Seaplane to Orbit 1.0.5

[Mikki]

SEAPLANE TO ORBIT

Challenge 1.0.5 (.1028)

SeaplaneSSTO/ SSJATO/ SSRTO/ SUBSSSTO...SLVTOOL... SUBVTOSSJARSTO...

As some of us allready know, Seaplanes are no longer a secret to Kerbalkind...

***************************************

To push the knowledge of Bob and his friends forward, my (truely crazy) KSP Administration decided to place a Party-Challenge in this great Forum!
However, i made a Stockparts-Seaplane, capable of splashing down fully fueled, launch to orbit and back, and as you might guess, by splashing down at sealevel again!
Clearly, all your crew belong to must survive!

My attempt, IMGUR Album:   View post on imgur.com
My craftfile, DROPBOX:   https://www.dropbox.com/s/to9arbn11ft9xj2/MK2 SSJATO.craft?dl=0

 

CHALLENGE PARAMETERS:

• Your vessel must be crewed by at least one Kerbal
• Your vessel must contain at least one cargobay, one dockingport, and must have RCS fuel and thrusters functional equiped,  except for rolling the vessel
• Do not clip substantial amounts of fueltanks, or better don`t clip fueltanks at all, clipping empty structural fuselages is allowed to say  about 33% of their volume, just keep it reasonable
• Your vessel should not loose any parts (except footloose/ one and only style)
• Start your vessel on the runway
• Perform immediatly a splashdown east of KSC 
• Launch to orbit, at least 75 x 75 km (...72 x 78 km is also okay clearly) 
• Deorbit to KSC and land on the runway in one piece  serious
•    or/ and
•   (Optional: Decouple landinggear after launch from runway)  footloose
•   (Optional: Let a Engineer inspect your vessel by foot)  booty
•   (Optional: Let a Engineer inspect your vessel by swimming)  wet
•   (Optional: Visit other bodys SOI, Mun, Minmus, other)  ultimate
•   (Optional: Your vessel can submerge)  dive! dive?
•   (Optional: Deorbit to a coast of your favourite choice and splashdown in one piece)  watered
•   (Optional: Park your vessel in the pool)  poolguest ...blame WhiteKnuckle
•   (Optional: Move the watered vessel by own propulsion to the beach and dissembark the crew on land)  stranded
• You must make a Album with clear report, open resourcetab, all pics must contain the Flight UI visible
• You must post the craftfile, and give the vessel a seri reaso name
• No restrictions in how you do it, aslong it contains only stockparts, and does truely fly as promoted
• Do not exceed 175 250 parts, really (I know some of you like slapping lots of stuff together... cheers )
• And again, do not loose any parts... ... okay, one is okay... but just one.  one and only

FOLLOWING MODS are ALLOWED, and only these ...:

- Asteroid Day
- Stock Bugfix Modules
- Kerbal Joint Reinforcement (Yes, you can do humongous Mk3 vessels... and it does not alter part crash-tolerances, FYI)
- Kerbal Engineer
- Stock Fuel Switch (you must admit this though...)
- any informational, visuals enhancing
unless they do not alter stockphysics, -heat, or -aero. No Mechjeb, No Hyperedit.
Please be honest, we are serious cat Kerbonauts!

Okay, so far so good...
AHOY SEAMAN! errr...SEANAUT?!? or maybe SEANAUGHT???

PARTYBOARD

KSP 1.0.5

Mk1 Seaplanes (Name/ page/ style)

• Evanitis, " Leapfish " , 3 , watered dive! dive? wet booty stranded ...a submergable! WOOOWW!!! 

Mk2 Seaplanes (Name/ page/ style)

• g00bd0g, " Mk2 SeaSpaceplane " , 2 ,  watered wet stranded ...craftfile is missing...  ...  but nice swimming...
• Kuzzter, " [REDACTED] " , 1 , watered wet   Jebediah cast away into the sea! Dramatic scene!
• Mikki, " Mk2 SSJATO " , 1 , booty wet watered stranded
• Nefrums, " Wing glider " , 1 , serious  ...really serious vessel
• Scarecrow, " C-Plane B SSTO " , 2 , watered   commited enjoying this challenge, thank you very much!
• Val, " SSTO G-6 Proteus Mk2 ", 1 , ultimate watered stranded booty
• WhiteKnuckle, " Nomad III S `Hunchback` " , 3 , wet booty serious poolguest  ...people are crazy, and awsum out here 

Mk3 Seaplanes (Name/ page/ style)

• ABalazs, " SSXX-04D " , 2 , serious   had to give a birth before starting
• Gojira1000, " Ray " , 2 , watered stranded  and funky music!
• MARINEav8r,  " EQS 343 Stingray " , 2 , watered  with a very unique and very seaplane like look! 
• Mikki, " Kk3 SSRATO " , 1 , watered stranded booty wet   nearly burned up...
• sphere, " Hammertime " , 1 , wet serious watered stranded   cool, first MK3 entry!! And mass-swimming action! 

