Iron Flame Aerospace and Rocketery (New Rocket!)

[Firemetal]

Welcome to Iron Flame Aerospace and Rocketery. (IFAR) Here you will find the best mess-ups on the forums! I build horrible planes and terrible rockets and I'm going to share them with you! Disclaimer: These spacecrafts may or may not work so download at your own risk!

Space Planes

The Taurus Shuttle

My first re-useable shuttle! The previous ones weren't really re-useable (they crash landed) but this one is!

Difficulty: Hard

It is easy to control before booster separation and then after booster seperation it flies like a cow. Keep in mind you ain't getting a fully equatorial orbit while flying it and don't try turning it too hard during re-entry or you'll stall. Requires a lot of experience.

Download: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Taurus-launcher

 

The Space Bird

Difficulty: Easy

My K-prize entry. This plane is easy to fly and recommended on all skill levels. If you are just learning how to build and fly SSTOs, this is the SSTO for you!

Download: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/The-Space-Bird

 

The Phoenix Class

The Phoenix Class SSTOs are mk2 based interplanetary SSTOs which are total ripoffs totally original and impossible to fly easy to fly!

Minimus Phoenix:

Difficulty: Medium

The Minimus Phoenix (aka the Phoenix I) can, as the name suggests, go to Minimus and return without refueling. When I landed it, I had 1800 m/s left so you can easily slip a rover into it. It has a crew capacity of 6 and has approximately 3300 m/s left in LKO So it could probably get to the Mun and back. Anyway you can download and fly it to the Mun if you want but I'm going to edit it before taking it to the Mun.

Download link: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Phoenix-to-Minimus

 

Mun Phoenix

Difficulty: Medium

The Mun Phoenix (aka Phoenix II) can go to the Mun and back. Wow what a surprise! There are two versions of this. When I first flew it, it barely had enough fuel to return. Now my Mun landing wasn't the most efficient thing ever but it had 62 units of fuel left when I landed it on Kerbin or 90 m/s of DV. So for people who are new to SSTOs, I'll add one more fuel tank. And for people who are experienced in building and flying SSTOs, I won't change it. In other words, there will be two downloads.

(Sorry no pictures of return! I forgot!)

Original version: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Phoenix-to-the-Mun

Beginner's version: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Phoenix-to-the-Mun-Beginner-version

 

The Duna Phoenix II

Difficulty: Medium

The Duna Phoenix II or Phoenix III can go to Duna and back with 300 m/s left. Therefore it requires people with experience in building SSTOs. It has a low TWR to begin with but it is higher than Phoenix I. (I think) It is also my first functional SSTO that can reach Duna and back. My other ones were worse. I'm sure a lot of you will see that it has taken inspiration from the SSTO used in Mark Thrimm's Mun SSTO tutorial. It is by no means a direct copy though. I put a lot less oxidizer in exchange for LFO and I added an extra fuel tank instead of an RCS tank and a cargo bay. This beast is very tough to control and it took me a number of tries to land it on Duna. This thing is for people who have at least had some experience with SSTOs to download.

Anyway when you land on Duna, use the drogue chutes (press 7) when you are below 300m. Then deploy normal chutes below 100 (press 8) and make sure your prograde meter is relatively high! That means start flaring at 1000m from surface! Anyway, standard SSTO ascent to orbit, standard transfer and aero-breaking at Duna. Also leave a bit of oxidizer in your tanks for ascent on Duna and once you get even the tiniest bit airborne, (i.e become airborne) activate the RAPIERs. Then at first, you want a steep ascent from Duna until you are in a thin enough atmosphere to nose down. Then just transfer back to Kerbin and aero-break a couple of times and then land! Almost impossible! Easy peasy!

Download: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Duna-phoenix-II

Rockets

These rockets are all my best interplanetary failures! Enjoy!

Ganymede

Difficulty: Hard

Ganymede is a rocket that can get to Tylo and back with no refueling. However, its methods are very perilous slightly dangerous. This rocket requires great skill and patience as seen in the pictures I took. Landing was not the best experience and took at least 5 tries to do. Download at your own risk!

The cruiser has way more than enough fuel so it can easily carry a bigger lander. So edit it if you want. Also  I tried to minimize the landing legs in order to save DV but had a bad time landing due to that. You may add bigger landing legs if you want.

The Imgur album is broken right now so here is the link to the album.

http://imgur.com/a/TbLoo

 

https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Ganymede

 

 

The Astro Explorer

Difficulty: Medium

This horrid thing is a 250 ton rocket that can go anywhere and back. It has difficulties landing on higher gravity planets but it has been tested and can go to moons like Pol and Bop. I know I clipped half the nuke into the Mk3 fuselage but that was just so the landing legs could touch the ground.

Have fun and post pics of your various missions with it!

Download: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/The-Astro-Explorer

 

Soyuz Replica

Difficulty: Medium

Created for the Soyuz Challenge, this rocket is pretty accurate! I am currently working on an Apollo spacecraft that I will place on top of this Soyuz lifter. Crazy idea but it'll work. The Soyuz is good for an Earth ascent to orbit but for Kerbin, it is overpowered as heck. With a couple of design changes. you could take the Soyuz spacecraft to the Mun, land and return! Enjoy playing around with this replica.

