Laythe StarEagle: SSTO Seaplane to Laythe

[gilflo]

After  a few weeks of research, i desgined an OPT SSTO Sea plane able to join Laythe and ditch in the sea. StarEagle will be carrying science stuff ad an OPT Lab, a reckon satellite to scan Laythe and draw maps, 6 big drills and a big Converter to mine for the return fuel, a Laythe explorer aircraft which will fly back to Kerbin with the SSTO Seaplane

Here is the monster

As you can see, the Laythe explorer Aircraft is stowed on the flight deck, while the Recon Satellite is in the cargo hold, with the science stuff, the converter and the drills.This aircraft will be launch from the flight deck on a sea run with StarEagle

2 decouplers, 1 on each docking port will free the aircraft when the speed reach 120m/s, lighting on its main engine and switching off EagleStar main engines. For the return flight, the Explorer aircraft will climb to orbit and dock on the Eaglestar deck.

4 J61 Ramjet Starwaster engines (2 at the front and 2 at the rear), running on LiquidFuel only, will thrust the 1031T EagleStar to orbit with the help of 4 MRS QuadNuke engines.

Here is the check list before take off that allowed me to discover a lot of small troubles before the real launch

Before take off check list

Laythe EagleStar

+4 J61 main engines ON

+Thrust set 100%

+Air intakes OPEN

+4 Quad MRS nuke engines OFF

+Thrust set 100%

+All fuel tanks open and balanced

Batteries and generators ON

Cockpit Vernors engines ON

Flight control 150%

Speedbrakes active

Cargo hold closed

Drills and Converter OFF

Ladders UP

Pilot assistant preset

       -Heading 090°

      -Pitch 35°

Mechjeb set for a climb to 619 kms

RCS for rotation ON

SAS ON

Laythe explorer

Deck stowed CHECK

RCS OFF

Main and Nuke engines OFF

Air intakes OPEN

Flight Controls locked and de-activated

Speedbrakes activel

All fuel tanks LOCKED

Ladders UP

Gear DOWN

Decouplers OFF

Reckon Satellite

Cargo Stow checked

RCS manually de activated

All fuel tanks LOCKED

Main engine OFF

In the hold

Take off and ditching will be manually flown. Climb to orbit with the help of Pilot Assistant and Mechjeb. no interest to keep a 090° heading with some pitch changes. Laythe EagleStar is balanced in the whole flight enveloppe from ground to orbit. atmospheric entry in cobra position.

 

 

[JadeOfMaar]

I've been waiting for this thread.  The decals really liven things up!

[gilflo]

Check List done and take off was successful

Rotation 152m/s

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increasing pitch to 35°

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We are airborne to orbit: 4 pilots, 3 scientists and 1 engineer

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4300m, nearly Mach 1

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Pitch 15° for acceleration

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It begins to be hot, slowly

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25000m,, pitch is at 15°, Nuke engines have just been switched on, we are at Mach 6

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38700m, main engines just shut off and air intakes closed, just a small trouble without consequences, Thrust is not at maximum for a short while

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45kms, apoapsis at 82

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View from the rear at 65700m

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Starting Circularization

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Establish at 610 kms,  DV left are not representative I do not know why, but in fact there's far much more for the nuke engines..

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Edited July 10, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

HD Vid of the flight

 

[JadeOfMaar]

@gilflo Great post(s). Great video.

If I may nitpick, I'd like to say some of us would much more enjoy the engine sounds and the physics sounds than the VAB music and the sound of parts being picked and attached.  

[gilflo]

I agree but i don't know why, the sound was not recorded., it's my mistake!

[gilflo]

NAVIGATION TO JOOL AND LAYTHE

The burn to Cool will be long, around 25mn, so i will have begin the burn 12 to 13 mn before the node and that means my circular orbit will be not long circular and when we will not really pass over the node  but somewhere around.

I use Protractor to determine the day of the burn, then Mechjeb node editor to help to get the best time to burn

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We start with 75% fuel left and I know that we will be so fast that aerobraking on Jool would be a disaster, as a direct navigation to aerobrake to lathe would be too!