BADGE

zhopa125 Beriev 1957 supersonic (bomber) sea plane project

• Partyboard update will be executed at least at sunny sundays, CET, be patient please
• Update in alphabethical Order, no "best" nor "least" categorys 
• Any suggestions are still welcome

Edited January 28, 2016 by Mikki
some corrections to the styles

[Mister Dilsby]

Hmm, where could the idea for this challenge have possibly come from? Well, I'm in! The Laythe X5.1 (or whatever I end up calling it) should be able to do this, with some margin. However due to long-standing Kerbfleet policy I will be unable to post a craft file until any comics that craft appear in are complete. (sorry, but it limits my dramatic possibilities if I let people know exactly what my ships can do  ) 

So, just for fun, and I understand if I'm not on the leaderboard. But in any case, tally-ho, ahoy! 

[Mikki]

Oh my gosh... 

Ahoy Mr. Kuzzter!

You can have a provisional place on the Partyboat errrm... Partyboard for sure!  You are quite right, your amazing comics are not totally unguilty for giving me the inspiration for this crazy challenge... No hurry at all, i must craft some funny badges for this thing here first... 

Edited December 3, 2015 by Mikki
format

[KerikBalm]

I already did this a while ago... it won't go to laythe without a refuel, I'm not even sure it will make it to laythe with a refuel (unless it goes to minmus, and refuels again there)

But its docking port is positioned so that it can be balanced and pushed by a "tug".

Crew of 6, cargobay has a full science instrument complement+ 2 RTGs and some lights for docking.

It also can function as a dynamic diving submersible

I also made an earlier, smaller seaplane, but it barely made orbit, and that mk1 cockpit didn't handle reentry very well (it could do it, but it got really close to OHing)

Edited December 13, 2015 by KerikBalm
spelling

[Gojira1000]

Ok, this one I'm doing. Been wanting to make a seaplane (or sub) that can orbit.

[Mikki]

@ KerikBalm, Gojira1000

Hello there, glad you found this thing! Watering planes is a rather tricky task, i am curious with what the people will come up here! Getting the plane fully fueled up again is also funny...!

Greetings !!!

@Gojira1000, your fun challenge is still awesome! Must grab your badge again when i have more time!

[Mister Dilsby]

Here it is! I realized after the fact that I might not have gotten my orbit high enough (my fault for not reading the whole challenge) but anyway I did manage to get this version of the craft off the runway, into the water, out of the water again, into orbit, and safely back to the sea  This ship has full RCS capability and a docking port aft. 

DISCLAIMER: the preceding is not Kerbfleet canon. Any resemblance to Lt Comder Bill Kerman,  Lt Kernel Jebediah Kerman or the Laythe X5.1 prototype are purely coincidental.

[Mikki]

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

Here it is! I realized after the fact that I might not have gotten my orbit high enough (my fault for not reading the whole challenge) but anyway I did manage to get this version of the craft off the runway, into the water, out of the water again, into orbit, and safely back to the sea  ...

Oh well!

Because your vessel pulled up a remarkable payload, i will oversee (with my remaining left eye ) the fact that you have missed a bit the afforded orbit height of 75 x 75 km. And due to the confidential mission to which your not closer known crew is going soon, your vessel specs are offduty to public release.

You made a "provisional" viable entry in the Mk2 category with wet watered,  congrats Kuzzter! 

(My own eentry is somehow a doublesize thingy of yours, btw... )

Edited December 3, 2015 by Mikki
added "wet watered"

[Val]

I made one that can go to Laythe, and maybe back to Kerbin again, without refuelling.

6 crew. 3000+ m/s dV in LKO with 2 t cargo.

Craft file

I might have missed a few required pictures. But it's late and I have to go to bed. Sorry, if that's the case.

It took 14 hours to design and test it, but it's also my first seaplane, so I had to learn a lot, before things started going the right way.

[kiwi1960]

I am still learning good space plane building so I suck.... so here is my idea and lets see what you guys can do with this idea....

