Weekly Aircraft Development Competition

[MiffedStarfish]

@telomce can you upload picture of your craft, please? 

Only one more day to enter, then there's the poll and proving mission!

[Servo]

This is a really cool idea for a thread! I couldn't help but enter.

C-120 Meridian

The C-120 is a medium-range light transport capable of airdropping cargoes a third of the way around Kerbin. It's smaller range is more than made up for by its performance. It is an extremely stable craft, capable of taking time warp without flinching, and is maneuverable for a craft of its size. Additionally, it beats the STOL requirements by a third. It is capable of taking off well ahead of the third stripe set by the contest, and lands in less than 300m, without requiring reversed thrust. It can take a lot of punishment while protecting the cargo (I landed after losing a wing and boom without damaging the payload), and it's significantly lighter than required, clocking in at under 60 tons.

The C-120 comes in two versions, civilian and militarized. The civilian one can range 25% of the way around Kerbin, is 10 tons lighter, and carries no weapons. The militarized one features two fighter-grade long-range air-to-air missiles, each capable of killing would-be attackers at beyond visual range (10km), in addition to more fuel and longer range.

Civilian Version (no weapons, smaller range, lighter)

https://kerbalx.com/servo/C-120-Meridian

Submitted version (hardpoints, longer range, slightly heavier)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4G9qXXCsTUqN3J2eEQyemdLUW8/view?usp=sharing

[MiffedStarfish]

@Servo Great looking plane! That'll definitely be a hard one to beat. Really good idea with the gear to create a rail for airdropping, I'll have to try that on a plane at some point. The weapons look like they're at the wrong angle on the rover though, why is that?

Edited June 7, 2017 by MiffedStarfish

[telomce]

Here's my entry. Introducing:

FAR Marcus

I decided to do a mission with an ore tank, since the rover won't work on my version.

It carries 6 pilots, 16 troopers, and 15,5 tons payload.

It's fully stock, but I tested it with Ferram Aerospace.

The drill is suppposed to be a gun, it looks kinda similar.

 

Link to craft - https://kerbalx.com/telomce/Marcus

Edited June 7, 2017 by telomce

[NotAnAimbot]

5 hours ago, MiffedStarfish said:

The weapons look like they're at the wrong angle on the rover though, why is that?

Probably since the normal position hits the roof when the parachute is deployed. I was also using a platform launch system (although without landing gear. I-beams are placed beneath 2x2 plates, and their 80 m/s tolerance is usually enough to survive the slide ) to aidrop the thing, but the missiles destroyed themselves on the roof when the vehicle got out, which is why I switched to vertical dropping.

Also updated the C-2. Vehicles aren't included, but they can be driven inside it after it spawns. One is clamped by the claw and the other rolls freely inside. It also has 2 small bombs (Hardpoints which I forgot) and even more fuel, with an autonomy of about 2 hours on cruise settings.

It does have some weird bug that also affected the F-6 that some parts fall off for no reason on launch, but reloading or enabling unbreakable joints at launch and then disabling it fix the problem.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qi59b2ejfefs6lw/C-2 Albatros.craft?dl=0

Edited June 7, 2017 by NotAnAimbot

[MiffedStarfish]

9 hours ago, telomce said:

Here's my entry. Introducing:

FAR Marcus

I decided to do a mission with an ore tank, since the rover won't work on my version.

It carries 6 pilots, 16 troopers, and 15,5 tons payload.

It's fully stock, but I tested it with Ferram Aerospace.

The drill is suppposed to be a gun, it looks kinda similar.

 

Link to craft - https://kerbalx.com/telomce/Marcus

Did you try the fix I mentioned?

[MiffedStarfish]

The deadline is over for the entries, and I have made a strawpoll to vote for the best craft! (Please don't vote for your own craft) 

StrawPoll

I have also set up a save file for you to prove that your craft can do what it's meant to do, your "mission briefing" is below:

"Alright listen up. Yesterday, a hostile plane made a strafing run on a GUA-1 unit guarding the Inland KSC, bursting one of its wheels. By launching both its anti air missiles, the GUA-1 was able to down the plane, but now lies immobile, with no further defense against enemy attacks. Your mission is simple, using your new military transport, you are to fly out a new GUA-1 to the Inland KSC, repair the damaged unit's wheel and fly it back to the KSC for repairs and re-armament.

 Save File

[Skylon]

@MiffedStarfish why not add everyone's craft to the save file? This would let us try out everyone else's craft to see how they perform.

Here's the craft file for mine: https://kerbalx.com/Skylon/SMU-1

[MiffedStarfish]

Good idea, but I can't right now, as I'm away from my computer.

[Servo]

9 hours ago, MiffedStarfish said:

@Servo Great looking plane! That'll definitely be a hard one to beat. Really good idea with the gear to create a rail for airdropping, I'll have to try that on a plane at some point. The weapons look like they're at the wrong angle on the rover though, why is that?

