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Lunar Landing Research vehicle

Majorjim!

By Majorjim!
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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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Hi all,

 I have another rebuild of an old replica of mine, NASAs Lunar landing research vehicle. Built during the planning and training for the apollo moon landings. It is the vehicle that very nearly killed Neil Armstrong.

Here is a lovely short video showing the thought behind the LLRV and then later the more advanced LLTV.

 

 

So now you know more about this glorious machine, on to my recreation of it.

Here is a picture of what the original looked like:

 

C3E7343A79FC057571BEAF80133D6CAE072487A3

 

A fairly decent attempt given the limited tools of the time.

 I wanted to really make as close a replica as I could with this rebuild. I had been thinking about how to recreate the tubular frame of the LLRV using struts and it was impossible until we had access to the no offset limit mod. It does not do the work for you it simply allows your imagination to be the only limit. Or rather, close to it. There are still some things that cannot be done. Offsetting both ends of struts for example. This seemed to again prevent recreating the tubular frame with struts.

   Thinking about it further I had an idea about how to move each end of the strut. it must of course be attached to something that can be moved. I didn't want to use cubic struts as they are too large against the thinness of the struts. So, to the rescue comes my new favorite part, the thermometer! It is so versatile and can be hidden by the strut ends, that you can attach to the thermometers. As you can see in the pictures below it allows for some amazing strut designs. The craft itself is a very close match to the real vehicle.

 

 

 

 

 

So on to the performance. In the real NASA craft the central engine was mounted on highly mobile gimble. This given the size constraints is not really possible as the Juno engines have no gimble. And the new larger jet models are far too large.This has its own issues as the Junos are suuper weak. So I have had to use five of them to lift the more than nine tonne craft. The lack of gimble and the relative weakness of the RCS ports made the handling very sluggish. I have for the sake of fun added one Small Inline Reaction Wheel adding 5.0 kN m of reaction force which is not much but enough with the RCS to allow it to be more fun to operate. The original LLRV was designed to train pilots/astronauts to go up and down so the poor flight performance is 'authentic'. :)

I also included a '00' ejection seat, as per the real aircraft. simply press abort or stage to be blasted free of the aircraft and fall 'safely' under a chute. You can see this being used in the short video below.

To fly the aircraft EVA the pod and get into the flight seat. Strap in! Throttle to max and activate RCS and SAS. The aircraft will not take off until the jets are fully spooled up so be patient and try those RCS controls to accent the slow reacting jets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that about covers it. It is tricky to fly, and not as responsive as the Thrust measuring rig but you can't beat looking down and seeing that shadow!I am also completely in love with the thermometer parts. I have something else to show that uses the thermometer parts. Its more of a development than a craft so far but it has never been seen in KSP, stock or mod.

Thank you for looking and I hope you enjoy flying the LLRV.

MJ

 

Download from KerbalX

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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Just now, selfish_meme said:

Very exact replica, I too am gaining a love for the thermometer, so far I have a tiny bearing for my tank gun, which I am also testing as a freewheeling prop!

Cheers dude!

 I too have thought about using my thermo ant hinge as a wind driven prop. I got distracted by this other thing though. Is that what you used in the tank?

Just now, katateochi said:

That's very cool and you attention to detail is epic! 

What is that little disk part at the very back. I can't figure out what part you used to make it (and also what's it for in RL)?

Thanks Katateochi. I am super happy with it! Definitely the best strutting I have ever done. And I like to strut. :D

 I have no idea what that part is used for on the real LLRV sorry.. To recreate the unknown thing I used a cubic strut and a bunch of thermometers in a circle then offset them up. The cubic is hidden in the bit at the end of the tail.

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selfish_meme

selfish_meme

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1 hour ago, Majorjim said:

Cheers dude!

 I too have thought about using my thermo ant hinge as a wind driven prop. I got distracted by this other thing though. Is that what you used in the tank?

No, I used a mk0 fuel tank in the tank because it needed to have SAS and probe core anyway. I was thinking about something thin surrounded by thermometers for the prop but it tends to fall through under high G, and also get sticky, which spoils the effect, when you are flying.

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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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6 hours ago, selfish_meme said:

No, I used a mk0 fuel tank in the tank because it needed to have SAS and probe core anyway. I was thinking about something thin surrounded by thermometers for the prop but it tends to fall through under high G, and also get sticky, which spoils the effect, when you are flying.

Yeah they can be sticky at first but it's possible to design it out. I will put together an example craft this evening.

 

6 hours ago, Cupcake... said:

Nicely done man! I love the strut work. :cool:

 

Cupcake...

Cheers matey! From the VTOL master that means a lot. :)

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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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4 hours ago, Dafni said:

Wow, excellent work as always. I wish I could sit down with you and watch you build something. You seem to have some serious strut magic mastered.

