The Elcano Challenge: Ground-Based Circumnavigation (Continued)

[gilflo]

Hello

Here is my report for Kerbin Elcano Maritime Challenge. I performed it with a ship designed for Eve Elcano, that i will perform next. I just change a few things from the original ship.

 

[Martian Emigrant]

Good morning Elcaneers.

Last time I reported on my team they just made landfall on the peninsula East of the KFC KSC.

So many detours, pictures and intricacy...Hard to choose what to say. So here is the brief version.
They spent the night on shore.

http://imgur.com/a/hiXKp

Spoiler

 

 

Drove through more hills. Nedbur sang and talked the whole time.....Or so it seemed anyway.

The guys in Mission control wrote a lot of memos about the open mike policies.

And they say the Transcrip-Guy went nuts and had to be hospitalized.

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More Tire fixing needed to be done.

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Finally the Sea. Again. The last crossing. A bit steep but we have 24 wheel brakes and thrust reversers.

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Nedbur:

We are shipshape.

Nedbur took command of the Mark2.

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Koko (The new best ship of the fleet) was sent to refuel them.

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Easy pickup.

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Thank you Koko fuel.

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They used it all and stopped when they hit the manoeuvring fuel.

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One Way (The new best ship of the fleet) was sent to help.
(NB Every ship gets damaged on their return so the last ship fixed by maintenance is therefore the best ship of the fleet)

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Another easy routine pick-up.

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Then it was Gazoo's turn. Do I have to mention that Gazoo was the best ship of the whole fleet?

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Closer than that and there is paperwork to be filled.

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Vallina:

I can see the VAB!

 

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They went to a full stop at the 5km mark (From their First-Flag-On-The-Shore) to let the reception committee get their act together
And while they waited....

 

Edited September 9, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Martian Emigrant]

And while our Elcaning team waited.

Spoiler

 

 

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Vallina:

Where did that come from?

Those things are sure quiet and sneaky.

That reminds me that I have some time off coming and I need a vacation.

 

Spoiler

A Man Kerbal came down and came on board to chat with Nedbur.

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Vallina:

I recognize that Kerbal. That's Fromin Kerbal. The disgraced scientist that was fired let go left to pursue other interest recently after crashing again and again after taking a long walk one night and thinking about what really matters.

I wonder what these two are talking about.

Nedbur has some "Splainning" to do.

 

Edited September 9, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Kerbinchaser]

Here is my ship so far: 

 

 

[Gman_builder]

I've always wanted to do this and im losing interest in KSP so might as well start now. This will be a could way to spark some inspiration again.

[gilflo]

Hello

Is my submission, a few posts ahead, valid  for the circumnavigation challenge?

I am working on the same ship fitted with jet engine, that required refueling during tour..

[Chemp]

6 hours ago, gilflo said:

Hello

Is my submission, a few posts ahead, valid  for the circumnavigation challenge?

I am working on the same ship fitted with jet engine, that required refueling during tour..

Looks fine to me for a modded entry, @Claw will have the last word though. Would you call that a catamaran or a trimaran?
 

RL has me in it's firm grip, but I finally managed a small update on my circumnavigation of Laythe.

Spoiler

Speaking of grip, and entirely off topic: Thank you @FyunchClick for mentioning that beautiful book that led to your name. I've enjoyed it very much!

 

Edited September 11, 2016 by Chemp

[gilflo]

22 minutes ago, Chemp said:

Looks fine to me for a modded entry, @Claw will have the last word though. Would you call that a catamaran or a trimaran?
 

RL has me in it's firm grip, but I finally managed a small update on my circumnavigation of Laythe:

  Reveal hidden contents

Speaking of grip, and entirely off topic: Thank you @FyunchClick for mentioning that beautiful book that led to your name. I've enjoyed it very much!

