Atmospheric Rescue Craft

[Vostok]

What happens when your astronauts crash on the planet, far from home? You go rescue them, that\'s what!

Not a competetive challenge per se, but props to someone who can rescue from any point on the planet!

A rescue counts as picking up the stranded crew, and returning them to the KSC.

Any methods allowed, planes, rockets, whatever you can think of.

Bonus points for stock parts only.

I\'d say this is more challenging than rescue from space, due to the atmosphere getting in the way, it means you need more planning and fuel efficiency. But let\'s see what the community\'s got!

[Vostok]

I\'ll start this off with a few pictures of my own medium range rescue craft.

The rescue target

The target\'s location. That tiny island (the smaller one) which I decided looked like a good place to land. When I landed, the wing broke off, and a rescue mission was organised. It was a shambles.

The first flight I took it on, I nailed the landing, but it landed into the craft that it was supposed to be rescuing. Nobody died, but now I have to rescue three kerbals instead of two. D:

The \'Rescue\'

The aircraft itself, flying a rescue rescue mission.

The rescue rescue mission landed without incident, and all the kerbals survived. However, when I switched craft to walk the kerbals to be rescued, their saviour aeroplane mysteriously vanished. Nothing is yet known about the mysterious disappearance of the rescue plane.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I\'ve got an SSTO that\'s theoretically capable of a double suborbital jump to any location on the planet (within reason, i.e. any reasonably long and flat piece of ground), but it has no space for extra crew (they\'d have to cling to ladders), and they\'d be scared pantsless by the way the thing flies.

I\'ll go do a few experimental missions and report what happens.

[Atimed]

The target\'s location. That tiny island (the smaller one) which I decided looked like a good place to land. When I landed, the wing broke off, and a rescue mission was organised. It was a shambles.

Nice craft i usually make a jet boat and go for a ocean intercept..

But daaam mate.. u collecting space junk or?

[Shadownailshot]

I have a small-medium range rescue craft, it\'s an amphibious car/boat. It has about a 130-150 km total range. That\'s from start of runway, out, and back to park at the KSC. It\'s a second version of a craft that had approximately a 80 km range. I had to send it out twice to rescue the guy I was trying to get in the first place, and then rescue the guys that went to rescue the original guy. I have not done a full range test. Does this craft need to be able to go anywhere on the planet and return to KSC?

[Vostok]

Nice craft i usually make a jet boat and go for a ocean intercept..

But daaam mate.. u collecting space junk or?

I\'m not collecting it, that\'s from all my launches that I\'ve done I\'ve never cared about cleaning up after myself. There are literally hundreds of parts floating around my persistence file. There\'s about sixty separate parts on a sun escape trajectory somewhere, because the game glitched and sent a whole ship into Nullspace, which then re-appeared in a sun escape trajectory half a day later with all the crew missing. It was pretty weird, to be honest.

Does this craft need to be able to go anywhere on the planet and return to KSC?

That should be the general idea.

Nothing I\'ve made can do that yet D:

[slackadacka]

I\'ve been on a SVTOL kick lately. So far they basically perform like clunky helicopters minus the true hover capability. 50-80m/s in level flight and landing speeds as low as 11m/s. The hardest part is the balancing issues. I\'m not sure what kind of range I can get out of these, and since some of the fuel tanks have been placed for balance, I\'m not sure how they will handle after those tanks run dry.

My stock SAR plane: Heavy on the controls but it can get around. Restricted to land operations. A flat ramp in the back for many Kerbals, although they do appear to affect performance based on how many and where they are on the ramp. Originally I had ladders back there but I can\'t seem to switch from controlling a Kerbal if he is holding onto a ladder, so I found if they lie down (jump against the wall and fall), they stay put. It can cruise with two sets of vertical engines and the pusher engines engaged.

