Maxime Faget's DC-3. Not your usual STS replica...

[Rune]

As I commented on the WiP thread, I find the alternate shuttle concepts that didn't actually come true much more attractive than the real thing that we got stuck with. I guess I can't shake the feeling that the STS as Nixon's cuts condemned us to was a pivotal point... before it, NASA was used to thinking big, bold, and with a generous sparkling of crazy. In other words, The Kerbal Way. Just how Kerbal? Well, this was MSC's 1969 concept for the "logistics vehicle" that would service their space stations and would help build the Mars vehicles, as designed by North American and recreated by yours truly...

Yup, the legendary designer of the Mercury Capsule basically put a ridiculously big freaking rocketplane on top of another, even more ridiculously big rocketplane. And with straight wings! Not the least hair-rising stage separation I've ever done...

Still, credit where credit is due, after some hard thinking, my replica works beautifully, so there must be some merit to the idea. And who doesn't want to at least try out a crazy reusable rocket concept from the sixties? A few things I didn't really capture, like the number of engines (the RL thing was supposed to have 10xSSMEs on the Booster and two on the Orbiter), but hey, you will allow me some scaling to fit with the cute size of kerbin. And the Booster struggles a bit with level flight, too, you basically have to keep the "s" key constantly pressed, but then again, I really think it should, at least a bit. The monstrosity...

The Orbiter, OTOH, flies beautifully, having just enough aerodynamic control to keep a 30º AoA "ballistic" reentry that will offer a very gentle thermal environment on reentry, even with a full payload bay. And I did check, when completely empty it can even fly up on the Junos at low altitude!

So it is not completely crazy to consider using this on a career save, actually. Putting 20mT on a 100km orbit would cost you about 12,000√ in fuel, if you somehow manage to recover the cost of the 102,000√ Booster. To make it work in KSP with booster recovery you have to cheat a bit, though. In order to test out landing both things, the procedure I came up with was as follows: drop a quicksave immediately after staging, then switch to the booster to perform the RTLS maneuver (i.E: fall down uncontrollably until the wings bite air, then turn on the jet engines and head home mashing the "S" key). Then you can note how much money you make from recovering it (no cheating if you botch the landing! :P), load the earlier quicksave, and later when the crew is safe on orbit... you can edit the savefile to add such quantity of funds to your account. Or you could install flight manager for reusable stages or something... In any case, in stock KSP it is impossible to control two vessels at once, so make sure to fly with the booster unkerbaled, as the original was meant to (seriously, the seats were there for "ferry flights", in normal operations they would be unmanned ).

And that was the kind of crazy things NASA thought about in the sixties. Those were the days to dream indeed... But these are the days when we get to play with digital recreations of those retro-futures, so there, I hope you enjoy mine!

DOWNLOAD

http://www./download/21104sb45pbj5ya/DC-3+STS.craft

IMGUR ALBUM

 

Rune. By the power of awesome engine gimbal, you will fly straight.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Rune

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Very cool! Putting a spaceplane on top of another spaceplane is very Kerbal lol.

We need more builds like this, way more interesting than yet another Shuttle replica.

Keep up the awesome work, any chance of linking some more info about the original real world design? Maybe some images for comparison? My curiosity is piqued!

[SpaceplaneAddict]

This is SpaceplaneTopia right here.

[Rune]

51 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Very cool! Putting a spaceplane on top of another spaceplane is very Kerbal lol.

We need more builds like this, way more interesting than yet another Shuttle replica.

Keep up the awesome work, any chance of linking some more info about the original real world design? Maybe some images for comparison? My curiosity is piqued!

Sure! You even get a honest to Kod wiki link so you can go down the rabbit hole of checking the references...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_DC-3

And some pics that I dug up from the interwebs, so you can judge how well I captured the spirit of the thing:

And even an actual Imgur album that came up on the google search! The first images are awesome, and about the subject even.

 

32 minutes ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

This is SpaceplaneTopia right here.

One might even say... rocketplaneception.

 

Rune. Had to make the joke, sorry.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Thanks, was a super interesting read! I just love the pics too, the shiny silver finish reminds of a ww2 mustang, would have been great if there was some way to get that effect in the game!

Any plans to do another build? You should do more ship concepts from the past, could make it a whole series!

By the way, it's stock right? When I get back on my comp I'd really like to DL it and fly it.

[panzer1b]

Cool but why did you name it the DC-3?

