Kerbal Express Airlines - Regional Jet Challenge (Reboot Continued)

[Magzimum]

MAD TART-1b Sparrow

The MAD bureau would like to submit the MAD TART-1b Sparrow (Magzimum Aerospace Design - Twin-engine Aerial Regional Transporter-1b Sparrow) , a highly maneuverable passenger plane in the Turpoprop category. It seats 24 brave Kerbals, who are allowed hand luggage as long as it's barf bags. Next to the criteria demanded by the customer, the plane was designed with one additional design criteria: It must be the first passenger plane to fly under the KSC's bridge at the R&D center. While the MAD bureau's own test pilot promises that this has indeed been achieved, photographic evidence is unfortunately not available, as the photographer failed several times to press the button on the camera at the right moment...

Regular take off distance is about 300 meters, at a speed of just below 50 m/s. This is mostly due to the back wheel which is placed quite far to the back. Daring pilots could pull in the back wheel, or all wheels, and make for an even shorter take off. Landing can be done at speeds as low as 27 m/s, and because the propellors are equipped with a reverse thrust setting (test-pilots press 2, while briefly going full-throttle), the stopping distance is measured in centimeters. To make a point, Val landed the Sparrow on top of the SPH.

The plane was definitely not designed with comfort in mind. Two large propellors in pusher configuration rotate directly next to the passenger cabin. However, we expect that the passengers are far more occupied with the challenges of breathing and trying to not have their vital organs turn into a goo, and will hardly notice these propellors. The plane can pull turns of anywhere between 6-12 Gees on horizontal flight, and easily pulls 19 Gees when coming out of a dive. If Kerbal Express Airlines would like to sell a special passenger acrobatics flight, it is recommended to fill all tanks only 10%. The plane can then turn circles between the runway and the control tower.

The short take-off and landing distances, coupled with the high maneuverability therefore make this a plane that can land in almost any field, ranging from tiny remote islands to inner-city airfields with a short runway.

Since this is a serious submission in the Turpoprop category, the boffins at the MAD bureau ensured that it checks all the boxes. Cruising speed at 2000 m altitude is a comfy 135 m/s, and the estimated range is 1600 km when taking off with tanks at 50%, and when the pilots will fly in a straight line which (we admit) is boring, and not what this plane was designed for. While the customer is free to fill the tanks up to any level (the plane will fly just fine), the added weight will make the plane slightly less maneuverable. Some may even say it becomes slightly comfortable. We say it becomes boring.

The Kerbal Express Airlines can have all this lovely aerial acrobatics, airline flexibility and of course copious barf for the meager price of 15,787,000 (fuel not included). Perhaps the MAD bureau should have done a market research whether there is a large enough passenger market for aerial acrobatics... The test plane is available for purchase immediately, and production can commence immediately.

Download link: https://kerbalx.com/Magzimum/MAD-TART-1b-Sparrow

Finally, the MAD (Magzimum Aerospace Design) bureau would like to thank Kerbal Express Airlines for its review ( @neistridlar ) and subsequent purchase of 8 of the MAD TF-3a Swift planes. Delivery will be as fast as possible, and production has already started. Studies on the handling issues are also in the planning, although some previous studies show that some issues are rather inherent to the triple-fuselage design. As wise Kerbals say: "Every advantage comes with a disadvantage".

Edited March 30, 2018 by Magzimum

[hoioh]

I didn't realize this was your purpose, @neistridlar, I was thinking about the picture above the OP. This changes everything because on such a small scale contrast, like in your own NA flag is much more important than detail. To bad I didn't catch your reply earlier today, but I might be able to have a look at it tomorrow night and see if there's a better solution to come up with for the purpose of placing the tiny little flag on the side of a plane.

[CrazyJebGuy]

9 hours ago, Magzimum said:

MAD TART-1b Sparrow

-snip-

Triple bodied planes seem to do pretty well at flying, provided they are small. I made a sea-plane, https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/165372-kerbal-express-airlines-regional-jet-challenge-reboot/&do=findComment&comment=3199416 if anyone is interested.

Just went and tested, it can do it turn between the tower and runway, but the roll axis is a bit bad so it's dangerous. EDIT: I am talking about my seaplane here.

