Min jet test C - a experimental test design [0.16 + MechJeb]

[r_rolo1]

Ok, I was experimenting with jet engines ( for a hybrid 1st stage for when we have other planets to come ) and I tumbled with this design by acident ( was trying to cope with the weak big decoupler by putting the engines in top of it and trying some ways to minimize fuel lines ( obviously that part still needs refinement ... ) )

And, to my surprise, this quite minimal ship was enough to go to the moon and back ... so I decided to redo the mission and take some pics:

As you could notice in the previous spoiler , the first stage activated only the jet engines. They took a while to gain enough power to push the ship up and that is where Mechjeb was most needed in the mission ( otherwise it is hard to avoid the ship to start dancing in the launch pad until it crashes unless you have a good control over it ( I don't ) ). Anyway. I started turning the ship at 10 km ( standart mechjeb fight program ) and I activated the aerospikes there.

I let the fuel in the lateral tanks to end to detach them + the jet engines. By that time ( around 15 km ), they were already almost not working anyway

Here is the ship when preparing to circularize at 100 km. The flight plan was good enough for leaving lest than 300ish m/s for that manouver. Notice the 1/6 of tank still in the deposit stage ... that will be enough for the circularization and for the first part of the munar injection

Ship burning the last stage for munar injection. Even then there is plenty of fuel left.

Orbit after entering Munar SoI. I chose this orbit to be able to do a "suicide burn" to minimize the fuel bug ... unfortunately this will generete quite a bunch of g ...

A little after starting the full throttle burn. In retrospective I could had started it even a little later, but better safe than sorry

Position of the landing plus obligatory postcard from far away.

Getting in spot for return burn. Will burn here until the orbit gets to 22-30 km inside kerbin atmosphere ( that gives the magic IRL 6º reentry angle good enough for a Mun return trajectory )

Ship trajectory after final burn. In here unfortunately had to run not on full throttle, since even a little thrust diference can mean the diference between failing the atmosphere, doing a decent aerobrake or crashing hard in the floor because the parachutes malfunctioned due to the high reentry speed.

As this originally wasn't even supposed to leave the atmosphere, I have not putted a decoupler between the capsule and the rest of the ship ( it has 3 small parachutes, but that was legacy of the previous design I was testing before trying this and that I forgot to take out... they aren't even attached to the capsule, but to the lateral tanks ). Anyway, we have enough of fuel to do do a powered descent if we do some parachute assisted aerobraking

To be honest I was not expecting that the parachutes would hold, but they did. Unfortunately, as the ship is quite top heavy at this point, the torque overwhelmed the Mechjeb SAS. This could be really bad news if the parachute opening would tear the connection between the fuel tank and the capsule, since there are no chutes in the capsule itself

With some heavy balancing of the ship using the capsule SAS and the force of the opening parachutes I managed to rotate the ship to the right direction. And, in spite of knowing that his ship could hold a impact to the ground above 10m/s ( previous tests ... for science and Kerbalkind sake ), there was no harm in doing a proper soft landing. Too bad we touched down in water ...

Ship floating , using Mechjeb to avoid tumbling to the side, while waiting for the Kerbal Navy to rescue them

Final stats of the flight. Those 6 g are from the suicide burn. If kerbals had human resistance to g forces, there was a quite high chance they would had passed out there ... and crashed into the ground. I only did that to avoid the cursed fuel bug ...

In short, turbojet engines are completely OP :/ I was just trying them for assisting the first stage of a Murs-faring ship for 0.17 ( as most rocket engines now are less efficient in at 1 atm ... ) and I end making a minimalistic Mun rocket

Anyway, for fun, here his the .craft file:

http://filecloud.io/boe17k9q

or http://www./?xz1b1w3yhwc6gc4

Edited August 15, 2012 by r_rolo1
added mediafire link

[sal_vager]

Compact, I like it, but you know that the aircraft engines will eventually only run on aircraft fuel in a future update yes?

The aerospikes will be fine though as they are actually rocket engines

Oh also, I can't download this as I need to sign up first, which I won't do, and nor will many other members here.

I suggest you upload this craft to Mediafire, as an account to download is not needed, and it is a far better site for hosting files like this

[MrMadGameplay]

Every small ship I have made with the 3 man crew fails, but you seemed to master it

[r_rolo1]

Oh, I forgot to warn ... the real download button is the "request download ticket" in the bottom. The others are just very deceiving advertising. I can up them to mediafire OFC ... just give me a minute or so.

I know that the jet engines will be toned down, but to be honest I was not expecting them to be so OP. As I said, this was just to test them for assisting flight in the first stage, not to do the whole heavy lifting up to 10 km. Anyway, the main point of the testing was not even the jet engines , but the decoupler behaviour with the engines on top ( went well ) and the fuel line system. But as it proved a good Mun rocket, why not share it ?

[r_rolo1]

Added the mediafire link.

[sal_vager]

r-rolo1, thanks for adding the Mediafire link, and I have nothing against you sharing your rocket, it's interesting to see what people can do when there are no artificial limits placed on them