Kerbin Landspeed Competition

[Bluejayek]

431 with 13 SRBS. Just barely stopped.

[yourt23]

266 m/s single engine

[Excl]

Yourt, How the heck did you keep that thing stable??? That\'s very similar to what one of my first versions looked like, and the thing would barrel-roll constantly. I reloaded it, and same thing ... crashed around 200. So, I built an exact replica of what you have in your picture, and it flipped before it topped 150 m/s every time.

I have a modified version of what I had earlier ... I hit 267 m/s but CRASHED the dang thing with about 38 m/s left to go during braking.

I hit 265+ several times, but crashed during the decel almost every time. I did get 262 m/s saftely though, so I attached the screenshot. I also have a shot of the car in action, but I crashed it shortly after on that one.

[Flying Penguin]

Here\'s my Silver entry, 285.6m/s with 3 engines. I took the speed as the highest achieved before it bounced and went ballistic! But all was good after the chutes opened.

Cheers,

Jamie

[Dead3yez]

@Flying Penguin

I can\'t really accept it, if you took off. How high did you bounce, and how did you end up backwards etc?

[Flying Penguin]

It did a backflip and ended up falling vertically with the parachutes deployed and no engine, hence the parachutes ending up forwards.

How high? I honestly didn\'t look at the altimeter, I was pushing the chute release

Anyhow, your call....

[Dead3yez]

Well, the rules are that you must stay on the ground apart from small bumps. If you can get in a speed without leaving the ground then that\'d be perfect.

Nice attempt though.

[Flying Penguin]

Alright, a quick CoG adjustment later, 282.9 without leaving the ground.

Edit: 343.6 with 5 engines

[yourt23]

Yourt, How the heck did you keep that thing stable??? That\'s very similar to what one of my first versions looked like, and the thing would barrel-roll constantly. I reloaded it, and same thing ... crashed around 200. So, I built an exact replica of what you have in your picture, and it flipped before it topped 150 m/s every time.

I used a MK 2 fuel tank, it is a little wider so it helped with the rolling. Otherwise it is all driving skill. And a few dozen trial runs.

273 m/s 6 engines

[Excl]

Clouds, any reason you didn\'t try your design with 1 engine?? Or just about every category for that matter? Absolutely solid design! I took the basis of your 5 engine design, brought it down to one engine, did a few other tweaks here and there, and blew my previous one-engine times out of the water! I feel like I have to give Clouds partial credit for the record. Great design!

One Engine: 344 m/s

(Edit: Did a few more tweaks and improved the time further)

(Edit2: Times seemed to vary depending on favorable winds and how many pebbles I happened to hit along the way. Got another few m\'s improvement)

[Excl]

And since slapping a second engine ontop wasn\'t terribly difficult ...

2-engine speed: 391 m/s

[Excl]

And I guess while we\'re at it ... go for the gold, er, platnium!

9 engines: 446 m/s

I could probably do a lot better on this one, but I think I\'m done for now. Was having problems adding engines on this one. If I put them too close in the middle, they would overheat and blow up. If I put any on an outside wing, the ship would rip itself apart.

[Clouds]

Clouds, any reason you didn\'t try your design with 1 engine?? Or just about every category for that matter?

I sort of did. With one engine (and appropriately fewer wings) it actually caught more air, more than I\'d call 'bumps in the terrain'. And, I couldn\'t get more SRBs on it without utter destruction. Besides, I was aiming for maximum speed, not aiming for any category; it just happened to wind up at 5.

Absolutely solid design! I took the basis of your 5 engine design, brought it down to one engine, did a few other tweaks here and there, and blew my previous one-engine times out of the water! I feel like I have to give Clouds partial credit for the record. Great design!

Why thank you. But really, it\'s just that SRBs are the best power/weight if you have enough distance and time and little enough lag. =P

[Flying Penguin]

Well it definitely looks like having the stability well back is the way to go......

This single engined biplane variant on Cloud\'s design managed 341 on it\'s first run without any control input from me. I\'m sure there are some tweaks possible, just need the time

[Amamateur]

2 Engines - 261 m/s

Not even close to Excl\'s speed but figured I\'d post my progress.

[aksentti]

169 with 1 engine.

Hi! My first post here and a one-engined car design that I think works nicely. The front wants to start jumping at top speed though, so I instantly killed the throttle after taking the top speed screenshot.

[Darkwind]

An entry for the Silver League.

A compact five-engine design, the KLS 1 is guaranteed not to explode at anything less then 1m/s.

It made it up to 220m/s before I decided discretion was the better part of valour, and cut the engines.

Not very Kerbaly I know, but previous iterations of the design had a tendency to disintegrate at about 230m/s (one crashed so hard it crashed the game).

Edit: I made it up to 231m/s with the same design

[Phoenix Aerospace]

Kerbals and gentlefolks, I give you the Landspeed II!

This marvel of kerbal engineering features no less than nine solid boosters, each requiring its own fin in order to stay stable. Designed specifically for the Platinum competition, the Landspeed II is capable of a top speed in excess of 470 m/s, or mach 1.4! Pictures are attatched, including MECO and end-flight screen. Amazingly, it hit no major bumps and remained intact. Mechjeb is for heading control only.

Edit: My image got corrupted again. Apparently, I got a 500 server error. Wat.

[Darkwind]

Two more products from the fine KLS line. These craft, instead of relying on volatile liquid fuel, use the far safer alternative of solid fuel boosters. As with all KLS products, they are guaranteed not to explode below 1m/s.

The KLS(S) 1: Golden League

Eight solid-fuel engines accelerate this lean, mean, speeding machine to velocities in excess of 400m/s while the wide wheelbase provides stability.

This made it to 401m/s land speed.

The KLS(S) 2: Platinum League

Made by strapping an additional eight engines to the KLS(S) 1 chassis, this sixteen-engined monstrosity is capable of velocities of over 420m/s.

Top measured speed 429m/s

[superD]

single engine, 346M/s

[Excl]

This is about as minimalistic as you can get for a single engine here. You can see in the flight screencap, just how wobbly it was. Still managed to bring it to a stop one time out of 20 or so.

Single Engine 347 m/s

[Dead3yez]

Sorry it\'s been a while since I updated the board. But I should have everything up to date now. Let me know if I missed anything, with the exception of Phoenix Aerospace\'s score (missing picture 8)).