Highest Altitude Achieved - Jet Engines Only

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, Gaarst said:

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?

I did a few things, mainly to improve the survivability and then to improve performance a bit:

• Added two pairs of the smallest elevons, front and back - increased lift for the landing, and more effective pitch authority. This made the biggest difference in survivability.
• Changed the two existing elevons on the wings to only act for roll. Their arm was too short to be of much effect for pitch, so at full deflection they were causing a lot of drag for hardly any pitch authority, especially when at speed - decreased drag.
• Angled the front set of wing sections by 2 degrees up - increased angle of incidence permits the body to stay closer to prograde, decreasing drag (Mk2 parts do add body lift, but at the expense of a good bit of drag, so it still pays to minimize angle of attack).
• Widened the rear landing gear - increased stability at touch down.
• Increased the damper on all gear by .15 - reduce the bouncing at touch down.
• Corrected the angle of all gear to be exactly 0 degrees horizontally (the editor still places the LY-10 at 5 degrees up angle when you 'zero' it, even in absolute mode) - reduces drag.
• Re-angled the rudder to be at 0 degrees and offset it lower - more or less same visual effect your design went for, but at 0 angle it removes the sneak pitch and reduces roll when yawing.

 

28 minutes ago, Nefrums said:

I made a quick try.   one ablative nosecone lost

228 335p?

I wondered how long it'd take for you to show up.

[Kerbal101]

Jeb and Val take off the plane, fly up like a rocket - and land it like an UFO..

http://imgur.com/a/XgwlE

Lets see.. 8x rapiers + 2x "4to1adapters"  + 2x "2x1adapters" + 1 elevon = 13 parts x 15 = -195 points

Highest orbit: 122,907 - 195 = 122,712

All Stock, using only KER and Docking Port Alignment Indicator. =)

[TheEpicSquared]

@Kerbal101 Sorry, you didn't make it onto the leaderboard . Feel free to submit an entry again, you're not limited to 1!

[Kerbal101]

So finally I designed a craft I like. I called it Strangelove, because its really strange to fly.

There are two favors of it:

Bspec - which has angled wings and thus takes of automatically, and lands much easier; but the very same angled wings cause small drag, that prevents it take highest altitude. 161,000 typical with full fuel.

Cspec - which has linear wings, and quite opposite behavior. It takes skill to take off and land, but as for the score - 164,000 are typical with full fuel.

Both models survive any amount of heat thanks to shielding.

 

I am using a Cspec model for the ladder, because other members have been trying to land on two gears or had a lot of difficulty deorbiting.

My result: 163,349. No damaged parts (had to retry landing 6-7 times, until I learned how).

Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/bSBnl

To download craft, see two links above.

 

Edited October 1, 2016 by Kerbal101

[Kerbal101]

reserved.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Kerbal101

[Kerbal101]

@TheEpicSquared  Hello, can I talk with you about engine amount ?
First question - my record aircraft already broke rule number 4 (4. MAXIMUM 15 ENGINES) by having 16, which I only noticed now.    If I am not mistaken, only me and @Nefrums used high engine count. I can fairly easy redo the record using 15 engine config.

Second question - my currently developed MK3-size craft tries to pull the nails with.... 25 engines. Anything around "Large SSTO (with kerbal passengers)", needs at least 20+ engines to get a fair pull ratio. Is there a chance for the engine limit to be removed?   Because currently I hold the record of maximum amount of kerbals taken into orbit - in this challenge. A whopping - two  

Thanks!

[TheEpicSquared]

I changed the engine limit to a whopping 30 engines. For those ridiculously large SSTOs that I could never hope to build in my life  

[swjr-swis]

Ok, an entry fully my own, the AltJet-0g:

• 15 engines (the old max. 14x RAPIERs, 1 Juno for the alternator)
• 232627m altitude reached - 232627 points
• 2 pilots and 4 passengers - 40 points
• All kerbals survived - no deduction
• All parts survived - no deduction
• Total: 232667 points

Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/swjr-swis/AltJet-0g

Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/Ww8rt

Spoiler

 

[Kerbal101]

@swjr-swis Hey there! How do you manage to solve the heat issue? I can't open your craft here, because 1.2pre is only available on Steam.

To get such high apoapsis one needs to push through the 16,000 with higher speed than 1400m/s. In my test, no nose cone survived this - except the shielded intake blocks (which work fine even with 1600m/s+).

[Kerbal101]

4 hours ago, TheEpicSquared said:

I changed the engine limit to a whopping 30 engines. For those ridiculously large SSTOs that I could never hope to build in my life  

Its not that ridiculously large. I like the ridiculousness, but those freaking Large Delta Wings happen just to rip off from fuselage when doing regular ascend : /

[swjr-swis]

4 minutes ago, Kerbal101 said:

Hey there! How do you manage to solve the heat issue? I can't open your craft here, because 1.2pre is only available on Steam.

To get such high apoapsis one needs to push through the 16,000 with higher speed than 1400m/s. In my test, no nose cone survived this - except the shielded intake blocks (which work fine even with 1600m/s+).

