What have you done around the island airfield.

[mdkendall]

There have been some challenges involving the island airstrip, including the Low Flyer challenge: can you fly there from the KSC and land on the airstrip while staying below 150m the whole way. There were some supplemental challenges for low mass, minimum parts count, lowest altitude on the way, etc. That was fun, but many of the craft in that thread no longer work due to ion engines being (correctly) nerfed in atmosphere now.

[luizopiloto]

Space Kamp

[Geschosskopf]

I've flown a plane through a hangar from the seaward side and made it over the hill on the landward side.  I have not succeeded in making this trip in the opposite direction, however

But I suppose the most interesting thing I've done with Airbase Island was "pedal" a boat there.  I have a pedal-powered kayak in real life (one of these) so I wanted to replicate it in KSP.  Although back then all parts floated, you needed to get most of the boat out of the water to be able to move, so this boat exploied the old radial intake glitch for that.  And it moved thanks to the famous ladder glitch.  Bill was on a horizontal ladder with solid objects at the ends.  When he butted his head into the object at the front end of the ladder (shaped like a dragon figurehead), he pushed the whole assembly forward.  Meanwhile, Jeb steered and braked but I had to use [ and ] to switch between these functions.

There was no trouble getting to the beach as the boat could do about 60m/s on land.

It was a 30km trip to Airbase Island and the boat only did about 20m/s in the water.  All the trip had to be done at 1x warp because using physical warp reduced the speed in proportion so actually made the trip take longer.  And the whole time, I had to keep a finger on the W key to keep Bill "pedaling".  Periodically, I'd switch to Jeb, who would use the probe core's torque to make a course correction and also check the speed because back then you didn't get a navball while on EVA.

After seemingly forever, however, the boat reached Airbase Island and Bill pedaled furiously to get up the steep slope up to the runway.

Unfortunately, the clunky control system, which required using [ and ] to switch between power (Bill) and steering/braking (Jeb) proved unsuited to climbing irregular and steep terrain and the boat ended up flipping just short of the end of the runway.  And the Kerbals were unable to right it, so that was the end of the trip, just short of the final goal.

Given the tedium of making this attempt, I decided not to repeat it.

[Geschosskopf]

And my old boat project above inspired to me to try flying there with a ladder-powered plane.  So I did, and it's now a challenge if you'd like to try yourself.

 

[The Optimist]

I decided to fill up one of the hangars with little RCS powered drone things, that I shipped in on a MK3 cargo jets.  After 10 or so runs, my game decided to delete itself into oblivion. At that point, there were 2000 parts or so inside the hangar, which may have been a problem.

[suicidejunkie]

The island runway was the first node of the ground-based Kerizon Wireless network I've been deploying.

Although it won't be able to provide coverage in the middle of the oceans, it will provide internet service to all the land-based Kerbals, and support the construction of a deep space network with zero drift when bigger antennas are available.

Bill has wrecked so many low tech planes landing on mountains to deploy the cell towers, but he's gotten the job done each time, and collected some science on the way.

 

[Landge]

Back in 0.90 I field tested my island hopping rover that was going to be used extensively on Laythe as part of my Jool expedition fleet for 1.0 release.

Unfortunately, due to engine nerf, atmospheric, reentry heat, and drag changes with 1.0, I have not been able to overcome flight instability or reenter the atmosphere safely in one piece.

For now it's grounded indefinitely, though I may take it out of mothballs for the Unity 5 release. I'm not getting my hopes up.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Landge
Finally! Embed youtube videos needs to be less of a hassle :/

[I_Killed_Jeb]

On 12/28/2015 at 2:17 PM, Just Jim said:

hehehe..... OK, you asked...
I did a chapter for my fan-fiction project a few days ago that involved the island airstrip. 
Here's a highlight, for your amusement:

 

Off topic but very interesting little buoy/thingy you got there! Very cool looking, very sci-fi and excellent use of the lights!

[klesh]

Back a few updates ago, I had these deployable science stations that I would bring to various places along my adventures.  The island airfield was one of the places on Kerbin that got the treatment, as well as both the poles, K2 summit and the tallest mountain on Kerbin summit. 

http://imgur.com/Nvh9jLl

How do I post a picture on this lousy new software?

 

Edited January 2, 2016 by klesh

[Just Jim]

2 hours ago, I_Killed_Jeb said:

Off topic but very interesting little buoy/thingy you got there! Very cool looking, very sci-fi and excellent use of the lights!

thanks. It's part of my fan-fiction project, and loosely based on the old Jonny Quest cartoon, the Robot Spy

[Tex_NL]

Flying to the island. Sailing to the island. All fine and dandy but I DROVE to the island.

It took close to an hour but it withheld the crushing pressure at over 1000m deep.

Still quite a long way to go.

They final climb.

Lost a few ballast tanks back on dry land. (Forgot I was still in 2x physics warp.)

[FyunchClick]

Mostly as backup landing site if a spaceplane overshoots KSC and I can't be bothered to turn around.