 

I would call it a catamaran. The fact is that i design it so that the center hull would never touch the water. On the design, it was a trimaran and the center hull being in water, the top speed far less. 50m/s for trimaran, 77 for catamaran and i am wondering if i can do better by moving moving COL slightly aftward and may be giving a very small positive angle of attack to the 2 wings joining the center hull. I have to try. What i tried was to pitch up the rear elevons while at max speed in the hope that it would help to lift the whole ship and decrease water friction to increase speed. In fact, despite COL is behind COG, it acts like speedbrakes, no helping at all to lift the catamaran.

i tried to set 2 rear and 2 front movable winglets to get a kind of lifting at max speed, but it did not work. I did not try fixed winglets, but i guess the thing is to find out exactly where to set this surfaces and what angle of attack to give them to get lift.

[Chemp]

5 hours ago, gilflo said:

i tried to set 2 rear and 2 front movable winglets to get a kind of lifting at max speed, but it did not work.

If you're going for a hydrofoil, they are a somewhat finicky business indeed. COM and COL don't really matter, you'll find some interesting concepts in this thread or some images here, here and here. The trick is basically to attach some control surfaces to the bottom of the craft and tweak the angles (sometimes in a counter-intuitive way) until the boat lifts out of the water.
That said, you can't use physics warp on hydrofoils. Was this possible with your design?

Edited September 11, 2016 by Chemp

[gilflo]

32 minutes ago, Chemp said:

If you're going for a hydrofoil, they are a somewhat finicky business indeed. COM and COL don't really matter, you'll find some interesting concepts in this thread or some images here, here and here. The trick is basically to attach some control surfaces to the bottom of the craft and tweak the angles (sometimes in a counter-intuitive way) until the boat lifts out of the water.
That said, you can't use physics warp on hydrofoil. Was this possible with your design?

Thank's for the information.I'll take a look at these thread.

yes warp 4 times works fine with my design, whatever is the speed and even for turns. So at 77m/s it's quite interesting, and even more at 125. I got this speed with the same design but with other turbojet engines. Down side is that the weight is 150T for 105000DV and you need to refuel. 4times warp works also find and maybe i am going to try a tour via the south pass with such a boat. I think That with 105000DV  If i reach more than 100m/s , 4 refuelling should be enough and I plan to send a tanker aircraft to refuel as quick as possible.

Do you know what is the lowest time for the Kerbin circumnavigation? 

 

 

[Martian Emigrant]

Done.

It is done.

They are back.

Here is the recap of their last 5 km.

http://imgur.com/a/eciNC

The reception committee assembled on the runway (All incoming flight were put on hold).

The Mark2 was given the nod to proceed.

Nedbur rode the last few Kms on the running board.

They pulled on shore right by their first flag. They placed that one on a practice run to the Island Airport.

Nedbur Planted the first Vallina planted the last.

Year 8 Day 337 to Year 8 Day 365: 27 Days total.

They then hurried to the committee.

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Nedbur:

Hey look! It's the same port-O-Let committee as when we left. Except they are facing this way now.

There were the usual awards, Medals and speeches.

Followed by a free-For-All Kerbal reunion.

Everybody got Recovered.

Vallina and Nedbur will be debrieffed and get a chance to write exams to see if they can upgrade to another level.

Rumour is that "Someone" will hack the persistent file and make sure that they do.

As for the future.....

Vallina stays with the program. She wants to do science in space. Though right now she has some time off coming to her.

Nedbur is leaving the program. He used to be in the Kerbal Navy and wants to go back to sea.

He was made a very good offer by two Buddies he sailed with.

Here is Nedbur's new command sitting at 1187 mt:

And is new employers:

Fromin and Kergard Two scientist who left the space program recently but made a fortune on the stock market. You can see them on the Aft Deck waiting for Nedbur to show up.

They want to see their new baby leave dock soon. It will be the first Circumnavigation of Kerbin for Kerbal Cruise Line. 

Soon.

 

Very soon .

Edited September 13, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[damerell]

Crikey, what's the part count on that monster?

[Martian Emigrant]

Crikey?

Australian eh?

698

 

Not counting the Kerbals.

Just counted 235 cabin seats.

It Cruise at 30 m/s (Can run at Warp4) on the open sea. The range seems to be about 900 km. It runs on LF only.

 

I have run test and it travel on land well. Care must be taken when attempting hills steeper than 10° and to keep the speed to less than 10 m/s on slope changes. Loosing a few legs doesn't affect her much but sometime there will be a chain reaction causing the loss of the vessel and most hands on board.