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We will burn to intercept Jool and set Apoapsis to 22700 kms, Laythe being at 21700. Beginning Burn to Jool

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As stated, this long burn deviate us

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At the end I change from Node to Target, hoping it will help...I choose a 250 periapsis on Jool arrival. Cost of 22700 Apoapsis will be another 1042 DV for fuel

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Jool retroburn

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One tour around Jool and i can see that the speed at apoapsisi is around 1550 m/s, perfect for Laythe interception. I use again node editor to find the best way to intercept

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Now that we are on our way to the periapsis i choose a 43.5km periapsis, not to low in atmosphere as we are going to accelerate all the way down..

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Ready for lathe aerobraking

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At 45.5 kms, it's very hot and speed is still Mach 10!!

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Close up approching 43.5, still very hot, but the orbit is going to close, that's good!

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Woow..........Eaglestar is flipping .....we turn and turn, but it's ok , no burn, no braking

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Now we are establish on our orbit. We still need to burn to set apoapsis at 750 kms, point were we will release ou reckon satellite, then plan is to stabilize to a circular 70 kms orbit by aerobraking and burning.

Fuel left is 20%, i thing it's enough for atmospheric entry, flight near an Ore place and ditching..

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See you soon!

Edited July 12, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Reckon Sat launched

Opening the cargo doors near the periapsis at 750 kms. the goal is to be far enough for inclination change from equatorial to polar, it will be less expensive

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The satellite is out. I unlock fuel tanks and thrust is set to 100%

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Engine started to establish a 250 kms periapsis, better for scanning

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EagleStar aerobraking periapsis has been set to 60 kms to let him orbit while i scan...Starting inclination change

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Nearly completed

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Scanners out, solar panels deployed

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Biome scan completed, Perfect planetary overlay

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And now here is a problem with ore scan: while is it half done??? I don't understand this planetary overlay, green being great Ore concentration, white being no Ore. I tried all Scansat settings without success.....

Can somebody help??

Thank's

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[tseitsei89]

  On 7/13/2017 at 4:05 PM, gilflo said:

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And now here is a problem with ore scan: while is it half done??? I don't understand this planetary overlay, green being great Ore concentration, white being no Ore. I tried all Scansat settings without success.....

Can somebody help??

Thank's

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It scans one of those "strips" every orbit since your satellite is in polar orbit and uses NARROW BAND scanning. Each of those strips represents one orbit of your satellite where the NARROW BAND scanner scans one of thos NARROW BANDS directly below your satellite. And new strips appear in different places every orbit because the planet/moon underneath is rotating to a new position. After enough orbits you wont see the strips anymore since they overlap everywhere and you get a full coverage scan of the planet/moon.

[gilflo]

Thank's

That's what i have been hopping for, but it i did not happen, whatever is the number of passes done by the scanner. It looks like there's a bug, even with the last version of scansat mod i downloaded for ksp 1.2.2.

But i manage to dicover some places in the strips with enough Ore to mine and convert. so i should be able to go on...

[gilflo]

ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY AND DITCHING IN LAYTHE SEA

I eventually get a good scan for Ore mining and now we are preparing for Entry and ditching after some aerobraking passes. I determine 2 waypoints, one for mining, one for ditching.

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Eaglestar being south of those points, i let mechjeb calculate and begin nukes braking for Entry

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Once we are nearly aligned, i take over and brakes in retrograde myself. we can see the waypoints behind us.

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Eaglestar had difficulties to maintain retrograde, I realized I forgot to use SAS!! We will be too long, no matter!

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Heating is really not a factor

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I should really have selected prograde...I switched through Radial + to help braking, no a good idea!!