Edited March 31, 2018 by CrazyJebGuy

[neistridlar]

12 hours ago, hoioh said:

I didn't realize this was your purpose, @neistridlar, I was thinking about the picture above the OP. This changes everything because on such a small scale contrast, like in your own NA flag is much more important than detail. To bad I didn't catch your reply earlier today, but I might be able to have a look at it tomorrow night and see if there's a better solution to come up with for the purpose of placing the tiny little flag on the side of a plane.

Aha, well, there is no urgency at least. I think the OP picture is fine. If @CrazyJebGuy want's to do anything about it that's fine of course. I just thought it would add a little extra spice to the challenge if there was a KEA flag for the judges to use in the reviews. That is the reason I made my first proposals so simple as well, I thought that was the key to make them look good at a distance, but evidently I don't actually know what I am doing when it comes to graphical design (though I like to pretend some times).

Also @CrazyJebGuy, have you looked at my last proposal for use of the badges? Since you are the OP now, I think you should take the final call on this.

[neistridlar]

Test Pilot Review: @CrazyJebGuy – GAI Kalcing

  

Figures as Tested: 

• Price: 19,630,000 
• Fuel: 1200 Kallons 
• Cruising Speed: 242m/s 
• Cruising Altitude: 2,000m 
• Fuel Burn Rate: 0.075 Kallons/sec 
• Range: 3,840km 

Review: 

It seems there might have been some conflict amongst the older and the younger designers of this craft, seeing as it is both a taildragger and a tricycle at the same time. It works out well though, they seem to have gotten all the good bits of both worlds with this one. With just a single jet at the back this aircraft does not accelerate particularly fast, though with a rather reasonable take off speed of 50m/s it still manages an equally reasonable take off run. The rudders respond to roll, but they are not really strong enough to cause major issues on this one. The not very impressive acceleration continues in in the air, but it continues for a long time, not stopping before it reaches an impressive 322m/s. Now the brochure suggested a cruising speed of 142m/s, this however does not meet our requirements for a regional jet, so we figured they must have meant 242m/s instead. And it gets quite an impressive range at that speed. 

With its enormous wings the plane flies almost perfectly level during cruising, despite not having any angle of incidence. The big wings also make the plane capable of quite hard turns, especially at high speeds. Doing so however is much like doing a handbrake turn in a car. You turn around really quickly, but you also lose lot of speed doing so, which comes in handy when landing. Speaking of landing, this plane glides exceptionally well at low speeds, and we were able to touch down as slow as 23m/s. This made for an impressively short stopping distance. We don't think the plane would have survived this without the hybrid landing gear configuration though. It should come as no surprise that this plane can ditch quite comfortably in the water. Though it must have some sort of mine magnet, as it disintegrated quite violently when we tried to take off again. 

When it comes to the passenger comfort it is much as you would expect form a single engine design. With the engine mounted directly to the rear fuel tank, the vibrations travel down the fuselage, gradually dying down as you move further forward. The noise levels in the back are also significant, though acceptable for economy tickets. Now in the back the sound of the all the calculators is largely drowned out by the engine noise, but further forward it certainly makes its presence known. Reports from the test passengers were quite polarized though. Some found it rather soothing, while others found it disconcerting and annoying. The air-conditioning was also a source of debate. Now everyone agreed that it was very strong and effective, the disagreement revolved mostly around whether this was actually a good thing or not. Some of the passengers claiming they had caught several colds during the flight. Our health care personnel quickly disregarded this statement though, as they claimed only one cold could be caught at a time. 

At 19,6 million it is about the lower end of average as far as price is concerned. The part count of 37 is not particularly small, but at least there is only one engine to maintain, so we don't expect to drown in maintenance cost. The fuel economy during cruise is also on the lower end of average, and even traveling at max speed it is not entirely terrible. It is also quite easy to fly, so we don't expect to spend much on pilot training.  

The verdict: 
Mostly average, but with long range, and the high top speed means we don’t expect to have many delays. We will be ordering 8 of these for long range economy flights. 

 

[hoioh]

Here's a logo more suitable for use as a flag:

https://imgur.com/a/jQUeJ

And the PNG download:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5xr0ulvsw4iu1q6/KEA Flag 4-1.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8e65fi8yc61bjwa/KEA Flag 4-2.png?dl=0

[Lego_Prodigy]

Looks like an ez challenge. Ill build a supersonic plane real fast.

[neistridlar]

3 minutes ago, Lego_Prodigy said:

Looks like an ez challenge. Ill build a supersonic plane real fast.