Modded (with floats, skids, and empty crew pods, rest of plane is stock) seaplane SAR: This one is much lighter and more balanced than the stock. It can cruise with only the middle vertical engines and the pusher engines engaged, although it takes time to get around. Very decent low-speed handling when full of fuel. I\'m not sure how that will change once the forward tanks run dry. Capacity for six stranded Kerbonauts.

[Shadownailshot]

Has anyone been able to make a seaplane with stock parts? I landed a plane in the water (which is why i sent a rescue boat). Well... sort of. The only think left was the cockpit, the pilot, and two fueselage pieces, all floating in separate spots (except the pilot, who was obviously in the cockpit). If I could make a seaplane out of stock parts (I like the challenge of stock-only), then I could have a HUGE range. Much larger than 70 km out, 70 km back.

[SteevyT]

Here is my rescue plane. I\'m not sure what the range is, but it can hold seven Kerbals including the pilot.

[Vostok]

Here is my rescue plane. I\'m not sure what the range is, but it can hold seven Kerbals including the pilot.

I like your gear system, it likely works far better than mine. I had trouble getting a previous triplane version to lift off, I even put several disposable RATO systems in place for takeoff, since it couldn\'t get off the ground by itself. Then I had the problem of gear collapsing under the weight of the large fuel tank, but I like your \'one gear per engine\' approach, looks good

[SteevyT]

Turns out that sadly my convoluted fuel line scheme didn\'t drain fuel properly and caused the plane to become unstable.

[madmat]

Here\'s my rescue chopper, The rescue raft floats can be dropped from any height as it has radial mount chutes. The chopper is very stable to fly also. This game is too much fun.

[blueshirt21]

Are there craft files for any of these? They look amazing.

[nerdboy64]

I've got a long-ish range, fully-stock plane that could be converted for rescue missions. I'll see what I can do with it.

[Rasseru]

People should list your.....

Max Speed, Max Range, Max Height, Max Carry, and Max Lift with the rescue craft. I was wondering about that.

Water Rescue or on a island are done by a boats and choppers in real life. I think very few spacecraft rescues are done by planes.

Ground Rescue done by flat bed trucks.

US Air force had a idea for VTOL Rescue planes that was never passed the testing phase.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Rasseru

[CombatWombat]

This is my attempt at retrieving my polar expedition team.

If WW1 were fought with jet engines, this is how it would happen.

Arrival at the north pole.

Successful landing. Except the damn wheels sunk into the ground for no good reason.

Rescue?

Rescue!

Now boarding all Kerbal priority pass holders.

This seems like a perfectly logical place to camp out for a while...

Sadly,firing the rockets was necessary to break free from the broken ground hitbox. Which resulted in Rolin Kerman flying off the back.

Which turned out to be very beneficial for him.

Maybe next time....

[GenJeFT]

Here is my submission, its not done yet.

The plane will be finished by video 2. Rescue of Bill will be video 3.

Edit: Parts 2 and 3 of the video.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?index=1&list=UUUVXdCqA1UopPMRZ1ehQLpQ&hl=en_US" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=UUUVXdCqA1UopPMRZ1ehQLpQ&hl=en_US" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I have pictures as well but I am not sure how to add in the pictures with the new setup.

Edited August 28, 2012 by GenJeFT

[fsjcc1]

This should be easily achievable now with the invention of

planes and lots of patience. Edited October 10, 2012 by fsjcc1

[RC1062]

@GenJeFT: Those the videos you intended?

Or is mine playing up. I've got two MC videos...

[toxictalon74]

got a massive plane that i think i can convert for rescue missions mainly cause of its MASSIVE range and reasonable speed

craft file is here as well see what you can do with it

[The Destroyer]

@GenJeFT: Those the videos you intended?

Or is mine playing up. I've got two MC videos...

Same videos too

[RedDwarfIV]

I've got one that takes off easily, flies very well, and has a crewtank for 5 Kerbals. It's a little tail-heavy, but at high thrust that doesn't matter. The landing gear kept playing up but I eventually fixed that.

Going to test it this evening.