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Ramjet engines are lighted to begin a 180° turn to island

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We are so light that we need only 1/5 thrust to fly

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Turning left on final to ditch along shoreline

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Still nearly poor thrust

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Final at 940m, explorer standing on deck. Flying manually by wire with atmospheric autopilot

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245m, Trust 1/10, 95m/s, it flies very well

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Altitude 88m, null thrust

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ditching in a few seconds, speed 95, vertical speed 3.5 is perfect, no thrust

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In water! it slows very quickly, but to reach 0, you need to extend gears

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We did it! We join Laythe in one go and now we are ready to launch the Explorer plane..

Edited July 16, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Vid of atmospheric entry and ditching

 

To follow: launch of the explorer plane stowed on deck and landing of both aircrafts on the ore mining site

[gilflo]

Explorer launch from SSTO deck during sea run and flight to the mining site

4 StarEagle engines are at reduce thrust 50%

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Flight controls free and liquid fuel tanks open

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Around125 m/s, decouplers free both docking ports, 4 main engines are stopped, Explorer engine is at full thrust, SSTO speed brakes are out, if the run has been done speed brakes in. The run can also be done speed brakes out.

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If the pitch control is pulled, while the Explorer is being decoupled, it takes off immediately from the deck, but it can roll a while without problem before taking off. Pitch action is limited to 70% to avoid tail strike.

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Taking off from the deck

Pass over StarEagle, before heading to the mining site

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Landing

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The SSTO being very light (around 400T) , its gears supporting its take off weight (1031T) it can easily land on ground near the mining site.

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Taking off at reduce thrust, 50%

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Approach

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Final

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Landing

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You will see on the vid that we made a barrel for the fun with this big bird……launch more interesting than on the screens!!

 

[gilflo]

Adventure begins, we are flying the Explorer to test its range and discover this big island: Birds island
Start and take off

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Climbing quickly to 20000m to test the range

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Using  Fly by wire with atmospheric autopilot, atmosphere is thin here, wings are short and Explorer can stall quickly, but we have an overpowered engine which help a lot.

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19000m and mach>2, trying with 1/3 thrust

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Not satisfactory, we climb again

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Mach>3 around 28000m, 1/3 thrust it's much better

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Jool rising at 29000m

 

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31000m and Mach 4 Thrust less than 1/3, it's the best range. We see well the roundness of the planet

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Flying back to our landing site, we have burn a lot of fuel and it's really mandatory to climb as quick as possible to 310000m which is the best range altitude!! 

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in descent, Jool rising higher

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20000m  and 54 kms from landing

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Final 19 kms, vertical speed  100m/s 

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2500m, gear down at 6 kms from landing, high angle of descent

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Still high rate of descent, speed is stabilized, pitch and engine gimball are very effective for quick correction of descent rate

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Flare

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Landed

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Back to the "Tanker", the pilot is bringing the line for refuel

 

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Pluging the line on Explorer

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And filling the tanks

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Then we unplug and the line retracts itself to the Eaglestar

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And a small vid of the flight

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD4Xqb ... sHi3bLTQRQ

And a small vid of the flight

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Now first flight of the Eaglestar to its next refueling spot on Laythe
Refuelling before take off

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Eaglestar is also a "tanker" for Explorer. The explorer tanks contains only 5% of the Eaglestar Liquidfuel
6 big drillers in action

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Departing north, the thrust is blocked at 75%, Eaglestar being lighter because the satellite has been removed and Explorer is no more on the deck

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After take off we climb quickly at 310000m, the engines being the same as Explorer engine, we have seen it's the best range flying altitude

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 Flyby wire passing through 11000m

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We are heading to an Ore spot on the next island we can see on the horizon

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In fact, approaching the spot I realize that we have still half tank full and i decide to steer to the North Pole where Ore concentration is 7%. You can see on the pics that nuclear engine have been light on, which is not willingly, and i cut them off quickly

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A new waypoint is set and we turn on it. It's very long and difficult to turn at this speed and altitude. At 90 kms from point we begin descent, Jool facing us

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In very long final we hardly see the ground

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At 1é kms from touch down we begin to see the floe

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Altitude 700m, Jool is going down, blue...

