The Adventures of Tex Kerman

[Dman979]

@Maximus97, I was thinking more like this:

[Tex]

Aha, I got you, I got you. This will certainly be a test of the Seagull. I imagine that a journey that long would really push the limits of its range, I might not even be able to make it 100% back unless I run even more economically than I have been. Challenging 

[Dman979]

Just now, Maximus97 said:

Aha, I got you, I got you. This will certainly be a test of the Seagull. I imagine that a journey that long would really push the limits of its range, I might not even be able to make it 100% back unless I run even more economically than I have been. Challenging 

Droptanks? In-flight refueling? Alt-F12?

Also, I wonder if it's better to fly East or West. In theory, it shouldn't matter, but that's if the planet were not rotating. And what about any mountain ranges in the way?

[Tex]

I haven't made any such accommodations, but that's what the testing shall be for. I think drop tanks might be an ideal solution, but first I need to find out if they're necessary in the first place.

Also, I wonder if it's better to fly East or West. In theory, it shouldn't matter, but that's if the planet were not rotating. And what about any mountain ranges in the way?

 

I've briefly pondered it, but I think I'll just fly East. And mountains aren't a concern- as far as I know, the Seagull can operate well even over 10km.

[Dman979]

11 minutes ago, Maximus97 said:

I've briefly pondered it, but I think I'll just fly East. And mountains aren't a concern- as far as I know, the Seagull can operate well even over 10km.

I was thinking more of fuel efficiency- is it better to go high, and not be at your perfect efficiency, or long, and be at the perfect efficiency?

[Tex]

Ah, but even under normal conditions I govern the Seagull to roughly 30-35% of its maximum thrust. Even with the measly power it produces, it cruises fairly stably between 170 and 220 m/s, even close to sea level.

[Tex]

Part Five: Ginormous Crater

Today in the Adventures of Tex Kerman, we finally get a look at one of Kerbin's most obvious, most ginormous, and most awesome geographical features: The giant crater!

Credit to whomever I ripped this from in Google Images.

Right off the bat, as they say, you can see that the crater is a very imposing feature. I hastily built and landed an Autonomous Stationary Measurement Marking Drone on the eastern side of the crater, and generated a radius of about 80km (very roughly, I'm sure it's a little bit larger than that but I'm too impatient of a Kerbal scientist to do the thing properly), which means the whole thing is about 160km across. 

Now, the largest impact crater on Earth is the Vredefort Crater in South Africa, which is 300km across. Compared to the earth, that means that the Vredefort crater is about 2.4% Earth's diameter. Compare that to Kerbin and the Ginormous Crater: With Kerbin having a diameter of only 1200km (please correct me if that's wrong), that means that the Ginormous Crater is a whopping 15% of Kerbin's Diameter! The equivalent size of a crater on Earth would be 1911km across! That is basically the area of Argentina, assuming Argentina were a circle. Now that's a big crater.

I didn't stop with just the size of the crater itself- I also have calculated the size of the meteorite that impacted Kerbin and caused the crater to form. If we compare Ginormous to its rough equivalent on Earth, the Chicxulub crater (about 180km in diameter), which was formed by a meteorite about 10km in diameter. Using the power of lazy estimation, that means that the meteorite that formed Ginormous was about 7 or so kilometers wide.

That's a third the size of Gilly, assuming the densities of Gilly are the same of that which formed the Chicxulub crater, of course.

 

So without further ado (and more math because that's about all the interest I have for calculating at the moment), let's take a look at some pictures!

 

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This first photo is of Ginormous in the distance, as I was approaching it. The mountain range in the background is actually the circular ridge of the crater.

The next few photos are of the ridge mountain range, which I shall call the Ginormous Peaks. It's no small mountain range, as shall be revealed in a moment.

 

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The next couple of photos are closeups of the mountains. Like I said- really serious mountains! Look at the size of these cliffs!

 

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After checking out the mountains, I started to fly across the crater. I was actually deeply surprised at just how massive the thing was- it looked smaller from the mountains, but after going across the water it can get hard to make out the peaks of the East side from so far away!

 

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Quick explanation- the picture above shows the central crest in the very center of the crater.

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So now we start moving to... *dramatic music* The central crest!

 

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It has some pretty weird boxy features on it. Strange. Anyway, next I traveled to the very Westernmost part of the crater, the part that stuck out waaaaaay into the ocean.

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At this point, I thought- "Hey, that looks sort of like a runway."

 

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So I landed on it.

 

So there's the investigation of the Ginormous Crater! Be sure to suggest more places to go and names for things!

