Highest Altitude Achieved - Jet Engines Only

[TheEpicSquared]

 Hello everyone, and welcome to the....

HIGHEST ALTITUDE ACHIEVED CHALLENGE

"But what is this challenge?" I hear you ask.

Well, this challenge is about achieving the highest possible altitude (duh ), with jet engines only.

 

RULES:

1. No ALT-F12 CHEATS, KRAKEN DRIVES, LADDER DRIVES, BUG EXPLOITS, OR OTHER SHENANIGANS.

2. ONLY JET ENGINES.

2a. R.A.P.I.E.Rs are fine as long as they stay on air-breathing mode

3. NO PART MODS.

3a. Mechjeb, KER, Pilot Assistant and other autopilot/informational mods are allowed. 

3b. Visual mods such as EVE, Scatterer and the like are of course allowed.

4. MAXIMUM 30 ENGINES [This is so people with huge SSTOs can try this challenge out, as they usually have a large amount of engines on their craft].

5. MUST BE KERBALLED.

6. MUST BE ABLE TO REACH SPACE (70,000 meters) [This is to prevent ridiculous scores like this. Look at the crossed out score and you'll see what I mean.]

7. STOCK AERO AND FAR

8. SCREENSHOT PROOF - Of takeoff, highest altitude, landing, flight results screen (F3).

9. CHUTES FOR SLOWING DOWN ON THE GROUND ARE OK, BUT THEY CANNOT BE USED SOLELY FOR LANDING - Basically, you can use drogue chutes to slow you down once you're on the ground, but you can't use them to land like a space capsule.

10. MUST BE SINGLE-STAGE - YOU CANNOT DROP ANY PARTS.

11. MUST BE ABLE TO TAKE OFF HORIZONTALLY FROM THE RUNWAY.

12. ATMOSPHERIC DENSITY (OR WHATEVER IT'S CALLED) MUST BE SET TO 100%.

13. KERBAL(S) MUST SURVIVE ENTIRE FLIGHT.

 

SCORING

TYPE 1:

Highest altitude is your score. This is for seeing absolutely how far a jet engine can go into space. Oh, and the kerbal must survive.

TYPE 2:

Your score is: highest altitude in meters * (number of kerbals / number of engines)

So if you reached an altitude of 100,000m, you had 16 kerbals on board and you used 8 engines, your score would be as follows:

100,000 * (16 / 8)

= 100,000 * 2

= 200,000 points

 

LEADERBOARDS

Spoiler

TYPE 1:

1. @Eidahlil - 242,336 meters

2. @tseitsei89 - 240,827 meters

3. @Eidahlil - 237,273 meters

4. @Gaarst - 236,287 meters

5. @swjr-swis - 232,627 meters

 

TYPE 2:

1. @tseitsei89 - 728,613 points 

2. @DoctorDavinci - 491,200 points

3. @foamyesque - 184,951 points

4. @EpicSpaceTroll139 - 161,889 points

5. @Justintime505 - 142,980 points

 

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by TheEpicSquared

[Eidahlil]

Seeing this challenge come up, Jebediah Kerman ran into the spaceplane hangar, jumped into the first jet plane he found, and took off for the skies.

Gunning the engine, he left the atmosphere and barely exceeded the 100km mark at 100,373m.

No other modifiers, so looks like 100373 points (one kerbal in cockpit, one rapier engine with no oxidiser, no parts lost, nobody died, mechjeb for info but Jeb flew on manual).

http://imgur.com/a/FjkZL

I like the challenge!

[TheEpicSquared]

@Eidahlil Wow! 100km! I'll have to step up my game...  

You're on the leaderboard!

[stickman939]

You should definitely make a FAR leaderboard.
 

(cause otherwise my entry will be null lmao)

Edit: In any case I still did it! (Because challenges are fun!)
 

Spoiler

As you can see, 105,921 plus 4 extra kerbals (105,961... Obviously void unless you decide to add a FAR leaderboard lol) Only mods used are Kerbal Engineer, FAR, Scatterer, EVE.

And no parts loss! Almost lost the kerbals twice... Why can't they be heat resistant?

Edited September 26, 2016 by stickman939

[Justintime505]

are vtol craft allowed? The rules say you must take off and land at the runway but does that mean I have to use landing gear? I am thinking about a design that is not as plane like as I feel this challenge was intended for.

[DoctorDavinci]

So I managed to make 129 516 meters with a little jalopy I slapped together

Good challenge ... I had fun with this 20 minute KSP workout

 

[Justintime505]

23 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

So I managed to make 129 516 meters with a little jalopy I slapped together

Good challenge ... I had fun with this 20 minute KSP workout

 

awesome

 

EDIT: I've been fooling around for a while now and I'm getting within 1km of your altitude consistently but it seems to be somewhat of an upper limit for a single whiplash. More research is required!

