Backwards Plane

[specialopsdave]

CHALLENGE: Build a plane normally using any air-breathing engine(s) (modded allowed) with the action menu option of Reverse Thrust. Assign all Reverse Thrust groups to an action group, or reverse thrust in the editor. (You may turn the entire plane backwards.) Then: FLY THE PLANE BACKWARDS.

RULES: All control surfaces, air intakes and engines must be in a normal forwards configuration, along with your control device (eg. Mk.1 Cockpit, Probodobodyne OKTO, etc.). However, it doesn't neccesarily have to be stable in forward flight. All mods, including Farum Aerospace, are allowed (though I wouldn't recommend it).

SCREENSHOTS: Only one: In backwards flight with the Retrograde vector visible on the Navball.

HARDMODE: Land on the abandoned airbase to the southeast of KSC, and take a screenshot (preferably before becoming stationaty).

Have fun!

Edited July 15, 2016 by specialopsdave

[Cunjo Carl]

Oh! How perfect!

  It seems the wheesley and the goliath are the only two stock engines that actually have the reverse thrust ability. For stock players, was it your intent the challenge would be run with specifically these, or is there a way to trick KSP by using the action groups? The verbiage kind of hinted at it.

If not, there's a cute trick in KSP for small backwards propelled aircraft. The following shows a setup for allowing engine exhaust to pass through a short section of fuselage, which could be useful for extending the challenge to other engine types. You can point engines backwards through a plane and count on the plane to not explode due to a mechanic called exhaustDamageDistanceOffset, which varies between engines. It's a little silly and pretty fun. A simple setup with an SRB is shown in this video at the linked timestamp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaYb5AiSY3M&t=2m18 This isn't a submission (it doesn't follow the rules), but I thought the technique might encourage some interesting designs.

I think I'll give a shot at it with a wheesley plane tonight!

 

Edit:

Ha! This is much harder than it looks. Even flying a plane backwards has been tricky, but I've been trying to make a plane that can fly stably in both directions by taking advantage of the fact that beyond a couple of degrees tilt a lifting surface turns into a dragging surface. So if you tilt the 'front' and 'back' wings differently, you can be stable in either direction, just by changing your fuselage's AoA! It, uh. It hasn't worked yet, but I've atleast managed some wobbly backwards flying. Tada!

 

Fun fact: Jeb aint bothered by nothin'.

Spoiler

It's working!

Wait, nope it's not. Look at that charming smile, though. How can you feel bad crashing after seeing that? Good textures, Squad!

 

Edited July 16, 2016 by Cunjo Carl
Did the challenge. It's a tricky one!

[specialopsdave]

On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 6:15 PM, Cunjo Carl said:

Oh! How perfect!

  It seems the wheesley and the goliath are the only two stock engines that actually have the reverse thrust ability. For stock players, was it your intent the challenge would be run with specifically these, or is there a way to trick KSP by using the action groups? The verbiage kind of hinted at it.

If not, there's a cute trick in KSP for small backwards propelled aircraft. The following shows a setup for allowing engine exhaust to pass through a short section of fuselage, which could be useful for extending the challenge to other engine types. You can point engines backwards through a plane and count on the plane to not explode due to a mechanic called exhaustDamageDistanceOffset, which varies between engines. It's a little silly and pretty fun. A simple setup with an SRB is shown in this video at the linked timestamp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaYb5AiSY3M&t=2m18 This isn't a submission (it doesn't follow the rules), but I thought the technique might encourage some interesting designs.

I think I'll give a shot at it with a wheesley plane tonight!

 

Edit:

Ha! This is much harder than it looks. Even flying a plane backwards has been tricky, but I've been trying to make a plane that can fly stably in both directions by taking advantage of the fact that beyond a couple of degrees tilt a lifting surface turns into a dragging surface. So if you tilt the 'front' and 'back' wings differently, you can be stable in either direction, just by changing your fuselage's AoA! It, uh. It hasn't worked yet, but I've atleast managed some wobbly backwards flying. Tada!

 

Fun fact: Jeb aint bothered by nothin'.

  Hide contents

It's working!

Wait, nope it's not. Look at that charming smile, though. How can you feel bad crashing after seeing that? Good textures, Squad!

 

No, I didn't intend just Wheesly and Goliath. That's why mods are allowed. Action groups work bug-free too, so no exploits there.

(Tip: It doesn't need to be capable of forwards flight, but if you insist, A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S are good at changing your CoL.)

[notsodeadjeb]

someone already posted this somewhere... 

 

[Stargate525]

This is... rather easy, isn't it? Since you've mandated that the plane doesn't have to be stable in the 'forwards' direction, the biggest issue is that the flaps need to be on the 'lead' of the plane.

The hardest part I'm having is that your air intake is incredibly poor.

[Cunjo Carl]

5 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

This is... rather easy, isn't it? Since you've mandated that the plane doesn't have to be stable in the 'forwards' direction, the biggest issue is that the flaps need to be on the 'lead' of the plane.
The hardest part I'm having is that your air intake is incredibly poor.

Yeah, I decided to use the mk2 bicoupler to double up on standard intakes, but I suspect a couple 'backwards' facing radial ramp intakes (the long ones) would serve a similar purpose while being less visually obtrusive. The world needs more backwards planes, so I'm looking forward to seeing your take on it!

[TheEpicSquared]

Hmm, I'll probably try this later tonight. I'm assuming 1.2 is allowed?

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Did it!

Was pretty easy actually, I just had to add some yaw stabilization boxes on the front of a statically unstable STOL cargo aircraft (Igor C2) I had. (the static instability was already there because it helped keep the nose up at low speeds). 

Landed it too:

At the moment this picture was taken I'm using the engines to slow down because using the brakes at high backwards speed would risk it tipping back and hitting its tailskid. The kraken gets angry when the tailskid gets hit backwards for some reason.

Edited September 23, 2016 by EpicSpaceTroll139