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Kerbodyne Spaceplane drags: Round 1

Wanderfound
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Wanderfound

Wanderfound

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This is a dead simple challenge:

* Build an SSTO spaceplane. Must be purely RAPIER powered, although you can use as many or as few as you want. Must be a winged, HOTOL conventional spaceplane.

* Take off from KSC runway, get to an orbit of at least 70x70, return to KSC runway. Simple.

* No parachutes or other against-the-spirit trickery. Fly to space on wings, establish an orbit, fly back to KSC as fast you can. Wheaton's law applies; if in doubt, ask.

* No mod parts, no performance-altering mods (except for optionally FAR). Informational mods are fine, but fly it yourself; no Smart A.S.S. or other autopilots.

* Separate leaderboards for stock aero and FAR.

* Prove your time with a screenshot showing you in orbit and another showing you stopped on the KSC runway. Extra shots detailing the whole flight are welcome.

* Post your craft file as well.

* Fly in the morning if you want a well-illuminated ship.

 

 

Demo Run

zzdKIUN.png

 

nA7SZPJ.png

 

0mZ9kRs.png

 

hurjo82.png

 

QuJAUgT.png

 

PbLeGBO.png

 

08JjdBt.png

Orbital return time of 20:07.

I know that I can do better than that. Can you?

 

Full album at http://imgur.com/gallery/yGcVO

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/wt8jqrlps5kjbir/Kerbodragster.craft?dl=0

 

 

LEADERBOARD

STOCK

Obi_Juan, 11:09

Nefrums, 11:17

Wanderfound, 16:57

NightshineRecorallis, 19:17

 

FAR

Edited by Wanderfound
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Wanderfound

Wanderfound

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20 hours ago, Triop said:

Ok, I had to read this a couple of times before I understood.

-build ssto

-get orbit.

-brake and return, don't go all around.

Did I get it right ?

It's new, I will give this a try.

Yup. Get up, circularise, get back down. You can go around an orbit if you want, but that'll give you a very slow time.

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Wanderfound

Wanderfound

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44 minutes ago, obi_juan said:

I need to ask. Interstellar Fuel Switch?

Shouldn't be needed; RAPIERs draw evenly from all tanks.

10 hours ago, NightshineRecorralis said:

Why the rule regarding rapiers? Is there something I'm missing about jets?

Wanted to make sure it was a jetplane race rather than a contest of winged rockets.

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obi_juan

obi_juan

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3 hours ago, Wanderfound said:

Shouldn't be needed; RAPIERs draw evenly from all tanks.

Several of my SSTO that I made with mk2 parts I used Interstellar Fuel Switch to have only fuel in the adapter parts, or mix all the oxidizer in one tank to prevent moving of the center of gravity of the plane wen its flying. 

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Wanderfound

Wanderfound

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2 minutes ago, obi_juan said:

Several of my SSTO that I made with mk2 parts I used Interstellar Fuel Switch to have only fuel in the adapter parts, or mix all the oxidizer in one tank to prevent moving of the center of gravity of the plane wen its flying. 

Use it if you must, but there'll be an asterisk on the leaderboard noting it.

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Triop

Triop

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17 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

Question:  I understand the SSTO part, but does the craft need to survive completely intact after landing, or are crash-landings accepted?

Taxpayers money, get back in one piece. :lol:

Not up to me, but I like a clean shave.

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Wanderfound

Wanderfound

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6 hours ago, zolotiyeruki said:

Question:  I understand the SSTO part, but does the craft need to survive completely intact after landing, or are crash-landings accepted?

If it's on the runway and the pilots are alive I'll take it, but again: asterisk on the leaderboard noting the messy landing. And it needs to be an attempt at a good conventional landing; no deliberate crashes. This ain't the egg-drop challenge.

A clean fast landing isn't too hard; you can keep it supersonic until very close to the runway if you use some sharp S-turns to wash off speed just prior to landing.

Edited by Wanderfound
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obi_juan

obi_juan

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Ok... This was difficult...

In the past two days I tried with all these SSTO... 

TtUqvOm.png

As you can see I tried with light planes  an heavy planes... All these archive the orbit without problems and almost all the heavy ones had more than 1000m/s delta-v after archiving it... But the problem is ... the velocity of the spaceship is around 2400m/s so when I wanted to came back i need to descent with a velocity of 1400-1600m/s going far away to the KSC...

Also, I archive orbit but... almost all my designs need around 8-10 minutes to archive It, at that time I am a distance from KSC of 1/3 of Kerbin circumference, when the plane is already coming back I need to fly half of the kerbin circumference, several of my planes spend all its fuel before to come back to KSC. and the most heavy of them with enough fuel to come back in a high altitude-velocity flight (20000m-1400m/s) take double of the time to archive orbit, so I came back at 30 min... With that time is better to complete  and orbit. 

So I think that I only can make lower than 15 min if I increase the rate of climb of the planes. that are the small planes in the picture. 

Few of the planes there I use Interstellar Fuel Switch to change the ratio between fuel and Oxidizer... Not in the last model, Drone SSTO mk7

zlbigU6.png

The complete travel here: http://imgur.com/a/Gj3Hu

Oh, here is my ship, Im sure that better pilot than me can make the travel in lees time... https://www.dropbox.com/s/jlvkd0pd417gun8/Drone SSTO mk7.craft?dl=0

Also, everything is stock... Drone SSTO mk7 uses 13:36 to made it.

START NEW ENTRANCE:

This afternoon I decide to make a new plane around 30tn... So I will present you "Drone SSTO mk8" 

FEyszsi.png

Ok with this plane I made lower time than @Nefrums for few seconds... 11:09.

What do I think? My plane and the Nefrums' plane have the same performance, we can archive lower times improving our piloting skills, but only few seconds... Think that we can archive a time around 10:45  making a perfect fly.

The complete voyage.

http://imgur.com/a/VOi5w

At landing, the inner elevons and outer  elevons take different  deflections, with that I reduce the landing velocity to 40m/s, to avoid problems.

The plane: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yrss8cf0j096ly0/Drone SSTO mk8.craft?dl=0

 

Edited by obi_juan
I forgot the link for the ship... New plane
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obi_juan

obi_juan

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so... almost the same time. 11:13

9bqp9NB.png

Is a little more heavy but I include more fuel, a linear RCS port to reduce the overheating, but the difficult task is reduce the altitude in only 40km to don't reduce the velocity prior landing...

When I do it correctly I am at 250m of altitude moving at 534m/s, press the bottom "1" and reduce the velocity in less than 5 seconds to 70m/s

 

The model: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8gtq1ft4w1ss2/Kerbal SSTO mk8a.craft?dl=0 

Edited by obi_juan
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