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We are going to be too long for landing but as we are stabilized and there is flat ground long ahead of us we continue landing

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Nearly on ground...it's not floe, it looks like kind of toundra...

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Taxiing back to our waypoint. Ground is very flat, easy to land and taxi

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Drillers out

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After tanks are full, we get outside to plant a flag

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And here is the vid of the flight

 

Here is the plane , but be aware that you need 20 mods...

https://kerbalx.com/gilflo/Laythe-EagleStar

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Visiting Laythe
After the first flight to the Pole we made a chart and name the islands
6 groups of islands
    - 2 East: Solomon and Polynesia and 1 Westt: CAribean
    -1north: North Hebrides, 1 South: South Hébrides and 1 in center: Center Islands
there's also north and south pole not visible on pic

Red star is the ditching site and red arrow is the flight through north pole to Bone island

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The crew will test the range and the climb and cruise procedure which are important as the higher we climb, the shrinker is the flight enveloppe. We are limited by low speed and low mach to avoid stall and high speed to avoid overheating and leaving lathe atmosphere

Take off 140m/s

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Taking off heading North to cross the pole and and the heading will turn South after crossing
Pitch 45° as the OPT engines give much more thrust with great acceleration. 45° is a good compromise to reach quickly high atmosphere while still accelerating.

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Through 11000m, pitch is set to 30° to accelerate quickly through sound barrier

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Through 16000 pitch is 20°

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At 20000M pitch is 5° to avoid leaving atmosphere and lower vertical speed to capture gently causing altitude at 30 kms

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Passing North pole heading 84°, thrust 2/3
 

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heading 133°

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Less than 1  mn to be at heading 171, Thrust 1/3, 1100 kms from destination.  75% de carburant left . Mach 5.3 and1475m/s

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Slow climb to 33 kms altitude, 560 kms from landing

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At 156 kms, seeing bone island

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turning final

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final 110m/s, low thrust, ground is ascending and so do the vertical speed to avoid hard landing

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Short final 101m/s, thrust 1/15

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On ground

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Video is following soon

Edited September 4, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Bone Island - end and video

Planting flag

Refueling takes 65 dayss!!

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And the vid with the engine noise

 

Edited November 5, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Today we will test the Explorer range
We'll leave Bird island to Long island south 1122 kms to south west hoping we'll have not to ditch and maybe be able to join Bone island where eagleStar, full of liquid fuel can refuel us
Dark blue line on the ScanSat map. We 'll leave at night while it's day at  Long island and sun should rise if we arrive at Bone island. So it's a night take off but at more than mach 4 we will sea the sun rising in the west part !

Night take off, fly by wire mod, the aircraft being "touchy" with its short wings

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Heading to waypoint, we climb quickly to 15000m to accelerate

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At 23000m in Jool circle, it's heating begins

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Cruise at 35000m, Thrust 1/3, Mach >5 but it's going to decrease to 4.5. The J61 Ramjet engines stop between 38 and 39000m du to lack of air.

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Day rising 619 kms from  Long island at Mach 4.14

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250  from our waypoint kms over Alone, i think, 
Half tank left, it's much better than i thought and we should be able to make it to Bone island

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Long island South on the horizon. Cruise between 35 and 38000 is saving a lot of fuel!

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Vertical of Long island, Distance to Long island and altimeter are quite similar: we are just 36Kms above!!

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Bone island est is 505 kms in the 247, we are going to turn left which is costly in energy and time...

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We must increase thrust to keep minimum speed (at 60° bank the weight is twice the airplane weight). Look as mach is decreasing!

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Vertical Mount desert 35 kms altitude

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100 kms from destination, we begin descent with around 20% fuel

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Pass over EagleStar outbound

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just before turning final

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Final facing EagleStar

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Flare

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Landed, chutes out, very effective breaking

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Back to EagleStar

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Re arming chutes

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Pluging the fuel line
 

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Transfering fuel

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Well it's fantastic, we flew 1637 kms and got 20% fuel left on landing!!
Great job and we are exciting for the next flight!