Edited September 26, 2016 by Justintime505

[Justintime505]

This was a super fun challenge. For my entry I decided to go with as little wings as possible and a single whiplash. Altitude achieved was 142,980m. This little guy was a bit of a nightmare to land and poor Valentina pulled nearly 55g pulling out of the dive. 

 

The rest of the Images:

Spoiler

 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

This was a fun little challenge. My current entry is the Ascendor I.

It achieved 161,889m. It however destroyed 9 of its 13 parts on landing so that's 161,889 - 9(15) = 161,754 points

Pics

Edited September 27, 2016 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[TheEpicSquared]

Good job everyone - you're all on the leaderboards!

EDIT: @Justintime505 Do you mind if I used your craft as a baseline for another challenge? Specifically the Fighter Jet Speed Test challenge. I won't copy yours exactly of course, but may I use it as a baseline?  

Edited September 27, 2016 by TheEpicSquared

[Gaarst]

Reached 204 761m, 1 Kerbal on board, no broken parts. So I guess thats 204 761 points?

Spoiler

F3 menu doesn't show anything since I reverted this thing at least a thousand times to land it.

Seriously, it's a nightmare to land: very little lift at low speeds, poor pitch authority and these *** gears that bounced my craft to oblivion each time they touched the ground. Took me over 20 attempts to land it (stopped counting at 20, but it's probably over 30).

Edit: if you want to try it, here is the download. Full power through the whole flight, take off at about 150m/s, pitch up to 90° (vertical) and enjoy. To reenter/land: hahahahah... good luck.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Gaarst
Typo

[Justintime505]

15 hours ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Good job everyone - you're all on the leaderboards!

EDIT: @Justintime505 Do you mind if I used your craft as a baseline for another challenge? Specifically the Fighter Jet Speed Test challenge. I won't copy yours exactly of course, but may I use it as a baseline?  

by all means you can use the design. Its pretty simple but here's the craft file. I may have switched the whiplash for a RAPIER in this craft file which actually went higher in the end but I don't really like to re upload new versions of crafts to these challenges if I can help it.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bnvvxopag496r3j/Jet Altitude Challenge.craft?dl=0

Here's another final design that looks pretty cool and handled pretty much the same.

Spoiler

 

Edited September 28, 2016 by Justintime505

[Magzimum]

On 9/27/2016 at 9:30 PM, Gaarst said:

Reached 204 761m, 1 Kerbal on board, no broken parts. So I guess thats 204 761 points?

How the hell did you keep the shock cone intake from blowing up due to the heat? I tried several designs with a shock cone at the front, and I could not get it over 150 km, because the nose cone blows up at around 1400 m/s. 

I went with a fairing and the old antenna trick at the front... 

I did not take any other screenshots (even though they're asked for), so I'm ok if this doesn't make it to the board... but in case anyone cases, it's fully stock, only KER installed on my game. Played a little with the offset tool to push the wings in a little (but noticed zero difference actually). And utterly failed to land this thing. I do think that a landing is possible, but it would need more luck than I have patience for tonight.  

Anyway, wanted to post this to support the challenge! I enjoyed playing with it!  

[Gaarst]

Just now, Magzimum said:

How the hell did you keep the shock cone intake from blowing up due to the heat? I tried several designs with a shock cone at the front, and I could not get it over 150 km, because the nose cone blows up at around 1400 m/s. 

The shock cone didn't explode. The cockpit reached very high temperatures (probably over 95% since heat bar was full) but I never had overheating problem. Though that was climbing vertically, so quickly escaping the atmo; if you climb with a slight angle you will spend more time in atmo and have more chances to blow up.

 

[swjr-swis]

On 9/27/2016 at 9:30 PM, Gaarst said:

Seriously, it's a nightmare to land: very little lift at low speeds, poor pitch authority and these *** gears that bounced my craft to oblivion each time they touched the ground. Took me over 20 attempts to land it (stopped counting at 20, but it's probably over 30).

I reworked that craft a little, and made it so it practically glides in for a landing and has less bouncing at touch down. Landed it safely and easily 3 out of 3 attempts. On top it also managed to get a slightly higher altitude the third attempt (205056m).

Nice little craft. (If this makes it to the board, credit to Gaarst, it's his design).

