[My 1st published one!] - Kerbalized replica of the KOMET

[n.b.z.]

In the short but longwinded history of aeronautical kontraptions, there have been times in which exceptional courage, vision, and relentless willingness to shatter established boundaries came together with despair, destruction and the consequences of unbound, raging stupidity. Often, it is in one of these points in time that a breakthrough happens - a breathtakingly new, revolutionary design, that, while maybe not changing the present, points a way to a future of going faster, higher, and further, whilst also making so much more awesome noise.

It has now become evident that one of these breakthroughs has happened at KSC.

Recently, a single photo was released apparently showing a new secret aerial vehicle after its first crewed flight in near darkness. However, the picture was not too revealing, and some areas that presumably contained technical information were censored. However, we can now report that this first flight was conducted by Jebdo.

Today however, the KSC has released a full set of images for each of the second, third, and fouth flight of the vehicle now known as the "Komet", and has been more forthcoming with information about this remarkable craft - a radical new design that combines a new type of wing, called the "Delta-wing" and made of plywood, with a powerful hypergolic rocket engine. It seems that its designers, once in a mood of boundless progress, also decided to not only completely eliminate the tailplane, but also design a gear that is dropped instead of retracted, which necessitates landing on a skid. To alleviate the pilot from fear of these newfangled features, the single seat has been carefully and closely surrounded by a barrage of tanks for the highly explosive rocket fuel, encouraging the aviator to instead focus on expending said fuel in the designated combustion chamber as prescribed by the manual.

Our dear reader may notice that on other, more grown-up and realistic planets, such as Earth is rumoured to be, such a crazy kontraption could never possibly have been built, much less flown. On Kerbin, however, it has now become a reality to combine a fast, docile glider and a rocket into one vehicle.

Below we present the full image series of the three flights. One of these photos even contains the overlay with technical data, indicating that a considerable altitude was attained. However, some of the information may be misleading. For example, our expert consultants tell us that the multiple engine readings in the bottom left corner are likely just different gauge readings from what almost certainly is the same, single engine, as additional instrumentation is common practice during flight testing.

Siena: Late Evening Ascent - high altitude test

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Gilvin: A New Day, A New Pair Of Wings - second prototype maiden flight

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Kathiella: Expanding The Range - alternate airfield proving flight

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A difficult to tame, violent, fuel-heavy inanity at takeoff, a handful in the thin air of the stratosphere, and a docile and playful glider with considerable glide ratio that will gracefully fly itself hands-off during the way back to the field. Not by numbers but by character, it resembles many of the reported characteristics of its real counterpart. That skid, for example, only works with prepared airfields - landing anywhere else leads to violent destruction of the vehicle.

Craft file link

Instructions (omit reading these if you are up for a challenge):

• after loading, leave throttle on 50%
  
• there is only one steam generator and one engine, they just have several gauges in the display :-)
  
• stage once to start steam generator
  
• stage again for engine ignition
  
• around 20m/s, hit Z for maximum thrust AND pull up hard - prepare to correct roll!
  
• stage the gear as soon as this seems a good idea
  
• don't panic if you stall and spin at high altitude: with SAS off, the plane will sort itself out at lower altitude. However, you can get it out of the spin earlier.
  
• MAXIMUM landing speed 50m/s - it is strongly recommended to stay well below that
  
• ALWAYS land on a prepared runway
  

Action groups:

• LIGHTS - toggles the very bright cabin light
  
• GEAR - drops the gear, in case you prefer this over staging
  

[Dnaha]

Love the craft. Going to have a go at it myself very soon. Congrats on first published craft and good job!

[n.b.z.]

My first attempts were to do something closer to the original 163, using fairings. This didn't seem to really go anywhere. But I am now pleased how I somehow managed to turn a Death Machine Of War into something a kid would want to cuddle with.

As an aside: the real thing was nicknamed the "Kraft-Ei" by its crews, which translates literally into "Power-Egg".

[Dman979]

That is awesome. I love how you've kerbalized it, instead of an exact replica. + Rep!

[n.b.z.]

Building it at that size from stock parts sort of enforces the kerbalization. For example, there are no suitable wheels except these comically huge ones. For a while, the wheel dolly used the new little "taildragger" aircraft wheels, but that looked silly. The really small rover wheels break before reaching takeoff speed, which always results in a flaming debris field.