 

4 hours ago, NotAnAimbot said:

Probably since the normal position hits the roof when the parachute is deployed. I was also using a platform launch system (although without landing gear. I-beams are placed beneath 2x2 plates, and their 80 m/s tolerance is usually enough to survive the slide ) to aidrop the thing, but the missiles destroyed themselves on the roof when the vehicle got out, which is why I switched to vertical dropping.

Yep, it wouldn't fit cleanly through the door with the missiles in the upright position. However, I have since edited the design (moved the launch rails, changed the drop profile) to make it able to drop cleanly. The trick to getting it to drop is to slow down almost to the point of stalling (use flaps), then pitch up slightly and let it roll out. With flaps extended, the C-120 can slow down to under 40m/s for short drops, and can fly easily at 50m/s, allowing extremely precise targeting of the payloads.

 

I also did an all-up test of the design, and it exceeded my expectations. In the fully loaded (80 tons) version, it has more than enough range to make it to Baikerbanur and return, which I will do as part of the craft proving stage.

Quick question: Am I allowed to edit in craft so that I don't have to fly the leg out to KSC 2 a second time? I already have video of that leg proving that it's legit.

[MiffedStarfish]

Yeah, if you link me video, I didn't see it. 

[Guest]

Won't have access to my computer until Friday. Is that ok?

[NotAnAimbot]

Do we have to send a video or pics for the mission?

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, NotAnAimbot said:

Do we have to send a video or pics for the mission?

Video, I think.

[MiffedStarfish]

Pics are fine. And Fridays fine.

[telomce]

14 hours ago, MiffedStarfish said:

Did you try the fix I mentioned?

No, I think I missed that post somehow. I'll do the proper mission today then.

By the way, the Marcus can (and usually does) land vertically thanks to the struts on the nose.

Edited June 8, 2017 by telomce

[telomce]

Uhh. There appears to be nothing in the save. No flights. There's also a directory with no name in the zip. It contains nothing.

I think I'll just move the refueling depot to the inland KSC with Vessel Mover.

 

Edited June 8, 2017 by telomce

[MiffedStarfish]

6 hours ago, telomce said:

Uhh. There appears to be nothing in the save. No flights. There's also a directory with no name in the zip. It contains nothing.

I think I'll just move the refueling depot to the inland KSC with Vessel Mover.

 

You've basically encountered the same problem as you did with the rover craft file. Open up the folder called "persistent.sfs" and change the first line to the version you are using.

[NotAnAimbot]

My attempt is coming. It's a massive 144 Mb album of over 117 images, so it'll take a while.

[Servo]

This is the (mostly) unedited footage of my submission/proving flight. It's sped up 40 times (160 times if you count time warp) to make the video a reasonable length, plus there was a little bit of VesselMover used. The only use was in editing a 'damaged' GUA-1 (I couldn't pop the tire in the VAB/testing. They're tough) over to KSC-2, where it was loaded and flown back. Rest assured, I brought an engineer and a ladder, so I could have repaired a popped tire, so that's still legit. As it turned out, the C-120 had about a third of its fuel left, even after the three-hour round trip. If I use economy mode (four wheesleys instead of six), I bet I could haul something all the way around Kerbin.

[NotAnAimbot]

Since imgur image sorting is too much of a pain,here's the entirety of the screenshots taken. I'm including some worthwhile pictures in this post since I can't provide a description for all of them. 

Pic of the two rovers in the cargo bay

Physics range extender bug. When switching vessels over a long distance, PRE tends to make vehicles spazzy, this time resulting in damaging a rover and clipping its wheel through the C-2. Luckily it's extracted a few pics later. PRE also causes the missiles on the second rover to be destroyed when I switched from the C-2 to Bob to go repair wheels.

Final gather-up pic and F3 screen. The time shown is 13 seconds since the kerbals just went on EVA.

The pictures in the zip file are all in order. The first set shows the trip to KSC2 and back, while the second set of pics near KSC show how, had the PRE bug not happened, the C-2 would have been able to airdrop the rovers without any damage, since I didn't want to do another three hour trip. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nnz2a3vc7ceil5u/screen.zip?dl=0

 

[Skylon]

Can we offload the rover after landing? So no airdrop?

[MiffedStarfish]

@Servo Looks good, you passed with flying colours! 

@NotAnAimbot I can't look right now, I'm on my IOS tablet ( grrr) but that looks good as well.

@Skylon If you want, but you need some pictures or a video of your plane airdropping the rover separately then.

[Botanist Jeff]

Missed the deadline. :-(

I had an awesome bomber.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Botanist Jeff

[MiffedStarfish]

@Botanist Jeff You can still post it here if want, but the bomber competition is over, sorry. 

Edit: also, welcome to the forums! 

Edited June 9, 2017 by MiffedStarfish