Land Me!

[OstermanA]

Challenge is simple. Take off and land again without blowing up anything except the inevitable airbrakes. Ship is totally stock. MechJeb is allowed, but I don't think it'll help you much. I call it the Flame Dart for all of the times I've accidentally overheated and exploded. Be warned, watching it steer itself on SAS is kinda hypnotic. I'm also not sure it's physically possible, but a lot of you are *much* better pilots than I.

Here's the craft on KerbalX: http://kerbalx.com/crafts/6900

Edited November 8, 2015 by OstermanA

[FungusForge]

I'd suggest KerbalX, its a really nice craft sharing site. It'll also make installing the craft a whole lot smoother.

[OstermanA]

Good suggestion, thank you. It's there now. Also made the screenshots smaller for readability.

Edited November 8, 2015 by OstermanA

[FungusForge]

Attempt 1: Circle around horizontally to line up with runway. Failure. Cause: Instability at low fuel paired with certain airbrakes causing rolling with combined pitch/yaw.

Attempt 2: Perform a loop to line up with runway. Failure. Cause: This craft possesses a complete inability to recover from dives, even with shutting down the top engine for pitch torque.

Attempt 3: Same as 2, but with higher peak altitude in the hopes that the extra time would allow the aircraft to pitch up. Failure. Cause: same as 2.

Attempt 4&5: Didn't takeoff, attempts to correct slight drifting on runway incited roll event.

Attempt 6: Began with an Immelman and attempted to turn the other 180 degrees slowly descending while turning horizontally. Failure. Cause: Fell short of the runway misjudging the craft's stall speed and touched down with too much vertical velocity.

What I've gathered from this is Attempt 6 is the most fuel efficient, and that I must touchdown at ~170m/s. No clue how well the brakes will perform in terms of stopping it within the 2.5km of runway.

I'll probably try again tomorrow when I'm not tired.