You're very kind for saying so! I work quite slowly so it would probably be really boring!

 

5 hours ago, Pseudon said:

Do you know that in real life, this thing was deadly? Neil Armstrong had to actually eject out of one! Please try not to kill your kerbonauts.

Yup! I included an ejection seat for just such an eventuality!

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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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Just now, Sequinox said:

About a month ago I searched to see if any of these existed. None did, so I made my own.

Now I'm so glad that the stock craft king made it. Thank you! About to download.

:D This is why I share these. I really hope you enjoy it, and if you have any issues let me know. It's not as responsive as the Thrust rig I made recently but it's very control-able. You just need to think ahead and take it slow.

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Hysterrics

Hysterrics

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29 minutes ago, Majorjim said:

:D This is why I share these. I really hope you enjoy it, and if you have any issues let me know. It's not as responsive as the Thrust rig I made recently but it's very control-able. You just need to think ahead and take it slow.

If it's not reliable and flies like a brick then you did a good job recreating it! :P

I'm going to go fly it now.

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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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17 hours ago, Sequinox said:

If it's not reliable and flies like a brick then you did a good job recreating it! :P

I'm going to go fly it now.

Let me know how you get on!

 

16 hours ago, Sequinox said:

It's really good! I like the use of struts. Ejection seat is good too!

Cheers mate. It is very necessary too! the landing may be harsh, as all ejections are. You will survive every one though.

 

5 hours ago, CrashTestDanny said:

I was going to ask how many parts, but then I watched the video and see that the answer is 0...

 

Seriously, though, how many parts does it start with?  

 

Danny

Hey man. I am confused.. What do you mean?

 I think it has about 250 parts or there abouts. I had to leave out some details to save weight. I guess struts are made of steel not aluminum!

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CrashTestDanny

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4 hours ago, Majorjim said:

Hey man. I am confused.. What do you mean?

I can never tell - you joking or not?  Assuming you're not, I meant that after that last landing/ejection seat test, your part count was 0 or real close to it (because that beautiful ship was tragically destroyed).  I wish I could fly a 250 part ship on my core i7 32G ram system...  Even in my Linux builds can't get that to work...

 

Danny

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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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Just now, CrashTestDanny said:

I can never tell - you joking or not?  Assuming you're not, I meant that after that last landing/ejection seat test, your part count was 0 or real close to it (because that beautiful ship was tragically destroyed).  I wish I could fly a 250 part ship on my core i7 32G ram system...  Even in my Linux builds can't get that to work...

 

Danny

Me too man, it is the reason I really dislike communicating via text. I find it very hard to gauge others real meaning.. No I was not Joking!

 Ho hum, thank you for the kind words mate. I have an i7, 16G ram. What is your clockspeed because this runs smooth for me, with a little green flashing. I truly hope the next update gives us a good boost.

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CrashTestDanny

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54 minutes ago, Majorjim said:

Me too man, it is the reason I really dislike communicating via text. I find it very hard to gauge others real meaning.. No I was not Joking!

 Ho hum, thank you for the kind words mate. I have an i7, 16G ram. What is your clockspeed because this runs smooth for me, with a little green flashing. I truly hope the next update gives us a good boost.

base is 3.4GHz, I have OC'ed to 4.1 with no boost in performance.  As I mentioned, even my Linux builds seem to have trouble even though most of the people who run Linux seem to claim it performs serious miracles for them.

 

What OS/ GPU do you run?  My GPU is probably the weakest component of my system.  It's a GTX 780...  My OS is Win 7 64 bit.

I also wonder if the Steam build is somehow responsible for some of the performance issues...

 

Danny

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Majorjim!

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Just now, CrashTestDanny said:

base is 3.4GHz, I have OC'ed to 4.1 with no boost in performance.  As I mentioned, even my Linux builds seem to have trouble even though most of the people who run Linux seem to claim it performs serious miracles for them.

 

What OS/ GPU do you run?  My GPU is probably the weakest component of my system.  It's a GTX 780...  My OS is Win 7 64 bit.

I also wonder if the Steam build is somehow responsible for some of the performance issues...

 

Danny

I run Windows 7 64bit too. My GPU is a 970 GTX. That makes a difference if you run visual mods. It makes no difference to part performance.

 My CPU has, I believe, the best single core performance of any currently available CPU. If my machine won't run a ship, nothing will outside of a water cooled mega overclocked CPU.

 I also use the steam build. If you have anymore questions about that PM me.

 

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Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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1 hour ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

Just looked at it properly.  :0.0::0.0::0.0::0.0:!!!!!!  Great idea with the thermometers!  I will be stealing that.  With proper credit, of course. :)

:) Steal away good sir. It really does allow for some nice frames to be made. And thanks! I spent a good while on it.

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