Space Plane Assent

[GoSlash27]

The first game that hooked me was Pong at 5p a go - does that put me in the running for oldest in thread? Lol

Although good too see the senior players can still juggle gaming with life's responsibilities.

That just gave me a thought (as the thread wanders off course as though it's being navigated by bolted- on preschoolers...)

Graybeards have a whole lot more patience than their younger counterparts, so we don't mind the time and frustration involved in tinkering.

We are, however more apt to forget what it was we were trying to accomplish in the first place...

Best,

-Slashy

[Val]

...

Graybeards have a whole lot more patience than their younger counterparts, so we don't mind the time and frustration involved in tinkering.

We are, however more apt to forget what it was we were trying to accomplish in the first place...

Best,

-Slashy

You made me laugh, because that has happened to me a few times.

I'm testing a design. Find a flaw. Press Revert. Consider solutions and consequences. Solutions to consequences. Editor loads. Wait, what was I trying to fix originally? Launch to find flaw again...

And I'm not even that old. My age is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

[Vanamonde]

Stick to the topic of the thread, please.

[gilflo]

You look for a quick ascending SSTO, look at the modded side you'll find powerfull jet engines to build SSTO able to climb quickly on orbit.

Look at OPT mod - OPT J61 q ramjet engine, powerfull and able to run very high provided you add some extra air intakes and accelerate over mach 3.With only one engine, You will run a 30T SSTO through transonic speed without having to make any dive or flat run. You also get some interesting nuclear engines with Atomic Age mod, specially the Bulb one if you build a file to tweakscale it, because it's a 2,5m and 20T but very efficient engine!. All these engines running only on fuel.

I am building a 30T SSTO, Scansat and Karbonite equipped, able of drawing map, detecting and mining Karbonite, able to refuel by itself and independant of any refinery.

OPT J61 will throw it to 40 kms at mach 5.5, only using fuel, and nuclear engines will give final push to orbit and will be mounted on hinges to provide vertical transfer for low gravity planet exploration (mun, minmus......etc...). I got some oxy on board to allow vernor engines use.

Once in orbit around Kerbin, it should leave 5000Dv left. Depending on how much DV you need or how much TWR you want on destination you can tweakscale all engines to get more payload or more or less TWR. Based on MK1 or MK2 cockpit.

Edited August 29, 2015 by gilflo

[GoSlash27]

Interesting!

It appears that if you increase the lift by adding wings, you can accelerate more mass supersonic and beyond than you could otherwise do. This is a single RAPIER pushing 14.4t to beyond 1.5km/sec ground speed. It acts more like a TJ than a RAPIER (notice I didn't have to stop my climb to go supersonic).

The standard right now is mass/10 is how much Cl you should have, but this is at m/2.

Apparently the increase in parasitic drag is more than made up for by the reduction of induced drag from the Mk2 fuselage sections.

Using more wing means that you can fly at a lower angle of attack, thus reducing overall drag.

I wonder how far I can take this...

Best,

-Slashy

Edited August 29, 2015 by GoSlash27

[GoSlash27]

*Update*

At least 20 tonnes per RAPIER, looks like.

[Clipperride]

Stick to the topic of the thread, please.

This tread had a topic?? ;-)

- - - Updated - - -

You made me laugh, because that has happened to me a few times.

I'm testing a design. Find a flaw. Press Revert. Consider solutions and consequences. Solutions to consequences. Editor loads. Wait, what was I trying to fix originally? Launch to find flaw again...

And I'm not even that old. My age is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

The number of times I forget little things like control surfaces or Action groups.

I'm not sure if its an age thing or just that old school games often required pen and paper for mapping etc. Of course, back in the AD&D days it was nothing but pen & paper (oh, and dice)

But back to the thread:- it seems that the Rapier has to be the engine of choice for Space Plane ascent, with maybe something more efficient for above the atmosphere.

[KerikBalm]

Apparently the increase in parasitic drag is more than made up for by the reduction of induced drag from the Mk2 fuselage sections.

Using more wing means that you can fly at a lower angle of attack, thus reducing overall drag.

If it just a difference in L/D for the wing vs lifting body fusalage, then you'd get around this even better by using fewer wings, but give the wings some incidence angle.

It may instead be that L/D varies significantly with AoA, and a lower AoA for the wings is best.

[Wolf Baginski]

it seems that the Rapier has to be the engine of choice for Space Plane ascent, with maybe something more efficient for above the atmosphere.

There are the Sabre engines in the B9 Aerospace pack, but that's still in the final stages of the post-1.0.4 re-balance. They're also awkwardly heavy to stick at the back end of a spaceplane. The Sabre-M is a 2.5m engine and there's a shockcone intake to match.

There are a few high-speed ramjets and scramjets out there, but you need to be able to get up to their operating speed.

You might be able to get away with fewer operating engines once you get above the effective altitude of air-breathers, So something like two Whiplash jets and a Rapier might work out better than three Rapiers, but three Rapiers can cope better with heating. I don't think I can count exploding Whiplashes as an intentional staging process. Also, the response the Mach number and air pressure matters.

[gilflo]

Here they got an awesome turboramjet

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97525-1-0-4-WIP-OPT-Space-Plane-v1-7

[Nothalogh]

Here they got an awesome turboramjet

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97525-1-0-4-WIP-OPT-Space-Plane-v1-7

I recently built a spaceplane out of the J size OPT parts, used two of the turboramjets and two of Nertea's 2.5m rapiers, 110 tons and it flew like a fighter jet.

It also pulled 5.5 Gs in forward acceleration in the air breathing phase