by surprise to see space easier to reach by not heading directly towards it. We have finally reached the conclusion that space can see you coming unless you sneak up behind it and wack it with something going very fast. Science!

Good news everyone!

If you look closely you can see the terrier's hidden inside the turbo ramjet's.

Also of note, if you decide to build a Weasel please add a bit of dihedral to the main wing and tail fins. And raise the main wing a bit from the center of mass of the fuselage. It will help with atmospheric stability.

OjSGBjf.png?1

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These are excellent. You're gonna go far, kid! My earlier stuff isn't half this capable... Also, try swapping the "chemical eating Terriers" for some Mk. 55s for the next SSTO you build. I love the bejesus out of the things because they have a decent atmospheric TWR and they look pretty. They aren't as efficient out of atmosphere as the Terriers, but they help when lifting actual cargo.

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