Largest Aircraft to Land at KSC Island Challenge

[inigma]

I just want to see who can land the largest aircraft on the KSC Island runway in terms of the most number of Kerbals, and in terms of the heaviest landed weight. There are top 5 leaderboards for both. Stock only parts. FAR is allowed, but will be judged separately with other FAR entries. Info mods allowed (MechJeb info, Kerbal Engineer Redux, etc) but no piloting assistance.

This challenge requires that you take off and land horizontally, no VTOLs, no landers. You must land on wheels with a forward motion. Braking is up to you. After landing, you must take off again to qualify for ranking. You are welcome to use any reliable method to turn around, including HyperEdit (although I never trust HyperEdit to flip any expensive aircraft, let alone a 200 ton, 400 passenger beast that has just lithobraked to a landing but I still consider airworthy...but good luck!).

LEADERBOARDS

Limited to the TOP 5

KSP 1.0.5

Largest by # of Passengers: (post a screenie of your landing, and screenie of your craft info in Map View showing number of Kerbals)

1. Speeding Mullet 1024 Kerbals , 820 Kerbals ,  724 Kerbals

2. Pds314 516 Kerbals

3. Gojira1000 352 Kerbals

4.  gtrx 292 Kerbals

5. kapteenipirk 204 Kerbals

 

FAR:

1. Wanderfound 100 Kerbals

2.

3.

 

Largest by Weight: (post a screenie of your landing, and screenie of your landed craft info in Map View showing weight in tonnage))

1. Speeding Mullet 569 tons ,  442 tons ,   324 tons

2. Sim^moN 426 tons

3. Pds314 324 tons

4. gtrx 270 tons

5. Gojira1000 242 tons

 

FAR:

1. Wanderfound 84 tons

2.

3.

Pics and Videos are highly desired of your attempts, as well as your successes.

Any takers?

Here's mine in .90: I believe this was actually the first construction of a mk3 aircraft, and the first ever landing landing of a mk3 jet on KSC Island ever to be published on this forum, or even on youtube. This was pioneering stuff back in the day:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/104212-90-Inigma-s-I-80-Mk-III-Jet-%2884-Kerbals%29-Now-also-a-Space-Shuttle-Carrier%21-A-KSP-FIRST%21-VIDEO

 

 

Edited January 5, 2016 by inigma
updating leaderboards

[WellItExplodedAgain]

63 tons and 57m in legenth.

[Pds314]

Are we allowed to do any or all of the following:

#1: Land in the water and taxi up the Island onto the runway.

#2: Use parachutes as drogues to slow down the plane during taxi or landing.

#3: Use retrorockets for enhanced thrust-reversal capabilities.

#4: Destroy parts of the craft on landing.

#5: Land "Horizontally" at low speed using rockets facing down for bonus lift.

#6: Put the Kerbals in lawn chairs stacked in multiple decks in a cargo bay.

#7: Pile Kerbals into a cargo bay loose.

[cikho]

i'm planning a 4 crew +100 seat (64 in mk3 + 36 in mk2 in a two deck setup) airliner to land there..

but i'm planning to replace the fuselage mid section which is currently fuel with another crew module..

anyway the design is ready, i'm working on a way to stop it..

at the moment i'm trying a RASL (Rocket Assisted Short Landing) .

but need severe improvements..

i'm posting images asap

edit: images:

behemoth in the hangar..

128 tons

100 passengers + 4 crew..

lenght: 38m

width: 39m

2deck layout (A380-like)

3 engines (DC10 like)

double tail fin (antonov-like)

RASL system..

on runway, ready for departure

take off!!

aligned! easy now!

RASL system fired!!!! also, i've almost missed the runway!

oh this was so short!

taxi to the hangar, engine switched off, the captain hopes you had a pleasant flight with cikho's international airlines.

Edited November 12, 2015 by cikho
added pics

[cikho]

also: the goliath has a fantastic "reverse thrust" function, that makes the RASL completly useless..

and makes this huge aicraft totally manuverable in taxi situations..

switching of the aft engine and reversing only one, makes it litterallt spin on it's center gear

and it's also incredibly manuverable in the air

Edited November 12, 2015 by cikho

[RA3236]

Good challenge... I'll try it in 1.0.4 today and 1.0.5 tomorrow when I update KSP.

- - - Updated - - -

Are we allowed to do any or all of the following:

#1: Land in the water and taxi up the Island onto the runway.

#2: Use parachutes as drogues to slow down the plane during taxi or landing.

#3: Use retrorockets for enhanced thrust-reversal capabilities.

#4: Destroy parts of the craft on landing.

#5: Land "Horizontally" at low speed using rockets facing down for bonus lift.

#6: Put the Kerbals in lawn chairs stacked in multiple decks in a cargo bay.

#7: Pile Kerbals into a cargo bay loose.

By the looks of it:

1. No

2. Yes

3. Yes, but as mentioned before the Goliath has a reverse thrust feature meaning you don't need this.

4. Umm... Not sure.

5. Never heard of this option. Rockets facing down should make you crash????

6. Yes

7 Yes but they need to survive

[TrainEngie]

Are you willing to make a FAR division for this?

[cikho]

3. Yes, but as mentioned before the Goliath has a reverse thrust feature meaning you don't need this.

i think i must correct myself..

the j-90 goliath ofcoure has the reverse thrust.. but it takes really a long time to reach full thrust, while the boosters (used in the RASL in my craft) reach max thrust outright.

as i tested it in KSC, it took really a lot of space to stop the plane.. but honestly i landed at twice the speed if not more..

probably one should start reversing while in flight

will do more tests this evening.

Also,i made a bigger version of the plane, but right now it's still in development phase..

somehow it doesn't fly well..

