18 km highaltitude low tech juno engine plane for those pesky contracts ( ferram / FAR )

[cdm86]

First post. Be gentle. 

craft file here

MODs FAR (dev build as of 30th Jan 2017 version file lists it as 0.16.0.0)
Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.2

max altitude 18.6km

Part Count 29
Length 11m
Width 19.5m
Height 3.7m
Mass 4.395t
Cost 13,515

Will require runway level 2 to launch

Not pretty but uses low tech to get to above 18 km alt. to complete those pesky "above xxx" altitude contracts. 
Be sure to add the right science part as 30th part to be able to do the contract.

During take off you can throttle all the way up, but should throttle down once the plane gets shaky after having gained some speed. Just continue the ascent at lower throttle till ~8 km alt at which point you can throttle up again.
It may start shaking again once you've picked up more speed, just throttle down a little again and wait to ascend to thinner air again before throttling up again.
Around 15-16 km alt. the plane will start pitching down, deploy flaps to (1) and it will continue ascending to around 18.4 km alt. where the engines will be suffocated.
It will continue to coast upwards on speed till about 18.6 km alt.

I guess you could:
- turn on RCS at some point to gain extra speed

edit: noticed thusters are further up in the tech tree.

(probably have to readjust CoM / Col / CoT for the next two)
- take out some fuel to make the plane lighter 
- remove/replace the middle sience jr. 

and go slightly higher ... but oh well.

Was looking for something like this. Didn't find it. Made it.

"Low tech" being nothing above Basic Science and Aviation. I guess I really should have left the science jr. out...

Edited February 1, 2017 by cdm86
realized mistakes with thruster tech

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Welcome to the forums!

That looks very useful, it's hard to complete those contracts.

[AeroGav]

Well done.   FAR craft are not easy to make.

I have a Kessna that can supercruise on 4 Junos in stock aerodynamics,  in a zoom climb it can get over 18km which enables you to get upper atmosphere science,  but some of these survey contracts want you over 19km, which is too much.

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Kessna-472

It's prone to breaking the canards off on the basic runway, i'd set them low so the pilot can use them as an access ramp, but i think that was a mistake. 

[cdm86]

...well I was still motivated and thought I could do better.

craft file here

28 parts now, removed science jr and tweaked everything a little

I realized when I actually tried using my previous plane in a career game that one science part and no antenna really isn't all that efficient, but with an antenna and a science part or two science parts its possible to do 3 or more contracts per flight.

It also goes much faster at altitude now and a zoom climb now makes sense.

 

Edit:

After flying it for a bit longer I realized that the plane is very difficult to land. While reexamining it again I noticed I had pitched the tail down instead of up as I had intended ( which explains many tail explosions ). I also realized I had left the engines more or less untouched in the configuration I had use on the previous plane. Now on that plane I had tried to keep adjustments as simple as possible and only did 5 deg increment changes (shift rotate with angle snap) which had brought me to a config in which the engines themselves were slightly angled. Now that the plane goes faster it would be good to straighten them out in regards to the pitch the plane holds when flying at altitude to gain speed.

I guess this means a version 3 which may go still higher might be made over the weekend.

Edited February 3, 2017 by cdm86
added info