You can get 1.2pre from the KSp store as well, not just Steam:

On 9/14/2016 at 1:25 AM, Badie said:

This ‘pre-release’ test build is for everyone to have a go before we officially released the update and you’ll be able to opt-in to get the Pre-release builds via the Steam betas, or, for the first time ever, through the KSP Store.

The aero physics in 1.2pre have been altered a bit. I haven't seen details, but one comment from Squad said something about pointy things having less drag and blunt things getting more.

 

[Kerbal101]

Just now, swjr-swis said:

You can get 1.2pre from the KSp store as well, not just Steam:

 

The aero physics in 1.2pre have been altered a bit. I haven't seen details, but one comment from Squad said something about pointy things having less drag and blunt things getting more.

 

Well, GOG is neither of two, because its still prerelease.

Thanks for response! Good to know. Well, I am under 1.1.3 here. I wonder how this thing influences the whole. Does this mean I am actually number 1 under 1.1.3-ers?

[Gaarst]

I have a thing able to hit 225km on 5 engines. 8 more km and I take back the 1st place!  

Edited October 1, 2016 by Gaarst

[Kerbal101]

Yes, apparently this is the maximum possible TWR in 1.1.3.
Any more m/s and the nose cones overheat. Any less TWR, and the engines go past 27km zone before reaching full potential.

I use shielding to protect against heat, but that causes drag, which is compensated with more TWR. And yet still my vehicle is the only one having 50% of fuel left after climb.
Having quite a lot of ideas for improving the Strangelove, I have no idea where this extra heat tolerance for unshielded climb on upper rankings is coming from. :/

Edit: I measured 210km (209,367 to be exact) to be maximum possible in 1.1.3. This is using 4x engines with shielding and lowest weight components, 15% of fuel left - on a not-really-a-plane with ideal start.
Without shielding - is impossible. Even shield heats to 90% near end of it. Ofc, adding more engines will help boost the un-shared weight, but thats less than 300kg...
Using 30 engines to help propel 300 kg...? Thats "special" area, which includes "landing on one wheel after 100 retries"-area. Also I think @TheEpicSquared explicitly wanted these to be attached to large SSTO only.

So, to sum up:
1) Version has to be specified or differentiated
2) Engine count has to be limited with class/fuselage size (30 engines for 300kg payload dilemma)
3) I think "plane completeness" must be specified, are "landing on one wheel & co" planes allowed. Any extra wheel - is a shared mass.
4) Clipping issue, how much is allowed / what not, what yes (clipping leads to drag reduction), mainly because of this.

Edited October 2, 2016 by Kerbal101

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

2 hours ago, Kerbal101 said:

@swjr-swis Hey there! How do you manage to solve the heat issue? I can't open your craft here, because 1.2pre is only available on Steam.

I've got 1.2pre. No Steam here.

[Kerbal101]

I think this is worth mentioning and explains why shielded ports are extremely heat resistant, especially when used - like I used them, but - intuitively.

But it still makes no sense of "bluntness" argument, because I also tried different forms of fairing - nothing blocks heat like shielded docking port. In 1.1.3, at least.

[Kerbal101]

@Claw seem to have confirmed that upcoming 1.2 will have a different aerodynamics for ascend: https://www.twitch.tv/ksptv/v/92108561  around 4:00

[DarkOwl57]

This looks cool..... I'll have to try this soon.

[DarkOwl57]

On 9/26/2016 at 0:14 PM, TheEpicSquared said:

8. 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.

 

Do you need to land at the runway, or just anywhere?

[W. Kerman]

Do you need wings?

[foamyesque]

I've hit the RAPIER speed cap (~1700m/s), but I can't find a flight profile that gets me much beyond 180km

[TheEpicSquared]

@DarkOwl57 You can land anywhere.

@W. Kerman You don't have to use wings, but I think it would be hard to land without wings or chutes. However, if you can pull off a SpaceX style vertical landing, that's entirely up to you.  

[foamyesque]

Alrighty, 212km with 16 kerbals, no damage. Personally I think the scoring doesn't give much of a reward for carting more Kerbs up, but hey.

Not sure if I can pull more out of it with a different flight path or not; thermal issues aren't a concern, it's mostly the narrow window in which to accelerate. The faster I go low down the more energy I bleed in the turn if it's to be made in time.

 

F3 stats

 

Leaving the runway

Max vertical speed

Approximate max height

Lookit those wings bend!

On the ground

Edited October 18, 2016 by foamyesque

[swjr-swis]

2 hours ago, foamyesque said:

I've hit the RAPIER speed cap (~1700m/s), but I can't find a flight profile that gets me much beyond 180km

Depending the craft and its heat tolerance, 60-90 degrees (iow almost straight up) from as early after take-off as possible should get you to 220+ km.

You won't be able to get enough altitude if you try to first get maximum horizontal speed: from the 18-21km layer where the RAPIER can reach this, it chokes too fast when you decide to pitch up, and the air is nowhere near dense enough to transfer horizontal to vertical speed in a tight turn.

[TheEpicSquared]

@foamyesque I'll add you to the leaderboard as soon as I get out of class.

Edited October 18, 2016 by TheEpicSquared
Autocorrect