Strato launch - WIP

[kerbinoid]

So after watching a vid where a rocket is launched from a plane, I decided to have a go. I present the 'Well that\'s one way to do it' version 1. She flies surprisingly well, climbs to 14000m with ease. Separation is a bit hairy, so I let mech jebs ascent auto pilot take over after that.

The way the struts are placed causes that wings to fold up after sep, but with a bit of fine tuning and an extra mech jeb it might be possible to land the plane portion of the vehicle after rocket sep.

thoughts?

[wildkittyv1]

Good stuff, simple often works and I used a similar design on a glider of mine but just had the detachment points on the side of the rocket rather than a wing on top. I took the same design and turned it on its side as a vertical delivery vehicle for a shuttle that can reach orbit using none of the fuel in its fuselage.

Anyway, as far as ideas are concerned on improvement, I\'ll toss a few things out for ya.

Firstly, to get rid of that landing gear that looks like a hemorrhage on the nose of your rocket, use the same decoupler hard points (or pylons, I forget which ones detach) underneath the engines and the rocket to keep it symmetrical. It\'s going to give you more ground clearance, but it shouldn\'t destabilize you. Group the ones on the jets to detach after the wings so it all falls away as one piece; put the hard point for the rocket 'gear' in the group with the wing decoupling.

As far as making the separation of the wings smoother, I\'m not sure exactly what you mean. If you mean the wings are running into you, then just pitch up a bit if you\'re still in the atmosphere. The wings should pull back safely from the rocket after separation if you\'re pointed near vertically. If you\'re still in the atmosphere while separating and losing control, consider throwing some of the small control winglets onto the rocket. You can move the jets out a bit to make room for them and that will serve dual-purpose as a wider wheelbase if you use the hard points beneath the jets/rocket since you will be taller.

You can also make the entire delivery vehicle wider and throw a second stage onto it. Put some of the medium LFE\'s on there with small fuel tanks and have them activate after the jets begin to lose their power. You can mess around with staging, different kinds of rockets and engines, and fuel flow with fuel lines and activate/deactivating flow on tanks to get different mixes of power and duration.

Good initial concept, you have the right idea. There\'s tons of ways you can go with it and get yourself away from using mechjeb since it seems like a last resort kind of thing for ya.

[Asmosdeus]

Who was the person who made the video? I\'d like to see it

Very nice rocket! Stratolaunches aren\'t the hardest things to build, it\'s piloting that\'s the problem.

Well done stack stratolaunch!

[kerbinoid]

[Asmosdeus]

Oh I thought you meant a kerbal video

There\'s a few out there. I\'ve got one if you\'re interested