The Aircraft Endurance Challenge

[Gman_builder]

23 minutes ago, DualDesertEagle said:

Finally back at the Space Center I'm stuck with a problem: How can I deploy my refueling plane with the challenge plane still in the air?

That's why I said, "If you can somehow stage one." I honestly have no clue how you can do it stock

[DualDesertEagle]

Just now, Gman_builder said:

That's why I said, "If you can somehow stage one." I honestly have no clue how you can do it stock

Well too bad, then I'm gonna have to buzz the KSC until my fuel runs out and simply land.

[Gman_builder]

Just now, DualDesertEagle said:

Well too bad, then I'm gonna have to buzz the KSC until my fuel runs out and simply land.

Alright, I landed my run with 4000 kilometers worth of fuel left in the tank because I couldn't make it all the way around again.

[DualDesertEagle]

I just decided to land aswell, I'm not willing to sit through burning all that fuel.

[Van Disaster]

Just now, Gman_builder said:

Alright, I landed my run with 4000 kilometers worth of fuel left in the tank because I couldn't make it all the way around again.

Could you not have made it round again to KSC2? although I don't remember that having a runway in stock either... also you could just have flown 2000km & turned round, it's ground track that matters, no?

Slow loitering seems to be the way, I'll leave this running a bit but there's no way I can let it go as long as it thinks it can :S ( besides I wasted a bunch of fuel trying different altitudes ).

Spoiler

 

Edited July 6, 2016 by Van Disaster

[DualDesertEagle]

I think for now I'm second!

This is my plane, just over half a kerban day after take-off, the screenshot taken somewhere near the "1st-lap-mark".

 

And when I was nearing the 3rd sunset I saw both Mun and Minmus reflecting the sunlight:

 

And after I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to make it back home that changed when I noticed that I still had 20% of my fuel left while I was flying across the desert

 

KSC, I'm comin'!

While the fuel I had left wouldn't ever be enough for another lap around kerbin I could've buzzed the Space Center for quite a while to increase my total distance, but after about 3 hours in real time I just didn't feel like burnin' up all that fuel. Here's a screenshot of my final approach using my stylish split elevons airbrake.

 

And last but not least, my results!

 

Since the only thing that stopped me from actually taking the lead was my fail to roll out some refuelers BEFORE taking off with the challenge plane I might just try that another time when I've got some time to burn. Until then I should add a docking port to my plane so I don't need to have the refuelers grapple on to it using the Klaw in order to refuel. And I should aswell practise the mid-air refuel so I don't crash both planes doing so.

 

 

Oh, great, my refueler can't fly as slow as my challenge plane coz it would otherwise fall out of the sky like a rock and my challenge plane can't fly as fast as my refueler coz its engines are too weak! Back to the drawing board I guess.

Edited July 6, 2016 by DualDesertEagle

[Van Disaster]

Thought I'd post a little progress.

Takeoff:

Spoiler

Climbing out ( slowly ):

Spoiler

One Kerbin day later:

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[

Random distance snapshot:

Spoiler

 

[Gman_builder]

17 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

Could you not have made it round again to KSC2? although I don't remember that having a runway in stock either... also you could just have flown 2000km & turned round, it's ground track that matters, no?

Slow loitering seems to be the way, I'll leave this running a bit but there's no way I can let it go as long as it thinks it can :S ( besides I wasted a bunch of fuel trying different altitudes ).

  Hide contents

 

I had flown for 43 hours already and didn't feel like doing another 4 hours worth of flight in circles. After all I still made 35000 KILOMETERS!!!!

[gridghost]

I tried a run w/o using the afterburner and headed for 90 degrees and 15000 m altitude at Mach 1.5, and after 1 and a half kerbin day (9 hours 36 minutes) i landed after 51,5 kkm

[322997am]

Nice, I'll give it a shot.

[Gman_builder]

2 hours ago, gridghost said:

I tried a run w/o using the afterburner and headed for 90 degrees and 15000 m altitude at Mach 1.5, and after 1 and a half kerbin day (9 hours 36 minutes) i landed after 51,5 kkm

FAR estimated 19,000 kilometers. How did you fly 51,000? Can you send me the craft file? I wanna check it out.