 

I said in another thread about a sub launched plane and provided a photo of a 1920's British submarine launching a seaplane.....

 

but really... this is what I was getting at, from the popular 1970's TV show called "UFO" ...

[Mikki]

2 hours ago, Val said:

I made one that can go to Laythe, and maybe back to Kerbin again, without refuelling.

6 crew. 3000+ m/s dV in LKO with 2 t cargo.

I might have missed a few required pictures. But it's late and I have to go to bed. Sorry, if that's the case.

It took 14 hours to design and test it, but it's also my first seaplane, so I had to learn a lot, before things started going the right way.

Hello Val!

I have downloaded your craft to make sure that you`re not joking me with a testplane which doesn`t fly at all, and i made a testflight by my own... more than one btw.

First i have some minor issues with the craft design, clipping isn`t mentioned in the challenge parameters but you have all in all the volume of quite exactly one Mk1 liquid fuel fuselage (400) clipped in the rearend of your plane (Shared across four tanks)...

The plane flight behaviour is very flippy, i am sure you agree when i consider this airframe as unstable, and putting another medium reaction wheel into the cargobay isn`t a gentlemans like engineering philosophy... since there is allready hanging around one.

However, CoM is exactly above CoL, thrustvector during ascend is weight out well by the whesleys, but the tendencies to flip upwards while running the nerva and the rapiers together is very concerning. I flew it several times, i think with proper instruction i could fly this plane. I am not so common wit the whesley by now... Actiongroupmanaging looks very complicated and needs proper advise for use. 

But the good things are it can splashdown fully fueled right after launch from runway, and start again without any problems, so this is truely a very cool Hydrofoil-pontoon-design, Bill took a walk and inspected the airframe by foot while i tested it.

The total DV readout and all the others specs make clear that the proteus can visit other bodys SOI without problems, maybe not Laythe but many closer ones.

Because your entry does not match the recommended report in a single clear string and lacks the Flight UI at most, i am afraid your entry is not viable by the moment, but i am sure you can still do much better, since this hydrofoil concept seems to work out verry good in my opinion! 

You are allowed to reenter any time again, you are welcome! 

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Mikki

[okder]

until they fix underwater lift properly, all that has no sense, try to make something like this:

p.s. plane takeoff speed is 70m/s but only airlift applied, so with water drag preventing for takeoff(just need to get 15 degree (with a lot of control surfaces, some underwater), or mostly out of water to get more speed),

it's doable but lot of usefull load lost to get buoyancy instead of just getting underwater lift.

Edited December 4, 2015 by okder

[Mikki]

39 minutes ago, okder said:

until they fix underwater lift properly... ...it's doable but lot of usefull load lost to get buoyancy instead of just getting underwater lift.

Hello okder

Your entry lacks any serious attempt to make orbit with a plane from sealevel. I have a slight idea you might bother me just for your personal enjoyment.

You are welcome to make another entry, greetings mikki .

[Val]

14 hours ago, Mikki said:

First i have some minor issues with the craft design, clipping isn`t mentioned in the challenge parameters but you have all in all the volume of quite exactly one Mk1 liquid fuel fuselage (400) clipped in the rearend of your plane (Shared across four tanks)...

True. It just looked better that way.

14 hours ago, Mikki said:

The plane flight behaviour is very flippy, i am sure you agree when i consider this airframe as unstable, and putting another medium reaction wheel into the cargobay isn`t a gentlemans like engineering philosophy... since there is allready hanging around one.

Yeah, I guess it might be a little flippy, when fully fueled and no cargo.

14 hours ago, Mikki said:

However, CoM is exactly above CoL, thrustvector during ascend is weight out well by the whesleys, but the tendencies to flip upwards while running the nerva and the rapiers together is very concerning. I flew it several times, i think with proper instruction i could fly this plane. I am not so common wit the whesley by now... Actiongroupmanaging looks very complicated and needs proper advise for use. 

There are no Whesleys on the craft. Do you mean the Panther Jet engines?

14 hours ago, Mikki said:

But the good things are it can splashdown fully fueled right after launch from runway, and start again without any problems, so this is truely a very cool Hydrofoil-pontoon-design, Bill took a walk and inspected the airframe by foot while i tested it.

Thank you for the praise. I spent a lot of time testing splashdowns and water take-offs.

14 hours ago, Mikki said:

The total DV readout and all the others specs make clear that the proteus can visit other bodys SOI without problems, maybe not Laythe but many closer ones.

