Race To The Pole

[A Fat Pokemon]

With one of my newer designs of craft, It made it to the south pole in roughly 30 minutets. Unlike my other, which had enough fuel for a return trip but took 40 minutes to get there, this one had just enough fuel to get close enough, and then glide the rest of the way

[Jason Patterson]

I don't have a good name for my plane, but I was able to get to the north pole in

This is a shot from just before the crossing. Three turbofans with 12 jet fuel fuselages. Mechjeb was the only non-stock item. The maximum speed was just over 700 m/s.

Another version was on target for 21 minutes and but ran out of fuel and went down in the ocean. Two more fuel tanks brought it to the ice sheet but I wound up about 5 degrees short. I did find out that it lands beautifully though, and I rolled across the ice for 2 degrees before I got sick of watching it. I think I might try this with another set of engines just for laughs.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Jason Patterson

[Chickenkeeper]

Are we only allowed to use air-breathing parts, or can we use liquid engines in addition to jet engines to do a sub-orbital flight?

[Jason Patterson]

Rockets are spacecraft. Sure they're aircraft too, but I'd expect people to work out what I'm getting at on their own.

You can use a rocket engine for extra thrust, such as Talon's rapid ascent system, but the main power should come from jets. As such, it shouldn't go higher than jets can take it, which is to say, about a maximum of 20 kilometers up, if even that. A sub-orbital trajectory cannot be achieved with air-breathing jet engines, so if you're going higher than that, you're doing something wrong.

So yes, we can use a rocket engine, but the primary power should be from jets, and there is a 20km ceiling.

[slboris]

Yay on the score board . I would love to give my craft to a skilled pilot as im sure this craft can beat my time easy , but cannot see

an attachment button .

[EndlessWaves]

Yay on the score board . I would love to give my craft to a skilled pilot as im sure this craft can beat my time easy , but cannot see

an attachment button .

It's that five posts thing again, try again now.

[slboris]

It's that five posts thing again, try again now.

Heh you are right sir . well here it is . its been a long ass time since i took her for a spin so i dont have

instructions but u must have MechJeb for it to run .

[Jason Patterson]

Darn it. Just made a jet that flew over the pole at just after 22:00 and would have been on the ground at 25:00 at the pole, but I messed up, descended a bit too steeply, spun out of control, and went nose first into the ice at 300 m/s. Another attempt with a slightly modified plane tomorrow!

[Fendleton]

Darn it. Just made a jet that flew over the pole at just after 22:00 and would have been on the ground at 25:00 at the pole, but I messed up, descended a bit too steeply, spun out of control, and went nose first into the ice at 300 m/s. Another attempt with a slightly modified plane tomorrow!

I've had this problem previously on polar missions (not gonna post my stuff here, yet, because I have coursework to do instead of flying there again). One solution is to forget about a proper landing and just add some extra parachutes. Or if you have them anyway, activate them when you lose control. Worst comes to worst, you'll end up with the cockpit breaking off on impact.

[Jason Patterson]

Out of curiosity, what is the exact challenge? Are we flying over the pole in the fastest time, or is it to land at the pole in the fastest time?

I just did a flyover at a just under mach 2.8, getting there in 21:12. I hit F2 instead of F1, apparently, so I'm not trying to put this up for the challenge. Suppose it took me another 3 minutes to land, would my time be 21:12 or 24:12?

[Cooly568]

My record is a specially designed 5-Turbo Jet getting there in 45 minutes. It's crusing speed was 1118 MPH or mach 1.5.

I was over the poles at the 28 minute mark.

I took my sweet time with the landing.

[NetBlitzer]

With my Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird design (which you can get in the spacecraft exchange!) I managed a respectable time of 41:04. And that's with two engines, no drop tanks, and with completely manual piloting (which caused me to almost always be dropping and rising 1km and be at a heading of 2-6 degrees)! If I used Mechjeb alone I could probably save around 3 or so minutes!

Yes, this is in .17, so there's no worry about the fuel bug (which would be hard to use on a twin engine plane :/ )

Sorry if this is considered a kind of necropost.