It's super easy to meet the requirements, but to make one that is really good as a passenger jet, that is not trivial.

[Lego_Prodigy]

Bro when my cousin first showed me this game 2 years ago, I slapped together a super sonic transport in one go.

[Lego_Prodigy]

Annnnnd done. It can go supersonic with ease, is capable of showing off some barrel rolls, and can probably even reache the continent that is opposite of KSC without the delta wing fuel.

Album https://imgur.com/a/MWpZ4 will appear when post is submitted

@Magzimum can you help me with propellers? I've considered using them in place of jet engines for an SSTO, but I don't know to how build a working propeller.

[neistridlar]

2 minutes ago, Lego_Prodigy said:

Annnnnd done. It can go supersonic with ease, is capable of showing off some barrel rolls, and can probably even reache the continent that is opposite of KSC without the delta wing fuel.

Album https://imgur.com/a/MWpZ4 will appear when post is submitted

 

That one does not meet the requirements for the super sonic category (only 24 passengers, not 40 according to the rules), and it is going to be much more expensive than it needs to be, and probably not very fuel efficient. Passenger comfort seems good enough though. Also embedding imgur albums don't work properly, it just leaves a broken link. You are welcome to make a proper submission if you want though. 

[Lego_Prodigy]

Its actually extremely fuel efficient for its speed and size, and you couldn't have told me this before i flew to the other continent?

 

[Lego_Prodigy]

Arrived at the continent! perfect fuel amount! Forgot to fill the delta wing tanks but still made a PERFECT landing on a gentle hillside.

Album https://imgur.com/a/I5iYr will appear when post is submitted

[neistridlar]

1 hour ago, hoioh said:

Here's a logo more suitable for use as a flag:

https://imgur.com/a/jQUeJ

And the PNG download:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5xr0ulvsw4iu1q6/KEA Flag 4-1.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8e65fi8yc61bjwa/KEA Flag 4-2.png?dl=0

Those look much better. They gave me a few more ideas though. I don't like the text over the silhouette, and I don't like the white silhouette alone. but I do like the Idea of just a silhouette. Of the ones I have made here I like the one with simple font under the wing, and dark color silhouette, and the simple font on dark arrow background best. I put those two, as well as my NA logo for reference, on a plane. to try them out.

  

[hoioh]

Skaled Komposites presents the ultimate in luxury travel to anywhere: the BlowFish

The BlowFish is a VSTOL, by which we mean VERY short take off and landing, by which we mean: "the runway is wide enough to land on."

 

It turned out the BlowFish can go nearly mach 2 at 12,900m in the air and take it's 32 passengers on a 4500km trip:

The BlowFish comes with integrated WiFi antenna on the nose for ultimate passenger comfort and enjoyment. The single, massive engine has been mounted all the way at the back of the plane to avoid any inconvenience to the passengers from vibrations and noise levels even at the extreme speeds it can fly at.

On top of all that the BlowFish sports a very good KPPM of 0.0057 or thereabouts.

 

To fly simply follow these instructions:

Push 1 to activate small endflap

Push 2 to ativate big main flap

Flaps can be combined and also respond to brakes to reduce speed significantly and aid in low speed flight during take off and landing procedures, or mad maneuvers such as demonstrated in the video.

Optimal flight instructions:

Press 2 once, set throttle to full and activate engine. Wait for plane to depart from runway, retract landing gear and press 2 angain to stow flap. wait for plane to climb to 30 degree angle before activating stability assist.

Choose heading at this point and climb to 10,000m before leveling off gently while allowing plane to reach 12,500m and flight direction is near 0 pitch. Set follow pro-grade on SAS control and allow plane to cruise on it's own while flight altitude approaches 13km and fuel gently drains from the tanks.

When at destination, throttle down, set SAS to maintain direction and gently pitch down to allow plane to lose altitude. Activate flaps 1 and or 2 at discretion of pilot to slow down to about 70 m/s while approaching the runway. When close enough deploy gear, activate brakes and gently put her down on the runway to come to a complete stop in no time at all.

 

Test pilot notes:

Plane will remain very maneuverable at all speeds and altitudes.
In order to prevent loss of tail: when flying level at low altitudes it is recommended to not exceed the sound barrier and throttle down to about 30%
In order to maintain engine it is recommended not to land at too steep and angle, let the flaps do the work.