 

I need to position 5 Refilling-Refineries-Stations around the globe then I can load her up and go.

 

 

Edited September 14, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Claw]

Hey Elcanites!

I've been absent a bit, so I wanted to drop a note the I have not abondoned this challenge. As you can imagine, it's been quite busy approaching the pre-release and upcoming release of 1.2.

I'm still very interested in Elcano, and have another plan that I may hopefully get to do (someday)...

I will go back and update the front page with new completions, though it will be another week or so. In the mean time, if there are any questions about rules or if certain designs meet the rules/intent, please ask away (or ask again). Hopefully nobody is waiting on me in order to start an attempt.

 

As always, good luck and safe travels.
-Claw

[gilflo]

20 hours ago, Claw said:

 Hopefully nobody is waiting on me in order to start an attempt.

 

Hi Claw

here is my attempt

i completed the Kerbin Circumnavigation

Gilflo

 

[gilflo]

Hello

I am doing again the Elcano maritime challenge over keratin with a new catamaran. This one will not have infinite range like my previous one. I will use the south way and south pass and the catamaran will be refueled by a tanker aircraft.

Just to see how strange are the game physic, here are 3 designs i tried and the one i was thinking the fastest in water is not the lighter one with the most fluently design....All can be warped 4 times when navigating

This one MK2 to MK3 design get 4 wheels on the rear and cylindric tank in front of each engines: max speed is 76m/s

The purpose was to set an ISRU, drillers and Ore tank in the MK3 hold.....to refuel

Same design with 6 wheels and mk2 style tank in front of engine and speed is nearly 100m/s  !!!  Why????

But 6 wheels make it bounce on the runway on launch and with 4 wheels it won't bounce...don't try to understand...

You could think this lighter MK2 design is faster than the previous one with its MK2 to MK3 design as TWR is 1.05!!

Here no ISRU as I will refuel with a tanker aircraft... big problem of balance with pitch axis on water as i get much less pitch problem with the biggest design....

with no pitch problem in water, l I can't go beyond 80m/s!!!

This is the winner: MK2 tank in front of Dudley turbojet engine,  6 rear wheels bouncing on the runway when laughed, MK3 hold with a jumbo rockomax tank inside... and speed is 100m/s on water, 110m/s when half tank...with possibility to warp 4 times....and it gets more than 120000DV....TWR 0.41

 

Water designing is really a mystery!!!

Edited September 23, 2016 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Working on the MK2 design and adding weight with MK2 tanks, I manage to get a lighter catamaran than the MK2-MK3 design with 125000DV and a 105m/s speed on water.

I will take this one for the challenge, 2 stops  for refueling should be enough to complete the tour. The more dangerous part is the land trip. The catamaran is now very well balanced on water.....

Building my waypoint now before launching

Here is the map

and I begin the mission

Edited September 23, 2016 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Maritime Elcano Challenge started with my new Catamaran via south pass

1st stop for waiting the refueling tanker at 1991 km from base

 

[rocketengineer1982]

@Claw

My Elcano attempt still lives!  

I have a couple questions.  I've scouted the route and there are several 60+ degree slopes that my rover (currently recovered and undergoing refit) will need to cross.  I checked http://www.kerbalmaps.com/ and it didn't show a slope above 40 degrees, so that's what I designed for.  By rule 5a, some modifications are allowed.  I've already checked about modifying the wheel traction and torque settings, and adding more batteries and solar panels (original vehicle was designed in 1.0.5 and the wheel physics changes messed up its traction and power consumption).  However, climbing 60-70 degree hills is going to require a LOT more thrust than the original had.  I'm going to need T/W > 0.94, which means adding more jet engines.

Would adding more engines to the design, in addition to the other changes, still have the refit vehicle count as "very similar to the original"?

I'm now running into flameout issues.  I replaced the slanted nose cones on the aft ends of the pontoons with Wheesley turbines, and I added 1 more radial air intake on the top of each pontoon.  Then I tried up to 7 radial intakes without luck.  Every time I do a static thrust test, at least one of the engines doesn't get enough intake air.