Edited January 12, 2016 by FyunchClick
typo

[Snarfster]

On 1/2/2016 at 5:37 PM, suicidejunkie said:

The island runway was the first node of the ground-based Kerizon Wireless network I've been deploying.

Although it won't be able to provide coverage in the middle of the oceans, it will provide internet service to all the land-based Kerbals, and support the construction of a deep space network with zero drift when bigger antennas are available.

Bill has wrecked so many low tech planes landing on mountains to deploy the cell towers, but he's gotten the job done each time, and collected some science on the way.

 

Got any pictures of the towers? I am very curious to see that  

[katateochi]

I've attacked it with a gunship but apparently the buildings there are made of stronger stuff than the ones at KSC , so it's not so rewarding. I did a Noah attack (sent two of every kind of missile from BDA) at each building and not a scratch on them

Edited January 12, 2016 by katateochi

[RizzoTheRat]

10 hours ago, Snarfster said:

Got any pictures of the towers? I am very curious to see that  

Same here, I'm using 4 Komsats in LKO to get coverage, but deploying a ground based network sounds like a great challenge.

[Red Dwarf]

[suicidejunkie]

The nodes are just little things that an engineer can fit in his backpack and assemble with only a wrench:

1x Octo (stayputnik would roll down hills)

2x Solar panels to run the antennas

Batteries to keep it running long enough for the delivery plane to take off and unload physics it if working at night

Antennae to taste.  The DP10s are all you need, with an occasional communotron whip for mid level orbit.

Then pick a couple sites on the grid for long range dishes.

 

This goes on top of the highest mountains in the area that can reach.  A 5km mountain peak gives about 200km range to the next 5km mountain before you're cut off by the curvature.

 

Network is expanding faster now that I've built a 3 seater plane instead of having to head home after each one:

Note the terrible range on the lowlands of the peninsula east of booster bay, and the canal crossing to the desert landmass because the mountains aren't quite close enough.

And the whole system can result in really indirect comm links:

Having a tidally locked mun is very convenient for relays on the near side!

[Snarfster]

4 hours ago, suicidejunkie said:

The nodes are just little things that an engineer can fit in his backpack and assemble with only a wrench:

1x Octo (stayputnik would roll down hills)

2x Solar panels to run the antennas

Batteries to keep it running long enough for the delivery plane to take off and unload physics it if working at night

Antennae to taste.  The DP10s are all you need, with an occasional communotron whip for mid level orbit.

Then pick a couple sites on the grid for long range dishes.

 

This goes on top of the highest mountains in the area that can reach.  A 5km mountain peak gives about 200km range to the next 5km mountain before you're cut off by the curvature.

 

Network is expanding faster now that I've built a 3 seater plane instead of having to head home after each one:

Note the terrible range on the lowlands of the peninsula east of booster bay, and the canal crossing to the desert landmass because the mountains aren't quite close enough.

And the whole system can result in really indirect comm links:

Having a tidally locked mun is very convenient for relays on the near side!

Thanks for that! If I do the math I get about 150 km range from 5 km height to 5 km height. (155.2 to be exact). Does it actually make 200 km ingame?

I was considering building radio towers with KIS/KAS, until I did the math and realized a 100 meter high tower at sea level on kerbin has a range of close to 11 km, that would mean that about every 20 km a repeater is needed.

 

Edited January 14, 2016 by Snarfster

[The Destroyer]

Backup landing strip (shuttles ftw), testing aircraft basic flight, landing VTOLs on the ATC

[AbacusWizard]

16 hours ago, suicidejunkie said:

Having a tidally locked mun is very convenient for relays on the near side!

Oooh, that's a very good point! I'll have to make use of that when I finally get around to trying RemoteTech.

[ForScience6686]

 I have just finished start up of space k at the island.  Includes a mining rig and fuel truck, shuttle jet to bring astronauts to and from the island, and a panther ssto space plane that has now completed 3 successful trips to orbit.   the island will serve as base for all reusable craft and will handle lko rescues and station transfers.

The worst part about this operation is lag, so I can't wait for 1.1 update.  Other than that, very small wheel base for taxi abilities makes landing difficult.  But being able to taxi properly means no tug needed.

 

[suicidejunkie]

On 1/14/2016 at 3:24 AM, Snarfster said:

Thanks for that! If I do the math I get about 150 km range from 5 km height to 5 km height. (155.2 to be exact). Does it actually make 200 km ingame?

I was considering building radio towers with KIS/KAS, until I did the math and realized a 100 meter high tower at sea level on kerbin has a range of close to 11 km, that would mean that about every 20 km a repeater is needed.

 

I'm pretty sure there's a small fudge factor in there to treat the planet as slightly smaller than it really is so you don't get zero visibility when splashed down and such.  Mountains and large hills are critical to making a relay network.

The only place I'd consider constructing an actual tower is right at each pole for purposes of beaming very high power antennae out into the depths of space with 360 degree coverage of the orbital plane.