 

The BlowFish
Type: Super sonic jet
KPPM: 0.0057
Passenger count: 32
Part count: 25 parts + 1 engine
Cruising altitude: 12900m to 13000m
Range: estimated 4500km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this)
Cost: 21,678,000

 

Link to craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwpx4bbdxkvwfx4/Skaled Komposites BlowFish.zip?dl=0

 

 

48 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

I like the one with simple font under the wing, and dark color silhouette

There's a good idea, I've used the one with the text over the white silhouette in my video just now to show it off a bit, but I like your idea @neistridlar!

Here's a clean PNG according to your lastest: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hbfw07ac32l7jq8/KEA Flag 4-3.png?dl=0

Edited March 31, 2018 by hoioh

[neistridlar]

19 minutes ago, hoioh said:

-snip-

It turned out the BlowFish can go nearly mach 2 at 12,900m in the air and take it's 32 passengers on a 4500km trip:

-snip-

The BlowFish
Type: "turboprop"
KPPM: 0.0057
Passenger count: 32
Cost: 21,678,000

According to the rules turboprop submissions are not allowed to cruise above 343m/s, so this would probably be considered a supersonic. Still the numbers look very promising.

24 minutes ago, hoioh said:

Here's a clean PNG according to your lastest

I will try it out.

[hoioh]

6 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

I will try it out.

I updated it several times over the last couple minutes because it was too close to the edges, which caused clipping. So I've tweaked the edges a bit until it came out alright on the tailfin:

6 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

According to the rules turboprop submissions are not allowed to cruise above 343m/s, so this would probably be considered a supersonic. Still the numbers look very promising.

I thought it would be a bit on the small side for that, just checked the passenger count and looked for a match 

Not that adding an extra cabin would make much of a difference for anything but the KPPM score

Edited March 31, 2018 by hoioh

[neistridlar]

1 minute ago, hoioh said:

I thought it would be a bit on the small side for that, just checked the passenger count and looked for a match 

yup, it's under spec, but if it is otherwise really good, that will probably outweigh it. You could probably just ad one more cabin, and shift things around a bit to make it work more or less the same though.

[hoioh]

11 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

yup, it's under spec, but if it is otherwise really good, that will probably outweigh it. You could probably just ad one more cabin, and shift things around a bit to make it work more or less the same though.

Working on it right now (and attempting to land it on the VAB again )

[hoioh]

Update on BlowFish design:

The revised stats:

The BlowFish
Type: Super sonic jet
KPPM: 0.0046
Passenger count: 40
Part count: 26 parts + 1 engine
Cruising altitude: 12900m to 13000m
Range: estimated 4500km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this)
Speed: 548m/s
Cost: 22,228,000

craft: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwpx4bbdxkvwfx4/Skaled Komposites BlowFish.zip?dl=0

[Magzimum]

18 hours ago, Lego_Prodigy said:

@Magzimum can you help me with propellers? I've considered using them in place of jet engines for an SSTO, but I don't know to how build a working propeller.

You just get the mods that this challenge suggests?

Airplane Plus  contains lots of propellers.

[Kernel Kraken]

Ok, started working on a medium-sized jumbo crossover jet, with a lot of inspiration from other planes. 

This'll probably fail but I only used parts from the best ones. I think.

[neistridlar]

Introduction:
Neist Air presents their latest and greatest in supersonic flight, the Spear series. The spear series was originally developed as an intercontinental cruise missile. It was however turned down by the military due to what was described as a disturbing lack of SRBs. Now looking for ways to salvage the spear project, it was decided that the payload bay should be replaced by a passenger compartment, and a cockpit be strapped on top of the guidance computer. 
The result was the Spear 40R, the fastest passenger jet ever to be built, proven to circumnavigate Kerbin and land back where it started in 45 minutes and 30 seconds, with fuel to spare.This is the perfect plane for those that need to get nowhere in a hurry! 

To protect the passengers from the intense heat and radiation resulting from the high speed and high cruising altitude a thermos flask has been built around the passenger compartment. The windows have been replaced by monitors, which can be stream video from several webcams mounted around the skin of the aircraft. Due to the near orbital velocity passengers will only experience 40% gravity during cruise, and the cockpit has been fitted with orbital avionics in addition to the normal instruments. 

The Spear 40P was developed based on the same air frame, but using more sensible low cost solutions, the thermos flask and LCD screens have been removed, as has the orbital avionics. The gimbals on the engine has also been disabled to save on maintenance. The result is a cheap and easy to maintain aircraft with exceptional fuel economy.

