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Slowest plane endurance challenge

TheGuyNamedAlan
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TheGuyNamedAlan

TheGuyNamedAlan

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hai all, 

want a challenge that is a challenge?? here it is. :DDDD

this challenge is about the slowest airspeed and the longest flight time you can achieve (suggested by @Cunjo Carl)whilst in the air. 

RULES:

  • no mods other than mechjeb and pilot's assistant.
  • no cheats or editing physics.
  • stock parts only.
  • entry closes on 1st of september.
  • no choppers or vertical takeoff planes allowed.
  • good luck.

BADGE COMING SOON....

 

LEADERBOARD

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Edited by TheGuyNamedAlan
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TheGuyNamedAlan

TheGuyNamedAlan

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1 hour ago, TheDestroyer111 said:

Lol why. It's super easy to build a slow plane. Make a small fuselage with small cockpit, attach huge wings, small engines, long tail, maybe some landing gear, and fly.

the thing is, it kinda looks like its not all stock. oh well, i guess i will tryst you

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Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

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We actually did an almost identical challenge a few weeks back hosted by @volcanic_wolf: slowest plane. I wonder if we can tweak this one to make it encourage a different design style?

The last round focused on absolutely momentary flights, which could have all kinds of transient effects thrown in to the lift, like torques about the COM and such. I got a 4m/s with transients (it was silly) and a 6.3 m/s without. Many slower entries had quirky effects mixed in and things were hard to measure all round.

For this round, I'm thinking we could encourage maneuverable planes that fly for a few minutes? Designing something to maneuver slowly is a total bugger, and so totally an interesting problem. Quantifying maneuverability is tricky, but maybe a race (highest time wins) from points around KSC. Totally spitballing, it could have a max altitude of 100m and start from just North of the Tower, go just West of Mission control, to just East of the Astronaut complex, under the R&D bridge and into the spherical tank. It should take 3-5minutes terrifying minutes to fly across KSC. A picture's worth a thousand words:

Spoiler

370.png

I'm reminded of an anecdote from my friend when he got his pilot's license. His worried mother told him "Remember, fly low and slow." He laughed and explained how dangerous this was, and flew high and quick for his first solo. Meanwhile, I'm attracted to the danger of low and slow like a moth to the flame! This is all just spitballing of course, there's plenty of fun ways to take it. What do you think, @TheGuyNamedAlan?

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TheGuyNamedAlan

TheGuyNamedAlan

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57 minutes ago, Cunjo Carl said:

We actually did an almost identical challenge a few weeks back hosted by @volcanic_wolf: slowest plane. I wonder if we can tweak this one to make it encourage a different design style?

The last round focused on absolutely momentary flights, which could have all kinds of transient effects thrown in to the lift, like torques about the COM and such. I got a 4m/s with transients (it was silly) and a 6.3 m/s without. Many slower entries had quirky effects mixed in and things were hard to measure all round.

For this round, I'm thinking we could encourage maneuverable planes that fly for a few minutes? Designing something to maneuver slowly is a total bugger, and so totally an interesting problem. Quantifying maneuverability is tricky, but maybe a race (highest time wins) from points around KSC. Totally spitballing, it could have a max altitude of 100m and start from just North of the Tower, go just West of Mission control, to just East of the Astronaut complex, under the R&D bridge and into the spherical tank. It should take 3-5minutes terrifying minutes to fly across KSC. A picture's worth a thousand words:

  Reveal hidden contents

370.png

I'm reminded of an anecdote from my friend when he got his pilot's license. His worried mother told him "Remember, fly low and slow." He laughed and explained how dangerous this was, and flew high and quick for his first solo. Meanwhile, I'm attracted to the danger of low and slow like a moth to the flame! This is all just spitballing of course, there's plenty of fun ways to take it. What do you think, @TheGuyNamedAlan?

i reckon its pretty good idea :DDD lets go boi

 

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Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

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2 hours ago, TheGuyNamedAlan said:

*facepalm*

?

Finally finished my designing for work- now I get to design for Kerbals. It's a good life. Well, my predictions of this being "a total bugger" were in fact true! It's totally possible, it'll just take some learning how.

Here's my "Flounder". The name works on so many levels :)

386.png

 

Its pitch and roll control are great, but its yaw needs some work. There's not a lot of opportunity to bank under that bridge. I'm thinking about putting in a box kite canard. They haven't been used since the days of Kitty Hawk due to being disastrously unstable, which I'm sure is an excellent sign. Cheers!

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TheGuyNamedAlan

TheGuyNamedAlan

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Just now, Cunjo Carl said:

?

Finally finished my designing for work- now I get to design for Kerbals. It's a good life. Well, my predictions of this being "a total bugger" were in fact true! It's totally possible, it'll just take some learning how.