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UPDATE:

 

By request of a Tex Kerman Adventures reader, we've got some names for the various features that make up Ginormous Crater! The island that makes up the west side of the crater shall be known as Runway Island, the island right in the center is Control Island, and the mountain range along the North to Southeast sides are the Terminal Mountains.

[Tex]

Part Six: Sunrise Cliffs

Today, I think I should really look into producing a Planet Earth style documentary for Kerbin. That would be awesome. Planet Kerbin. Here would be one of the first stills from that documentary.

So here's the backstory- I was flying along to the site that @Dman979 suggested I go visit, and I'm actually flying a special version of the Seagull that has two side-mounted drop tanks. By the way, I'm not entirely sure the drop tanks are gonna work. They make takeoff and handling a nightmare, though the thing is flyable without any other engineering. Anyway, I was flying along and I got to this area on Kerbin:

Where I timewarped to the morning so I could actually see where the heck I was flying. Then, after I took off, I noticed a strangely shaped mountain range in the distance:

So I decided to investigate, and boy was I glad I did.

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You just don't see this stuff unless you go out and look for it, people! This is right here on Kerbin, and you can see this without even ever touching a rocket part!

Just thought I'd share this wonderful sight.

 

UPDATE: The mountain seen in the first image, the forefront of the Sunrise Cliffs, is now known as Piper's Peak.

[Wabbit]

All these pictures have got me itchin' to do some good old Kerbin exploring. Maybe I'll try some island hopping in the morning!

 

Anyway, keep up the good work. Looking forward to some more natural wonders!

[Dman979]

Now you need names, huh?

Let's call the outside of the craters the Runway Islands, the center island Control Island, and the mountain range the Terminal Peaks.

I feel like I was at the same mountain you were, all the way back in .23 or .22. I made an infiniglider which kinda looked like a Piper Cub, and I wanted to see how far it'd go. I was surprised that it didn't need its engines to keep it aloft at a leisurely 110-180 MPH (I had no clue what an infiniglider was). Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I alt-tabbed to do homework. After about an hour, I came back, and to my continued surprise, it was still flying! I continued this way for another hour or two, and then when I alt-tabbed back, it was dawn. I could see the mountain in the distance, and as I flew by, dawn broke. It was (and is) one of my most memorable moments in KSP.

So, I nominate the newest mountain to be called Piper's Peak.

P.S. Shortly after I passed by the mountain, I touched the controls. Big mistake. I alt-tabbed again, but when I came back, my plane had taken a nose dive. I tried to take manual control, but no luck. Bob Kerman ditched in the ocean, and his body was not recovered.

[Tex]

9 hours ago, Wabbit said:

All these pictures have got me itchin' to do some good old Kerbin exploring. Maybe I'll try some island hopping in the morning!

 

Anyway, keep up the good work. Looking forward to some more natural wonders!

Excellent, glad you're gonna explore too! Definitely compare notes in this thread so I can also check out your discoveries!

 

7 hours ago, Dman979 said:

Now you need names, huh?

Let's call the outside of the craters the Runway Islands, the center island Control Island, and the mountain range the Terminal Peaks.

I feel like I was at the same mountain you were, all the way back in .23 or .22. I made an infiniglider which kinda looked like a Piper Cub, and I wanted to see how far it'd go. I was surprised that it didn't need its engines to keep it aloft at a leisurely 110-180 MPH (I had no clue what an infiniglider was). Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I alt-tabbed to do homework. After about an hour, I came back, and to my continued surprise, it was still flying! I continued this way for another hour or two, and then when I alt-tabbed back, it was dawn. I could see the mountain in the distance, and as I flew by, dawn broke. It was (and is) one of my most memorable moments in KSP.

So, I nominate the newest mountain to be called Piper's Peak.

P.S. Shortly after I passed by the mountain, I touched the controls. Big mistake. I alt-tabbed again, but when I came back, my plane had taken a nose dive. I tried to take manual control, but no luck. Bob Kerman ditched in the ocean, and his body was not recovered.

Ah, the newest mountain there in the Sunrise Cliffs area?

 

[Dman979]

2 hours ago, Maximus97 said:

Ah, the newest mountain there in the Sunrise Cliffs area?

If that's what you're calling that area, then yes. It has a really steep drop-off, no?

[Tex]

Oh yes, several. Very well, I shall add that to the OP!

[Dman979]

Ok, serious question- how do you get those glasses on every picture?

[Tex]

55 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

Ok, serious question- how do you get those glasses on every picture?

Next question, please.

But seriously, I do just slap 'em on with an editor. Honestly it's not that big of a bother, considering that out of the jillions of pictures I put on this thread, only two have shown Tex's face, so there's that.