It most certainly can go to Laythe, but probably not back to Kerbin again, unless those 2 t of cargo is used for fuel.

14 hours ago, Mikki said:

Because your entry does not match the recommended report in a single clear string and lacks the Flight UI at most, i am afraid your entry is not viable by the moment, but i am sure you can still do much better, since this hydrofoil concept seems to work out verry good in my opinion! 

You are allowed to reenter any time again, you are welcome! 

Yeah, I knew my entry had some issues. It was late and I was tired and I just wanted it out there. I'll make a new entry with your recommended changes.

 

Edited December 5, 2015 by Val
Formatting

[Nefrums]

Wings are good for gliding on the water!

Here is my ship Wing glider.  The entire bottom of the ship is covered by the wings, this gives less drag when in the water, and allows for greater speeds.

It was easy to land and take of from the water.  It got up to 90 m/s in the water using only jet engines.  

Powered by two Whiplashes ans one Aerospike.

 

   

[Mikki]

Woaah Nefrums! errrm AHOY!

This is a surprisingly new concept, i never thought the big S-wings apply so much buoancy! I checked your Imgur album and you have made an proper documentation (I have a very good eye remaining ), it looks straight and viable. You have done a serious entry, congrats!!!

(I am still working on the badges, graphics are not so my favourite hobby...)

  

Edited December 5, 2015 by Mikki
Ahoy!:D

[Mikki]

8 hours ago, Val said:

...There are no Whesleys on the craft. Do you mean the Panther Jet engines?...

 

Oh Val sure... blame my age... 

[Val]

I've updated my craft to be more stable with no cargo, modified the ascent profile slightly, made it less clippy in the tail part, and fixed the action group and dV readout issues.

I haven't had time to redo my entry, though, nor tried to fly it to Laythe. Maybe tomorrow.

[Mikki]

1 hour ago, Val said:

I've updated my craft to be more stable with no cargo, modified the ascent profile slightly, made it less clippy in the tail part, and fixed the action group and dV readout issues.

I haven't had time to redo my entry, though, nor tried to fly it to Laythe. Maybe tomorrow.

I can test your refurbished craft tomorrow morning Done, i think you are free for now to make another album again, it`s not that i am in doubt of you, please don`t think! I have allready read the description in your DL, thank you for your entry anyway! You can remove the first DL in your first entry if you like so, greetings arrrr... Ahoy!

I have tested the watering specs fully fueled, and lifted off again, Bill made a inspection by foot, and he sais this craft is good to go  ! Jeb failed reaching orbit by close, but he is not aspecialist in the shallow coasting technique, we will blame him for now  !

Val has made a viable entry with a rather complex airframe with ultimate watered stranded booty! Congrats to you!

Edited December 5, 2015 by Mikki

[sphere]

Hi,

tl;dr

MK3, 58 parts, 4 Kerbal, cargobay, dockingport, RCS, no clipping, no lost parts, runway, splashdown, swim-inspection, takeoff, 140k orbit (500m/s spare), deorbit, runway-land, takeoff, coast-water-splashdown, moved-to-coast-using-jets

 

Full Story

I created multiple crafts for this challenge but found it hardest using MK3 parts (And I wanted to be the first on this challenge using MK3 ;)) so here is my participation, its called HAMMERTIME, just because... I dont know - it kind of hammers to orbit

My design goal was to make it easy and enjoyable to fly. It took my about 5 hours to design and tune - it could easily be tuned for better lift performance or efficiency but then it would not make so much fun to fly.

The only mod in use was Flight Engineer.

Some Facts:

• Mass: ~87t (~52t fuel) = 35185 kg dry
• Crew: 4
• Engines: 4 Whiplash, 1 Vector
• 4 Airplane Wings (MOAR LIFT!!!)

Flight log/profile for this challenge:

• Throttle full, SAS on, Turbos on (using 1-key)
• Take of between 70 (yes, really) and 100 m/s
• Level out at 100m height to reach water
• Turn off engines, enable brakes
• Touch down on water (undeploy brakes before splashdown!) under 70m/s (it even is possible to land leveled out with under 50m/s)
• Do the Vessel inspection (I could not resist doing a group photo of all 4 Kerbals  )
• Takeoff, engines full throttle, at 70m/s pull up to leave water (easy with so much control surfaces and lift)
• Ascent is also easy, this was the part I tuned the most: Just ascent between 10° and 15° and you will reach a height of 20km at about 1000m/s (This craft is more a plane than a spaceship so going faster earlier would burn it)
• At a height of 20k enable vector engine (using 2-key) - just let the jets flame out (or disable using 1-key), increase ascent to about 20° until your apoapsis goes to the desired height (I did 85k)
• Circularize the orbit. At this point I f**ed up (happy little accident) and did a 144k/140k orbit
• At this point I had about 500m/s delta-v still in the tanks - plus LF for the jets. If you are at 75/75 you have 650m/s, so no mun or minmus without refueling. But you can also put 15t of cargo to 85/85k. 
• The descent is the only tricky part, but it can be archived (with Air-Brakes deployed) following one rule: Keep the vertical speed below 50m/s (at heights between 38.000 and 25.000k meters) using an AOA between 10° and 40° - archiving this can be easier if you pump some fuel to the front. You won't exceed 75% heat (of the 1200K airplane wings, they are the week-point).
• If you want to reach KSC from 140k height you need to burn retrograde to an PA at 0m exactly at the opposite to the KSC (From 75/75km burn 50m/s retrograde at the crater).
• The challenge says you need to land on KSC runway OR water-land at any coast. I decided to do both - first land (unpowered!) at KSC runway and lift of again to water-land at the coast next to the KSC.

I am quite happy with this universal-easy-to-fly-spaceplane (just KEEP THE VERTICAL SPEED BELOW 50m/s AT DESCENT ), in atmosphere it flies like a big fighter) - I will use it as my new default cargo SSTO.

Album URL: http://imgur.com/a/1eIdg

Craft File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6w6PHP0FfB2bTIxNFBDd2x1U0E/view?usp=sharing

Have fun,

sphere

Edited December 6, 2015 by sphere
fixed typos

[Mikki]

Aha! A Seaman! 

Hello sphere 

I have just visited your Imgur album and took a sharp look at your entry, especially the heat-tolerance of your Fat 455 Wings... Looks like you made a viable entry with the first Mk3 fuselageparts, i am well surprised, since i wasn`t able to do so by myself until now... Your Seaplane encouraged me to try again myselff !

As far as my remaining left eye can see you have finished the Seaplane to Orbit Party-Challenge Mk3 with wet serious watered stranded (maybe "ultimate", but this must be approved because it is not quite clear here).

Congrats and Ahoy!

You can do anytime another entry if you like, i am curious what people make!

Edited December 6, 2015 by Mikki

[sphere]

4 hours ago, Mikki said:

...

i am well surprised, since i wasn`t able to do so by myself until now... Your Seaplane encouraged me to try again myselff !

As far as my remaining left eye can see you have finished the Seaplane to Orbit Party-Challenge Mk3 with wet serious watered stranded (maybe "ultimate", but this must be approved because it is not quite clear here).

Hi,

Yes, using the airplane wings was the biggest challenge, my learning/rule-of-thumb is: If you do NOT use rapiers you automatically will NOT burn the wings on the ascent. For the descent you need a lot airbrakes (I needed six!) and pitch control-surface to limit the vertical speed to 50m/s or less, then its pretty safe (I did not exceed 75% max heat) - you need a half Kerbin orbit (or 10-15 minutes real time) tough...

Yes " wet serious watered stranded" was my target - I forgot to do the inspection by foot tough 

Regarding "ultimate" - correct, I did not try and the craft is not designed for reaching other bodies SOIs - but I am sure it can be filled with more fuel(tanks) and therefore dv. Problematic will be the airbreaking after mun or minmus visit (or even laythe...) - this design can do a few things very good - airbreaking is NOT any of them  

Btw, did you already do a flight with the Hammertime?

regards,

sphere

[Mikki]

Hey Mikki errm.. ah its me, okay...

I made a Mk3 entry in your... my glorious Challenge!

Okay let`s see:   http://imgur.com/a/muxO2

Craftfile:   https://www.dropbox.com/s/hk5rn2ct9l61zq1/Kk3 SSRATO.craft?dl=0

Edited December 8, 2015 by Mikki

[Val]

@Mikki It looks fantastic 

[Mikki]

On 8.12.2015, 21:18:46, Val said:

@Mikki It looks fantastic 

Yes thank you verry very much! I actually tried to copy the concept from the challenge badge, which is a older soviet Beriev Seaplane...
If there where other engine proportions (in this game) and more freedom of fuel distribution it would be more easyer but i am working on it!
I tend to make it waaaaay to big, allways! 

Ahoy Seaman!
 

Edited December 18, 2015 by Mikki
Type of Plane, correct name of Engineer