Edited September 6, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

  Quote

New flight during our trip to Lathe.

It will be album sharing
On the map Explorer is the yellow track to Shoals islands , 450 kms flight, then landing and take off to North Long island 950 kms further. There's great ore concentration at the top.

Red track is EagleStar for a direct 1050 kms flight from Bone to North long island.

1st flight of Explorer, manual flight via FWB with atmospheric autopilot. Climb direct to cruise altitude 34-35 kms for this 13 mns flight
in cruise, thrust 1/3 and mach 4.5
https://imgur.com/a/RoXae

2nd flight 950 kms, Still 55% de Liquidfuel and as we are lighter cruise will be at 39000m, thrust 1/3, Mach 4.5 for this 21 mns flight
https://imgur.com/a/PF2QP

Then we launch EagleStar with the help of Pilot Assistant for climb to cruise at 37 kms and finish at 39 kms  . As it is very touchy in roll, during cruise, roll is manual and pitch is under control of Pilot Assistant.
21 ans flight between Mach 5 and 6 with thrust a little bit more than 1/3.
on the track flight over Eternity, then we leave on our left numerous small islands from Sorrow and Tears.
Arrival is quite difficult as it is dark and there's a lot of steep mountains around us. We need to perform many turns before finding the right place to land.
https://imgur.com/a/CRuzg
Then Explorer take off for a 14 kms flight to join the tanker. 
Refueling with the  fuel line,  then Ore mining and converting to fill the Eaglestar tanks

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Edited September 15, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Time to fly back home to Kerbin.
Explorer is going to leave North Pole where he discovered an anomaly to join Coral Lagoon island where he will meet Eaglestar for a final refueling before climb to Laythe orbit . Then there will be a docking rendez vous to stock Explorer on mothership .
Yellow track for Explorer and red track for Eaglestar, coral Lagoon being on the east side of the map.

Explorer flight to Coral Lagoon: IMGUR ALBUM NOT WORKING ON FORUM, SO THIS IS DIRECT LINK

https://imgur.com/a/Tbxre

EagleStar takes off from North Long Island where he had his last refueling , towards Coral lagoon

https://imgur.com/a/TRHNy

After refuelling, Explorer is ready for take off, after sunrise because both pilots have decided to have some fun in flight

They are going to perform some aerobatics to lower the weight of Explorer before climbing to orbit

here is the album with some screens, but the vid is much better!
https://imgur.com/a/i2uWR

Last Explorer flight to Laythe before the Rendezvous for orbital docking

https://imgur.com/a/Tbxre#4bgZWCH

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by gilflo

[gilflo]

Yesterday EagleStar made its way to Kerbin orbi. Calculation for a direct escape trajectory from Laythe to Kerbin was not easy, but we manage to get a escape way so that we approached Kerbin orbit with a reasonable speed and we were able to lower the speed and close the orbit without using to much liquid fuel
Mechjeb 2 node editor was a great help for calculations.....
Imgur album
https://imgur.com/a/jQPz3

Now we need some aerobraking turns to lower the orbit before re-entry

EagleStar landed this morning, runway 09 at 5:46 am and went to the apron in front of SPH, with the Explorer docked on his main deck
After some aerobraking turns, the sun was rising at Kerbin while apoapsis was 87 and periapsis lowering to 45 kms
Approaching periapsis the crew flew EagleStar on his back  and lighted on the 4 nuclear engines for a last retrograde burn...
Then he ride the nose 90° to sit on radial position for atmospheric re-entry . After aerobraking until 30000m, the crew lowered the nose to prograde to stabilize flight , then engaged fly by wire mode to take flight control .
approaching the runway they were distracted and let the speed lower to much, loosing flight control authority...but happily one crew decide to pull up 50% thrust and they avoided ground (you can see that on the vid) and landed safelywith 15 to 20% fuel left.

https://imgur.com/a/7gGFl

Video from orbit to landing: 3'50"

 

Edited November 21, 2017 by gilflo