When i think of the DC-3 i think of the following:

[Rune]

1 hour ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Thanks, was a super interesting read! I just love the pics too, the shiny silver finish reminds of a ww2 mustang, would have been great if there was some way to get that effect in the game!

Any plans to do another build? You should do more ship concepts from the past, could make it a whole series!

By the way, it's stock right? When I get back on my comp I'd really like to DL it and fly it.

Well, Temstar short of inspired me to take a look at SERV, another insane Phase A shuttle proposal...

 

1 hour ago, panzer1b said:

Cool but why did you name it the DC-3?

When i think of the DC-3 i think of the following:

I guess you could take it up with North American, or the Manned Spaceflight Center. Then again, both entities no longer exist, but they are the ones that decided to re-use the name, probably in the hopes of selling the concept as a cheap workhorse-type transport.

 

Rune. We didn't read the whole thread, did we?

Edited December 14, 2015 by Rune

[CrashTestDanny]

On 12/14/2015 at 1:07 PM, Rune said:

Well, Temstar short of inspired me to take a look at SERV, another insane Phase A shuttle proposal...

That looks  a little bit like Kuzzter's M7 Eve Rescue vehicle...  When's that craft file coming out?  I have a Kerbal on Eve who might want to come home sometime... 

[Rune]

21 hours ago, CrashTestDanny said:

That looks  a little bit like Kuzzter's M7 Eve Rescue vehicle...  When's that craft file coming out?  I have a Kerbal on Eve who might want to come home sometime... 

Well... it's not looking good. I have yet to give it a second look, but the general feeling of the build was that I wasn't doing anything that really clicked together like the rest of my designs do lately. It might get better if I fiddle with one of MJ's magic hinges, but so far the only really original thing (the payload bay) works very bad. Not saying "no way", but it's not looking likely to happen soon.

 

Rune. Room on R-SUV is hard to get, these days.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Rune

[Castille7]

THe cockpit merged into the fuselage looks too awesome! 

[mythic_fci]

Great craft! I'm planning to use this in my career save and modify this to meet the 'Phase II' Shuttle specifications - basically, I'll add delta wings to improve lift. I'll report back with results.

[Rune]

14 hours ago, castille7 said:

THe cockpit merged into the fuselage looks too awesome! 

Thanks! I often feel limited by the selection of cockpits in stock, so I often "build" my own by playing with the gizmos.

3 hours ago, FCISuperGuy said:

Great craft! I'm planning to use this in my career save and modify this to meet the 'Phase II' Shuttle specifications - basically, I'll add delta wings to improve lift. I'll report back with results.

Cool! That is the best thing I could hear, that someone is actually going to use this in career. With FMRS to do the booster recovery, I imagine? And yeah, those "Phase II" modifications will probably improve the looks quite a bit, everybody know deltas are way cooler. While you are messing around with the aerodynamics, BTW, you might want to give the booster's tailplanes a bit of a negative AoA: The cockpit is angled down, meaning it lifts down, and over the long body, the torque makes flying it back awkward at the very least (basically you have to keep "S" pressed 95% of the time). I know maybe I should have fixed it, but honestly, everything else was working so fine that I didn't want to mess with it. Plus, symmetry was playing tricks on me.

 

Rune. Still, the straight wings and awkward perching position kind of grow on you...

[Unknown_Enemy]

Oh yeah ! I have to try that !

As usual I am going to mess with a perfectly fine STTO  STS until it suits my needs, incidentally becoming a deathtrap for any kerbal mad enough to pilot it.

Thanks Rune.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Unknown_Enemy

[CommanderSonic]

I had an Idea like this where I had one plane on top or the bottom and launch the smaller "return" plane with jeb it and have the other expendable plane keep flying or crash. Also burn together would work

[Ravenchant]

This is awesome.

 

Of all the shuttle concept art, this one stands out with a particular type of...utilitarian beauty IMO

 

[Rune]

54 minutes ago, Ravenchant said:

This is awesome.

 

Of all the shuttle concept art, this one stands out with a particular type of...utilitarian beauty IMO

Yup, it is retro-futuristic like nothing else. I did think about that cockpit style, but unfortunately everything we have is too pointy, and a manual composite would have ruined the simplicity of design. Still, for those kerbals that enjoy 500+ parts builds, that could be a challenge...

 

Rune. And in spite of the initially slow response, people do seem to like it. That makes me happy!

Edited December 27, 2015 by Rune