Anyone made an ion plane recently?

[Pthigrivi]

58 minutes ago, Foxster said:

In 1.1 there are bigger static solar panels that are scaled 8 times compared to the small ones. 

Wooo! I knew this was gonna be a good day!

[Renegrade]

On 2016-04-17 at 9:47 AM, KerikBalm said:

Makes heavy use of previously massless and dragless Ox-stats, cubic girders, and struts.

Struts are now very evil.  There's a bug report in 1.1 for it (but it exists in 1.0.x too) - they went from zero mass/drag to insane drag: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/9210

[Pthigrivi]

Boo. Update two stage jet engine -> high altitude ion plane still not really hitting self-sustaining lift, let alone circumnavigating as was my plan. Anyone else successful at this?

[EivlEvo]

I had intended to build out an ION craft in post 1.0 for Duna... but that plan went to hell, and it ended up being nuclear powered. I get that the ION engines compared to real life are silly overpowered, but man... having ION powered flight again would be sweet.

[The_Rocketeer]

On 17/04/2016 at 2:58 PM, Deddly said:

I was refering to his Shrike 1 craft, which had:

"4x Ion engine, 16x 700 Xenon, 52x Wing Strake, 20x 1x6 array, 1x small reaction wheel, 1x OKTO2, 1 EAS1+Kerb"

He upgraded his design only after he was informed about massless parts.

EDIT: According to the records on the OP, Shrike 1 achieved 686 M/sec and an altitude of 26,621 metres.

Wow, first check on the forums in god-knows and ppl are talking about me!

@Deddly unfortunately I omitted massless parts from that summary because at that time they added nothing to the aerodynamic formula we were collectively working towards. Here's the picture that I originally linked as evidence of that attempt (as you can see, there were a lot of other parts!):

[Deddly]

Maybe we should make a new challenge to actually achieve takeoff using only Ion... Should be difficult

[Archgeek]

53 minutes ago, Deddly said:

Maybe we should make a new challenge to actually achieve takeoff using only Ion... Should be difficult

HEH, just to take off?  Cluster a lot of ions behind a long stretch of big batteries -- power generation would be a lost cause, here, and batteries are kinda light -- slap on a lot of wing surface, put it on minimal wheels, then burn with desperation.

[KerbonautInTraining]

45 minutes ago, Archgeek said:

HEH, just to take off?  Cluster a lot of ions behind a long stretch of big batteries -- power generation would be a lost cause, here, and batteries are kinda light -- slap on a lot of wing surface, put it on minimal wheels, then burn with desperation.

Depending how long your takeoff takes I'd be surprised if you managed a TWR of 0.1

[Deddly]

It's officially a thing! If you think you can do it, go for it
 

 

[AeroGav]

for takeoff, you might be better using rover wheels, use the motors to accelerate to lift off speed.

[Brotoro]

Don't power the ions using solar panels...use fuel cells. Much less drag.

It's still not going to work over Kerbin, but it works over Duna.

[JoeNapalm]

On 5/15/2016 at 3:43 AM, AeroGav said:

for takeoff, you might be better using rover wheels, use the motors to accelerate to lift off speed.

I haven't played in awhile...but most of my rovers top out around 22m/s...

Could something REALLY light with tons of lift get off the ground at 22m/s in the new atmo?

Seems unlikely.

-Jn-

[Deddly]

@JoeNapalm We already achieved takeoff at much lower speeds than that in the ion plane resesrch challenge. Still not been able to take off using only ions though, but we're working on it

[JoeNapalm]

6 hours ago, Deddly said:

@JoeNapalm We already achieved takeoff at much lower speeds than that in the ion plane resesrch challenge. Still not been able to take off using only ions though, but we're working on it

Huh!

Color me impressed.

Now if I could only get my computer fixed so I could experiment with this...

 

-Jn-