[Tex]

Part Seven: Right-Angle River

On this episode of Pawn Stars- Er, the Tex Kerman Adventures: Tex takes a look at a river, Tex takes a look at a mountain range, and Tex flies a jet aircraft and nearly crashed into the side of a river/mountain range!

Where we left off, Tex was going in the rough direction from an earlier long-distance challenge to make it to a fan-suggested site on the far side of Kerbin. Tex successfully tested the drop-tank mechanic of the Ka-97 Seagull Mk. II and came to rest in the water just by land. Today continues that journey, starting off with a very unusual river system!

Here's a few shots of the river as Tex flew over:

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By this last image, you can start to see that the river cuts into the hills and eventually the mountain range in the background. Naturally, I followed the curve of the river to see what I could see, and lookie what I found:

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You might notice that this looks eerily similar to a feature I discovered in Part Three (and that river still doesn't have a name, by the way!), which is what appears to be a massive blockage in the river. Now, visually, it seems like there was a landslide or some other sort of massive geological process that caused so much soil to come to rest where it did. I'm open to theories, but currently I'm starting to put together some sort of massive kerbinquake idea that affected the whole planet.

Anyway- more photos!

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"Gee," I hear you saying sarcastically. "I wonder why he called it the Right-Angle River!"

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That very last image shows the end of the line- the origin of the river. There are some interesting step-like formations towards the bottom, and it definitely seems to end right there against the cliff. How peculiar.

The final images I have to share show the mountain range itself:

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Now, the working name I'm giving to those mountains is the Slice Range, just because the hills and mountains seem to have been pretty much sliced through by that river. Please do tell me what you think, because that was the only name I could think of that stuck.

That's it for this installment of the Tex Kerman Adventures!

[KAL 9000]

A 7km impactor, hmmm... The Kerbasaurs mystery has been solved!

[Tex]

It was definitely a fun little bit of math to do (wow, never thought I'd say that), but of course anyone is welcome to double-check me and make sure I didn't screw up somewhere along the line!

[Tex]

Whew. Okay. Just landed my latest flight.

Take a look at this, from just after I landed. Here's a list of the things I did:

• Circumnavigated Kerbin
• Flew on and off for 2 days
• Pulled a 10g maneuver
• exceeded the speed of sound
• flew higher than 14km
• made roughly 4 water landings and 1 runway landing
• took nearly 50 photos

This has been an amazing journey, and certainly the longest where I was actually paying attention to the whole flight instead of just timewarping. I did skip through the first night, but flew through the second one continuously.

Fun times!

[Tex]

Part Eight: Dman Beach

This installment is dedicated to @Dman979, who suggested this particular area for exploration!

Today we look at a special piece of land in the equatorial region of Kerbin, on pretty much the opposite side of the planet from the KSC. I give you... Dman Beach!

The journey here took about a day of flying, probably made a little bit longer by stopping and looking at other random things here and there. Actually, for this trip, I wasn't certain that the Seagull could fly here unassisted, so on a reader's suggestion I developed a drop-tank system that.... worked? By which I mean the takeoff capabilities were garbage and it flew poorly and it needed to expend more fuel to travel at about the same rate... So I mean, yeah, it worked, but drop tanks are definitely not gonna become a feature on the Seagull.

Anywho, let's kick off the pictures! Here's what I found awaiting me at Dman Beach:

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Probably the best thing to do here would be to set up a beach party. I can definitely see some resorts setting up shop here because the beaches are nice, smooth, and have a shallow bank so you can roll right up in a seaplane.

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That rock-like thing in the background you can see in a couple of images.... is a rock. 

So there we have it, Dman Beach! Looks like a great place to kick back with a lemonade and sunglasses 

[Dman979]

hahahah, I like it!

And gee, I'm thread-famous!

I can see condo's tagline now: "Dman Living: Guaranteed not to get hit by spacecraft!"

I'm sorry to hear that the drop tanks didn't work out. I expected them to create some drag, but I didn't expect it to be that much of a problem.

[Tex]

7 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

I'm sorry to hear that the drop tanks didn't work out. I expected them to create some drag, but I didn't expect it to be that much of a problem.

Don't you worry, that's what experimentation was for! It just turned out that drop tanks didn't particularly suit the Seagull, but I'm thinking about giving it a redesign anyway. I definitely need more fuel.

[Dman979]

@Maximus97, is this still active?

[Tex]

7 hours ago, Dman979 said:

@Maximus97, is this still active?

Hasn't been for a while, but I definitely think that Tex should be making a comeback soon enough!

[Tex]

I'm hunting for locations to set the next part of the Adventures in. Anyone have any suggestions? I'll be flying a mission sometime tomorrow.