Here's my "Flounder". The name works on so many levels :)

386.png

 

Its pitch and roll control are great, but its yaw needs some work. There's not a lot of opportunity to bank under that bridge. I'm thinking about putting in a box kite canard. They haven't been used since the days of Kitty Hawk due to being disastrously unstable, which I'm sure is an excellent sign. Cheers!

Nice

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zolotiyeruki

zolotiyeruki

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So...what's the scoring calculation?  We already have a thread for slowest plane, and another thread for furthest distance/longest flight time.  If the purpose of this challenge is to maximize flight time and minimize speed, the calculation would be:

score = flight time/speed

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Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

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4 hours ago, zolotiyeruki said:

So...what's the scoring calculation?  We already have a thread for slowest plane, and another thread for furthest distance/longest flight time.  If the purpose of this challenge is to maximize flight time and minimize speed, the calculation would be:

score = flight time/speed

Yeah, since it was pretty similar, I made a suggestion that got accepted so this one's burgeoning into the untrodden ground of slow-speed maneuverability. It was pretty recent, so I think the title/description just need an update. Slow speed aircraft maneuverability is a fun challenge if you want to give it a go. The description is in a post about half-way through page one. I'm working on it, but there's no contenders yet so no time like the present!

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Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

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22 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

Yeah, since it was pretty similar, I made a suggestion that got accepted so this one's burgeoning into the untrodden ground of slow-speed maneuverability.

Uh. I think I might have been mistaken? I'm not actually sure at this point. Well, regardless, I did a thing. So here it is!

Flounder

 

   The Flounder is a stock plane designed to run a short course through KSC as slow as possible. Its original design couldn't yaw worth anything- the plane would turn, but its vector wouldn't. The strike of inspiration came when I put those vertical ridge wings near the COM, to help catch the wind and change directions. It yaws great now, and was able to navigate from start to finish in 30s, averaging between 25-30m/s. That's slow, but at a straight-away it can manage more like 14 while retaining a bit of maneuverability! It's very hard to maintain that without stalling, so I settled for running it a bit faster. It's actually able to navigate from start to finish about one time in two, but I thought the video was more entertaining with all of my crashes in it. Enjoy!

Edited by Cunjo Carl
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DualDesertEagle

DualDesertEagle

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Got my entry done for now. Didn't put too much effort into it so it might be easy to beat. Tried my best to keep it slower than 20 m/s but I was too busy dodging the buildings to keep an eye on the speed. It's pretty much my 1st slowest plane entry but with more fuel, split aileron airbrakes and rudders in the front and the back, making it yaw very well without causing too much roll. It can take off at only 12 m/s but is pretty unstable at that speed. And I think that it works so well despite the very little amount of time and effort I put into it proves once more that I'm not exactly bad at designing planes.

 

Here's the video:

 

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DualDesertEagle

DualDesertEagle

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On 4.8.2016 at 3:19 AM, Cunjo Carl said:

How did I miss this? Great stuff, @DualDesertEagle! Not sure what the relative times are because the start/finish lines are loosely defined, but you've clearly got the slowest plane going so far! The shape totally reminds me of a gypsy moth if you've happen to seen one.

I'd say the start line is the side of the runway and the finish line is across the road from the spot where u hit the planetarium so that those who wanna keep their plane and fly around it rather than crashing into it can "finish" their run aswell.

It's actually hard to tell what kinda time u get out of ur runs coz u chopped them all up instead of adding an uncut clip of the full attempt.

 

 

About the moth thing I gotta say I don't see any similarities between the 2.

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Cunjo Carl

Cunjo Carl

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8 hours ago, DualDesertEagle said:

I'd say the start line is the side of the runway and the finish line is across the road from the spot where u hit the planetarium so that those who wanna keep their plane and fly around it rather than crashing into it can "finish" their run aswell.

Sounds like a plan!

8 hours ago, DualDesertEagle said:

It's actually hard to tell what kinda time u get out of ur runs coz u chopped them all up instead of adding an uncut clip of the full attempt.

1:03-1:37 is actually an uncut clip of an entire run. Most of my runs were winding up in the low to mid 30s, so this one should do fine.

8 hours ago, DualDesertEagle said:

About the moth thing I gotta say I don't see any similarities between the 2.

I think it's the big wings, and the vertical cannards which remind me of the gypsy moths' feathery antenna. I'm a bug guy, so it could just be me :) . Cool plane in anycase.

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DualDesertEagle

DualDesertEagle

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10 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

I think it's the big wings, and the vertical cannards which remind me of the gypsy moths' feathery antenna. I'm a bug guy, so it could just be me :) . Cool plane in anycase.

Well, I'm a plane guy, having both of these built by myself and the BF-109 Shocky DESIGNED by myself:

 

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