Download: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Soyuz

The Astro Explorer Mk3

Difficulty: Medium

The Astro Explorer Mk3 can get to anywhere and land and return except Tylo, Eve and Laythe. Unlike the previous Astro Explorers, it has a separate lander to assist it with higher gravity planets like Moho and Vall. Keep in mind the lander is a bit hard to fly since the command chair unbalances the COM and COL but it isn't that hard. I actually logged my mission to Moho with it so just go to my sig and click on "Moho Mission".

Download: https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/The-Astro-Explorer-Mk3

More crafts coming soon!

Edited July 30, 2016 by Firemetal

[Crocket]

Awesome! Though I can't fly SSTOs for my life (VSSTOs are fine) your craft looks like something I would use if I could!

[Firemetal]

12 minutes ago, Crocket said:

Awesome! Though I can't fly SSTOs for my life (VSSTOs are fine) your craft looks like something I would use if I could!

Thanks! Matt Lowne does a pretty good job of teaching so check him out on YouTube! 

[Screeno]

How 2 ssto:

Craft with rapiers(s), plenty of fuel and ,a shock cone intake. These days you only need one shock cone per 2 rapiers. It is very important you balemce the center of mass of dry/wet craft, so it doesn't move much during flight. Take measures to minimize drag, look at the front of your craft straight  on and the side straight on so you can see it's cross section, the less massive variations in cross section means less drag. FFinally make sure your rear landing gear are close to the center of mass, make them go just behind it. But to far behind and it won't lift the nose up 

You can fly just fine with a twr less than one , you don't need loads of engines, this would as weight and make drag... As soon as you pick up some speed it'll go up past 1 again. For an easier flight try not to have a static twr lower than 70, 50 would be to low imo. (I reccomended you get kerbal engineer so you can see the Delta v, and twr. It also lets you see the twr at different altitudes and speeds)

 

Taking off sould be the easyest part, just go up to 100 ms and with enough wing area youll lift off by lightly pitching up. 

With a low twr you should just fly at 10 degrees pitch until you go supersonic and then you'll gain thrust and speed rapidly. Now is a good time to pitch up to 20 degrees, remain at 20 until you get to 10km up, then begin to pitch down, the goal is to be at 10 degrees again once you're 20km up, by then you will get up to about 1300m/s, but some desgins can get in excess of 1500m/s by pitching down to 10 when they hit 15km up though the limiting factor here is heat. The shielded docking port miraculously prevents ssto's from overheating for some reason. I would reccomended that as a nosecone, and it's also easy to dock like that anyway. Ah, back to the flight. When your craft begins to loose trust rapidly you should switch to rocket mode, pitch up and burn until desired apo. The rest is just standard orbital stuff. But not when it comes to re-entry

You want to lower your periapsis to 40km if you are in low Kerbin orbit, (i mean an apoapsis of 70-100km )

You want to basically do it like the space shuttle did. Point your crafts nose 40 degrees up, this way you don't overheat or slow down to fast, you don't even need airbrakes. (Though I would reccomended them for landing!!!) You can remain at this high angle of attack until you slow down and the atmosphere becomes thick enough that you can glide back to lading.

 

Also, if you want to land back at KSC from low Kerbin orbit, just put your 40km periapsis directly above the big peninsula west from ksc

[Crocket]

Thanks, Screeno! I designed a small SSTO that seems to work: it's got a shock cone as a nosecone, a RAPIER in the back, and some other bits and bobs. You can make it up to orbit and circularize with ~50 oxidizer left if you pitch up to about 30 degrees when you lift off naturally. I never got it to land, though. Landing is not my strong suit.

[Screeno]

Awesome! You can only go up from there! If you struggling with landing you can always attatch a load of parachutes to it, and deploy them when it's safe XD

[Firemetal]

1 minute ago, Crocket said:

Thanks, Screeno! I designed a small SSTO that seems to work: it's got a shock cone as a nosecone, a RAPIER in the back, and some other bits and bobs. You can make it up to orbit and circularize with ~50 oxidizer left if you pitch up to about 30 degrees when you lift off naturally. I never got it to land, though. Landing is not my strong suit.

Same here. I'm terrible at landing. Please insert "I don't always but when I do" meme here.

"I don't always land in one piece but when I do, I overshoot the runway."

[Screeno]

At least splashdowns are safe

[Firemetal]

4 hours ago, Screeno said:

At least splashdowns are safe

Dude, I'm worse at splashing down than I am landing on ground. When I said I overshot, I meant I turned around and overshot the otherway!

[Kaiser82]

I really like your design with the outboard engine scheme. looks BadS

[Firemetal]

On ‎7‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 11:58 PM, Kaiser82 said:

I really like your design with the outboard engine scheme. looks BadS

Thanks man but I gotta admit none of these crafts are completely original. I appreciate the comment though.  

[RRFroste]

Love the rocket, so simple. Why didn't I think of that!

[Firemetal]

Just now, RRFroste said:

Love the rocket, so simple. Why didn't I think of that!

Thanks! As is a lot of the spacecrafts here, it was inspired by other people's designs. Mainly in the Two Tank Eeloo Challenge. I was confused as to why so few people used the design so I used it myself.

 

[RRFroste]

Just now, Firemetal said:

Thanks! As is a lot of the spacecrafts here, it was inspired by other people's designs. Mainly in the Two Tank Eeloo Challenge. I was confused as to why so few people used the design so I used it myself.

 

No problem. I just might have too download it.

[Firemetal]

Just now, RRFroste said:

No problem. I just might have too download it.

Appreciated mate!  Enjoy it!