Retouched craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c50ohvkzjf452te/Banana.craft?dl=0

Spoiler

No hands take-off

205056m reached

Glides beautifully

Zero damage, all souls accounted for

 

Edited September 30, 2016 by swjr-swis
stupid words

[Magzimum]

11 hours ago, Gaarst said:

The shock cone didn't explode. The cockpit reached very high temperatures (probably over 95% since heat bar was full) but I never had overheating problem. Though that was climbing vertically, so quickly escaping the atmo; if you climb with a slight angle you will spend more time in atmo and have more chances to blow up.

 

Yeah, I did the same. Take off, then aim the nose straight up and go. That shock cone exploded every time at around 1400 m/s, and a lot of other parts got super hot as well with their heat bars in the red.

Do you recall what your top speed was? My max. was 1430 m/s going straight up, but that was with the antenna-trick, which really helps. Any higher, and stuff still exploded.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Magzimum

[Van Disaster]

Did a FAR run, not quite the altitude I reached in a test run but eh.

Spoiler

So, 139976, no bonus or penalty scores.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Van Disaster

[TheEpicSquared]

@Van Disaster What was the highest altitude? So I can add you to the leaderboards.

EDIT: Never mind, the picture loaded.

Edited September 30, 2016 by TheEpicSquared

[Van Disaster]

1 minute ago, TheEpicSquared said:

@Van Disaster What was the highest altitude? So I can add you to the leaderboards.

EDIT: Never mind, the picture loaded.

Yeah, I had to replace it - but thanks to no pic preview I had to post first

[kiwi1960]

so, let me see.... if I start a new sand box game and set the set up to 20% atmosphere density then.... that is fine?

 

[TheEpicSquared]

1 minute ago, kiwi1960 said:

so, let me see.... if I start a new sand box game and set the set up to 20% atmosphere density then.... that is fine?

 

Actually, I better add that to the rules. I knew I missed something  

[kiwi1960]

20 hours ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Actually, I better add that to the rules. I knew I missed something  

its why I mentioned it....

 

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, Magzimum said:

Yeah, I did the same. Take off, then aim the nose straight up and go. That shock cone exploded every time at around 1400 m/s, and a lot of other parts got super hot as well with their heat bars in the red.

Do you recall what your top speed was? My max. was 1430 m/s going straight up, but that was with the antenna-trick, which really helps. Any higher, and stuff still exploded.

 

There's is really no mystery. The Whiplash you use as engine starts accelerating hardest at lower altitudes, earlier, and then even at 90 degrees spends slightly more time (seconds, but still significant) at high speeds plowing through the still thick atmosphere. The RAPIER Gaarst uses starts accelerating hardest a few km higher, later, and then accelerates faster, so it has both less thick atmosphere to burn through at top speeds *and* spends less time cutting through it.

In his plane, the cone and the cockpit get heat bars to the very limit, and any angling away from exactly 90 degrees, prolonging the time in the atmosphere even a few seconds, is enough to make it explode. That is exactly what yours does: spend a few more seconds in the atmosphere, by starting early and cutting through it slower. That tiny bit of difference makes all the difference between just barely surviving or exploding.

[Gaarst]

8 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

I reworked that craft a little, and made it so it practically glides in for a landing and has less bouncing at touch down. Landed it safely and easily 3 out of 3 attempts. On top it also managed to get a slightly higher altitude the third attempt (205056m).

Nice little craft. (If this makes it to the board, credit to Gaarst, it's his design).

Retouched craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c50ohvkzjf452te/Banana.craft?dl=0

  Hide contents

No hands take-off

205056m reached

Glides beautifully

Zero damage, all souls accounted for

 

Intersesting, I reduced lifting and control surfaces to reduce drag to the minimum, but you did better than me by adding parts.

What other changes did you do, besides adding fins and possibly tweaking the gear (not sure, it looks like so on the screenshots) ?

Did you actually do anything to improve performance or just reached 205km after a few tries?

(Also the craft is basically the simplest layout I found to have 2 inline rapiers, I don't claim it as mine: you beat me, you deserve to be above me! )

5 hours ago, Magzimum said:

Yeah, I did the same. Take off, then aim the nose straight up and go. That shock cone exploded every time at around 1400 m/s, and a lot of other parts got super hot as well with their heat bars in the red.

Do you recall what your top speed was? My max. was 1430 m/s going straight up, but that was with the antenna-trick, which really helps. Any higher, and stuff still exploded.

I think @swjr-swis has the right answer.

From what I remember, I hit max heat around 15km while my speed continued increasing until over 20km and over 1500m/s (don't remember the exact figures).

Try using Rapiers instead of whiplashes and you should do better.

[Nefrums]

I made a quick try.   one ablative nosecone lost

228 335p?

http://imgur.com/a/TpXXX