A single Goliath would provide enough thrust and doesn't have static thrust flameout issues, but is gigantic and much too heavy.  Does anyone have any idea how much intake area I'm going to need to keep 3 Wheesley engines from flaming out during static thrust or hill-climbing?

I've also been considering shifting the Wheesleys on the pontoons to nacelles mounted on top of the pontoons so I can use an adjustable ramp intake, which has more than twice the intake area of the radial intakes.

EDIT:  Tried 13 radial intakes and 2 adjustable ramp intakes.  Only managed to get to 80% throttle (270 kN thrust) before the Propulsive Requirements Met started dropping and I started losing thrust.  Apparently 19.49 intake air just isn't enough for 3 engines.

 

Original design:

 

Current refit (back to 3 intakes again):

 

Intake air monster (3 intakes not visible underneath the central fuselage):

Edited September 24, 2016 by rocketengineer1982

[rocketengineer1982]

I have a design that works.  Apparently the critical number for static thrust is 8 intake air per engine - 24 intake air total.  It looks a bit better than the intake air monster, but I had to remove almost all the small solar panels from the pontoons, and the landing gear mounted in the pontoon ends that would allow me to jack up the craft to repair blown tires.  I can reach 338.4 kN static thrust, which givens my refit circumnavigator a thrust to weight ratio of 1.09 - I've made a VTOL!

K2 here I come!

@Claw Does this still count as a "slight modification"?  I had to go a bit crazy with the air intakes...

 

Edited September 24, 2016 by rocketengineer1982

[Claw]

2 hours ago, rocketengineer1982 said:

By rule 5a, some modifications are allowed.  I've already checked about modifying the wheel traction and torque settings, and adding more batteries and solar panels (original vehicle was designed in 1.0.5 and the wheel physics changes messed up its traction and power consumption).

Yes, those modifications are just fine.

 

1 hour ago, rocketengineer1982 said:

Does this still count as a "slight modification"?  I had to go a bit crazy with the air intakes...

That's a lot of intakes. 

I would say that, for the most part, your base design is still intact. Something to keep in mind...if that is your new design going forward, you'll need to carry that the rest of the way. I.e. you can't go back and ditch the parts after you're through the mountains (if that makes sense).

 

-------

I am setting aside time today to go through entries and update the front page!

 

Cheers,
~Claw

[rocketengineer1982]

@Claw  Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.  No sepratrons will be harmed in the completion of this circumnavigation, and any detachments of the intakes will be completely unintentional and probably catastrophic.  I've got 7 more small mountain ranges like the last one I crossed, and 2 really nasty ranges like the one to the west of KSC.  Before the wheel mechanics were reworked, I could climb a 45 degree slope, but even with maxed friction control, 45 degrees is out of the question without a lot of jet assistance.

After struggling with wheel blocked and landing gear unable to extend for a bit, I managed to fit the jacks back on.  Should keep me from getting stuck the next time a bunch of tires next to each other blow.  Those obstruction boxes are weird.

[Claw]

@gilflo and @Martian Emigrant: Congratulations! You've both been added to the front page.

I'm very sorry for the long delay, but congrats on a job well done. I always enjoy seeing the missions, and there's a nice video in there too.

 

Please let me know if I missed someone's completed entry. I see several reports along the way, but those were the two that I saw completed.

Cheers!
~Claw

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Not strictly an Elcano-legal attempt, but I've started a Kerbin circumnavigation - with a twist. 

I figured this crowd would appreciate it. Thanks for inspiring me, you bunch of crazy travellers!

 

[Chemp]

I've finally managed to conclude my Circumnavigation of Laythe. It took a lot longer than expected (not so much for ingame reasons) but it's been well worth it. Here's a map with the approximate path I took, the link for the full mission report is in my signature.

Like I mentioned here, this is a stock craft entry. One additional visual mod made it on the list along the way: scatterer, for some beautiful sunset shots among other things

I'd like to thank all those who keep posting in this thread, many of your entries have provided me with inspiration for my own attempts. Special thanks go to @Claw for maintaining this challenge even during this hectic time.