The Valentina II long-range plane (B9_Aerospace)

[Wolf Baginski]

I mentioned, a few days ago, the non-stop round-Kerbin flight I made. This is a slightly different form of the plane.

The Valentina II is inspired by the long-range bombers of the 1950s, but isn't a close copy of any of them. It's perhaps closest to the Handley-Page Victor, the fastest of the British V-bombers This is the hottest version, capable of 800 m/s at 1000m altitude, but watch those temperatures. The long-range version used the stock J-33 engine and the circular intake from the B9 pack.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xcd0hqwme93ciae/Valentina%20II%20Bomber%20Type%20S3H.craft?dl=0

It's been interesting seeing what choice of intake makes with the same engine unit. The way the engine pods are made, it's also easy to put in engine coolers, though they don't do much until you get to spaceplane territory. I can't say the way that jet engines work is all that realistic.

Most of the model uses the B9_Aerospace pack, with a few stock parts and the Circular Antenna from Blagleg Industries. There is ample room for cargo, but it's a bit short of power for electrics. You can load up with science instruments to clock up a lot of science from the biomes you fly over, but you need something else than the engines. A small oxidiser tank and a couple of fuel cells might do the job.

(I hope I have all this right.)

[Kagame]

This under FAR or stock? Either way, that's a mighty big tailfin- going to be a huge source of cross-sectional area drag in the former, and plain ol' skin drag in the latter.

That being said, nice job overall. The details like the aborted T-tail are pretty cool. Also suprised you were able to get 800 m/s on Wheeseleys- those things have always been my bane! xD

[Wolf Baginski]

I got the speed by changing the intakes, and then the engines, from the stock circular and the J-33. It gets a bit crazy, from something resolutely subsonic to almost a spaceplane that needs some careful flying not to overheat explosively at Mach 3.9

In some ways, it's more like the Vickers Valiant than the Handley Page, things like the mid-set tailplane.

I see what you mean about the tail-fin, but I'm not sure how the aero-model works. I don't use FAR, just stock, and I've been seeing some things that feel a bit odd. The original J-33 version, with the higher capacity intakes from the B9 set, flies a little fast, and flies a long way, but feels good.

The circular inlet from the B9 set is better than anything in stock, and things really start happening with a bigger engine as well. I was doing test flights, and noting the differences. The J-X4, and the similar D-30F7 from the B9 Aerospace are set to do some strange stuff, maybe to make a spaceplane possible. Today I managed to get the J-X4 version up to the density altitude the SR-71 would operate at, but the engines overheated pretty quickly. The rest of the plane was staying cool, and the heat-flow from the engine through the structure was poor.

A little lower, and it was going a lot faster, and the airframe overheated first.