[Pds314]

Alright, 324 516-Kerbal, 420-tonne, 9-Goliath monstrosity coming right up!

EDIT: miss-counted Kerbals. There are actually 516.

First attempt at landing: touch-and-go. Landed at 140 m/s, far, far too quickly.

New image:

Note the speedometer and the fact that it just took off from into a vertical climb in less than half the runway. Checkmate physicists!

Later in that flight:

Most planes want to fly backwards.... This one actually did.

Flying backwards with thrust reversers. I wonder if I should just try landing backwards when I get to the Island?

I can take off..

In reverse.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Alright, I have an entry:

The landing was pretty sketchy. I lost 2/9 engines, a fuel tank and 2 control surfaces and wing panels attached to engines, and another control surface due to the shock of touching down on an uneven surface. I initially hit to the side of the runway, so it was a pretty bad landing. Nonetheless, all crew and passengers are alive and I'm pretty sure the damage wouldn't stop it from flying back to KSC for repairs.

Relevant specs:

Launch Mass: 419.6 tonnes.

Passengers: 516, including 4 crew.

"Relative wing area," my calculations: 304.58 units, not counting tail plane or any body lift. That roughly translates to 1200 m^2.

Irrelevant specs:

Powerplant: 9 x J-90 Goliath.

Length: 46.1 meters.

Wingspan: 31.3 meters.

Fuel: 95625 kg of jet fuel.

Dry mass: 324.0 tonnes.

Takeoff speed 62 m/s.

It's so majestic!

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited November 13, 2015 by Pds314

[kapteenipirk]

Desided id have a go at this challenge. So i took my Koeing SST Klipper and modified it a little bit. Cant say i did too bad.

Mass: 212.3 tons

Capacity: 4+200 kerbals (9 passenger fuselages and 14 mk-2 crew tanks in the mid and aft cargobays)

Length: 87.6 m

wingspan: 58.1 m

Height: 13.5 m

Top speed: about 220 m/s in low altitude

Powerplant: 8 Whiplash turbo ramjets

The landing was very tricky. I had to slow down so much that i ended up landing nose first and losing one of my engines and the tip of the nose but noething else.

I actually had some aerospike engines for slowing down, but didnt end up using them afterall.

After the landing i did takeoff but it was a close call.

And yes i am using the Flag decals mod.

[RCgothic]

I managed to get this 1111.3t beast in the air:

However I don't think there's any chance I'll be landing it:

[inigma]

Lol I didn't think this challenge would take off. I guess I'd better get to your entries.

As to questions, anything stock you can come up with is permissible to be used to land horizontally including lithobreaking. The idea is to land, not damage your plane so lithos will have to be theoretically still airworthy after landing.

I'll get to your entries this week.

And yes i can add a FAR division.

[Wanderfound]

A little easy one just to get the FAR leaderboard started:

[imgur]yBuW0[/imgur]

Craft file at [url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/qp70t5r69s9v5ot/Island%201.craft?dl=0[/url]

Assorted informational and visual mods, FAR aerodynamics, Kerbal Pilot Assistant for SAS PID tuning.

[inigma]

Im thinking about adding a bonus star for those who can screenie a takeoff return from the island with their sky whales. I will be dropping the area category since naturally the passenger and weight categories will accomplish the same goal of seeing the largest (in terms of area) aircraft to ever land on the island. Edited November 16, 2015 by inigma

[inigma]

OK, OP updated with current valid entries. Grandfathered in a few too, now that I've added the requirement that you must take off from the island proving its airworthiness after initially landing on the island. Spawning on the island is not allowed of course, but using hyper edit to turn your landed craft around if necessary, is permissible. Just don't say I didn't warn you if it crashes your fragile behemoth of a plane into the terrain.

[inigma]

is this in conflict with the regional airliner challenge?

[RA3236]

[quote name='inigma']is this in conflict with the regional airliner challenge?[/QUOTE]
No. The Regional Airliner Challenge is for the best craft for the KSC that is reliable. This challenge is bigger is better stuff.
And yes, I fail at making planes.

[cikho]

[quote name='inigma']OK, OP updated with current valid entries. Grandfathered in a few too, now that I've added the requirement that you must take off from the island proving its airworthiness after initially landing on the island. Spawning on the island is not allowed of course, but using hyper edit to turn your landed craft around if necessary, is permissible. Just don't say I didn't warn you if it crashes your fragile behemoth of a plane into the terrain.[/QUOTE]

mine of course took off after ejecting the rasl :P
also, why my 128 tons are not listed in the weight :(

i'm currently working on a bigger 5 engine plane! :D

[inigma]

[quote name='cikho']
also, why my 128 tons are not listed in the weight :(
[/QUOTE]

my bad. updated! :)

[inigma]

Anyone else?

Looking for a challenge? 

[Mikki]

@inigma

Hi there, i just tried to deliver 304 innocent Kerbals to their island holidays...

And this happend: (I took my Swan and made a mass transport out of it)







You might understand that i try maybe tomorrow again. I just had the laugh of my week. 

Edited December 21, 2015 by Mikki

[inigma]

58 minutes ago, Mikki said:

@inigma

Hi there, i just tried to deliver 304 innocent Kerbals to their island holidays...

And this happend: (I took my Swan and made a mass transport out of it)







You might understand that i try maybe tomorrow again. I just had the laugh of my week. 

Lol

[Sim^moN]

Hi: I think i made it with 2 tries.
Here are screens from landing a vessel that is over 426 tons heavy
http://imgur.com/a/r5URc
Do I have to put live kerbals in and fly again? The crew capacity is (5x8x16)+4 which gives 644 seats.
 

[inigma]

You qualify for top leader spot for tonnage. Unfortunately, live Kerbals are required for the attempt for # of passengers. Updating OP...