More images: https://imgur.com/a/WxuHJ

NA Spear 40P:
Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/neistridlar/Na-Spear-40P
⦁    Price: 13,921,000
⦁    Cruising speed: 625m/s (full throttle dry)
⦁    Cruising altitude: 11km
⦁    Fuel capacity: 400 kallons
⦁    Fuel burn rate: 0.05 kallons/s
⦁    Range estimate: 5000km
⦁    Take off speed: 56m/s
⦁    Recommended climb speed: 240m/s
⦁    KPPM: 0.0032

NA Spear 40R:
Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/neistridlar/Na-Spear-40R
⦁    Price: 21,772,000
⦁    Cruising speed: 1650m/s (full throttle dry)
⦁    Cruising altitude: 26300m
⦁    Fuel capacity: 400 kallons
⦁    Fuel burn rate: 0.068 kallons/s
⦁    Range estimate: 4600km
⦁    Take off speed: 56m/s
⦁    KPPM: 0.0035

Flight manual:

Spoiler

[AG1] Toggle mode, [AG2] Spoilerons, [AG3] Spoilerudders.
It is recommended that the autopilot is engaged during all stages of flight, except during final approach, or low speed maneuvering. Both models are designed to fly with prograde lock engaged during cruise. It also recommended that roll is used to arrest excessive rate of climb during cruise, as this maintains optimum aerodynamic efficiency. The Spoilererons are designed to help pitch up the nose during take off and landing, however with the latest version of this design it has proven to be unnecessary, it does help slow down the aircraft however. The Spolerudders are recommended for slowing down and landing.

Recommended ascent profile for the Spear 40P:
Take off, level off, accelerate to optimal climb speed, then pitch for optimal climb speed until 5-6km, then level off to ~5-10 degrees and enable afterburners. Continue climbing and accelerate, aim to hit level flight at 10.8 km and at least 580m/s. Once this is achieved you may disable afterburners at will, and accelerate with or without afterburners until cruising parameters are reached. If performed efficiently the ascent will burn 50 kallons of fuel. Cruise dry at full throttle with prograde lock engaged.

Recommended ascent profile for the Spear 40R:
Take off, level off, accelerate to 250m/s, then pitch to 40 degrees. At 8km, start to level off, aim for 10 degrees at 10km, and proceed with acceleration, and gradually level off. Aim for 24-26km at 1400m/s or above. Avoid apoapsis above 27km, as this will cause an inefficient jojo flight. Engage prograde lock, and use minor pitch corrections or roll to arrest the climb. Expect to reach cruise 10-12 minutes after launch. If performed efficiently the ascent will burn 240 kallons of fuel. Cruise at full throttle. Due to the high speed and high altitude this aircraft will glide very far. use the trajectory on the orbital display to estimate your decent. When the orbital trajectory intersects your intended landing spot you must start your decent or you will likely overshoot quite badly.

Spin recovery:
Throttle down, set spoilerudders to engaged, set spileronserons to disengaged, set autopilot to prograde. Wait until the aircraft is subsonic, it should recover by it self. Once the aircraft is in a stable dive, throttle up and pull out of the dive.

Landing:
The air frame can land as slow as 60m/s on full fuel load, and slower when dry, however the main gear tend to bind up when touching down at high angle of attack, so it is recommended to touch down at 80m/s whenever possible.

 

Edited April 1, 2018 by neistridlar

[Lego_Prodigy]

Id rather not use a mod for parts, as I am worried I will get too used to them.

[neistridlar]

I played around a little more with some of my proposals from yesterday, and put together a little collection of the better proposals so far: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a7kku3hdnhl2ayy/KEA-Flags.zip?dl=0 You install it just like any other mod. The one Called KEAFlags7 is starting to become my fabourite, but KEA Flag 4-3 and KEAFlags1 and KEAFlags6 also looks promising to me. Also digging around a little I found that the stock flags uses 256x160 resolution. It seems everything else gets scaled to fit inside that format. For good measure I made all my new proposals 512x320, which is double in both directions.

1 hour ago, Lego_Prodigy said:

Id rather not use a mod for parts, as I am worried I will get too used to them.

No worries. The mods don't give any big advantages, so you can still make a competitive design with stock, and many people have done so. If you want to check some out I have made a few submissions around page 30-33 in the old thread that are pure stock.