[Van Disaster]

My FAR estimate is currently 133k-km; when I took off and settled at cruise alt it was about 140kkm, and I've travelled 23kkm so far... I expect it to go up once the craft gets lighter & AoA goes down.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Van Disaster

[gridghost]

4 minutes ago, Gman_builder said:

FAR estimated 19,000 kilometers. How did you fly 51,000? Can you send me the craft file? I wanna check it out.

KAF X-75 Big bird

You may be required to right-click and save as...

[Gman_builder]

1 minute ago, gridghost said:

KAF X-75 Big bird

You may be required to right-click and save as...

Can you just post It on kerbalx real quick. you don't have to put pics or anything you cant save text as a binary craft file so I cant use what you sent me.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Gman_builder

[gridghost]

1 minute ago, Gman_builder said:

Can you just post It on kerbalx real quick. you don't have to put pics or anything

What is wrong with dropbox?

Just right-click the link and save as Yada.craft

Edited July 6, 2016 by gridghost

[Gman_builder]

Just now, gridghost said:

What is wrong with dropbox?

You sent me a text file. That can't be converted into binary to be used in KSP

[Van Disaster]

Craft files ARE text.

Savegames are text, too.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Van Disaster

[gridghost]

As i said, just right-click the link and save as whatever-name-you-wanna-call-it.craft and you are good to go.

The *.craft files are text-files just renamed as .craft...

And to get it to fly right i'm using FAR and dynamic deflection, BTW

[Van Disaster]

24 hrs later, only now starting to get efficient I think. Fuel use is 25% less than launch.

Spoiler

 

[Gman_builder]

@Van DisasterNice!

[Van Disaster]

And this would be into the lead I think? ( landing notwithstanding! )

Spoiler

I'm not questioning gridghost's integrity because I know he's a straight-up guy, but I do question his install a bit - I'm flying at roughly half his speed but it's taken 33 hours to this point.

[Gman_builder]

6 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

And this would be into the lead I think? ( landing notwithstanding! )

  Hide contents

I'm not questioning gridghost's integrity because I know he's a straight-up guy, but I do question his install a bit - I'm flying at roughly half his speed but it's taken 33 hours to this point.

Ya and his engine is much less efficient and has much less fuel on the plane..... I havn't tested it yet but I will tonight.

[Van Disaster]

At the moment of that screenshot:

Dist over ground: 51,671km
Time taken: 5*6hr + 3 + 23/60 = 33.38 hrs
Average speed = 1547km/h = 429m/s(!)
Kerbin's rotation given 600km radius: 174m/s

Avg speed over ground = 256m/s ( guess this should really be "Avg speed through atmosphere" ).

Well I guess that answers some of those questions, but I wonder what it's really doing to calc distance.

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by Van Disaster

[Gman_builder]

I set up a test of the Big Bird with the exact same flight parameters as @gridghost's flight. Ascended to 15,000 meters with after burner off at Mach 1.5. I ended up having some small differences in my estimates, with a 11.6 hour estimated flight time and 18, kilometers distance.

Will report in 12 hours. Maybe more. Maybe less.

19 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

At the moment of that screenshot:

Dist over ground: 51,671km
Time taken: 5*6hr + 3 + 23/60 = 33.38 hrs
Average speed = 1547km/h = 429m/s(!)
Kerbin's rotation given 600km radius: 174m/s

Avg speed over ground = 256m/s ( guess this should really be "Avg speed through atmosphere" ).

Well I guess that answers some of those questions, but I wonder what it's really doing to calc distance.

 

I think FAR is calculating distance by determining the speed over ground, fuel usage per second, and how long that fuel will last at the current speed and altitude. But I don't think it can account for  the decreasing weight as you burn fuel. Which increases efficiency. So theoretically the estimated numbers should differ more and more from the actual numbers as the efficiency of the plane increase. I.E. A plane with a estimated flight distance of 1000 kilometers might go 1045 kilometers in reality, while a plane with a estimated flight distance of 100,000 kilometers will fly something like 125,000 kilometers. The same goes for flight time in hours.

[gridghost]

Did a reinstall (and redownloaded the mods to be sure to have a clean install) and i still get crazy mileage from my planes. Did a retake on the Big bird with Wheesleys and got this... (Coming in for landing)

Spoiler