Kerbal Express Airlines - Regional Jet Challenge (Reboot Continued)

[CrazyJebGuy]

Sorry for being gone too long, as for the point about standardizing the reviews, I just think it's more important to do them. And I am getting a bit bored of this, having put my first post in this challenge back in a year ago.

 It's Tuesday now, and since I'd like to get this thread going again I will make one review for every review done before next Tuesday. (Up to a limit of 3 per day) Also let's just ditch most of the review reforming, what we had before was good enough (not perfect though) and fixing it would be unfair on newer/older entries due to changing standards, and many of the proposed ideas would only take more time and effort, further reducing the amount of reviews done.

@neistridlar@Mjp1050@NightshineRecorralis@1Revenger1@panzerknoef@Bob_Saget54@hoioh@kingstevenrules@Box of Stardust

There, pinged a bunch of reviewers. Please if you take me at my review matching offer, ping me so I see your review. (Regardless if you are reviewing a plane I made)

 

Edit: I realized that my initial thing was worded badly, to clarify I will do one review for each review done by any other reviewer.

Edited October 2, 2018 by CrazyJebGuy

[Andetch]

On 10/2/2018 at 10:43 AM, CrazyJebGuy said:

I just think it's more important to do them.

I've been gone for a while too, no worries

However, I am sure I speak for everyone who has entered this thread that the above point is correct!

As for me; I just wanna see you either say "Andetch this makes your G-Type Seaplane look good" or "We like this one as much as the Night Fury!" 

[CrazyJebGuy]

On 10/3/2018 at 4:39 PM, Andetch said:

I've been gone for a while too, no worries

However, I am sure I speak for everyone who has entered this thread that the above point is correct!

As for me; I just wanna see you either say "Andetch this makes your G-Type Seaplane look good" or "We like this one as much as the Night Fury!" 

I don't remember the Night Fury very well because I didn't review it, (short range and very innefficient and uncomfortable or something like that?) the Type G was something else. That thing could pull the sharpest of corners with the ability of a fridge, with landings as soft as brick walls. Really, how did some of these problems not get noticed in testing?

 

"Really, how did some of these problems not get noticed in testing?" - The man who made a super-jumbo which will tear all 6 wings off in a mild turn.

[4472TJ]

Can we add a new category? You may consider this as an SSTO but it is more of an SSTPO single stage to partial orbit. Nowadays with plans for space tourism, why leave out the Kerbals? An example if an SSTPO would be an aircraft that flew fast enough to get the navball to change to orbit but not any higher than 100km aka space. It would have to fly from a rolling takeoff and be able to land at the KSC. Takeoff speed would have to be under 120/ms but minor allowances could be made. This could be charged at a high price per passenger and this would give the company a fair bit of money. If you would like a (bad) example of what I mean ask me and I shall give. 

4472TJ CEO of Kerbal Space Tourism and CEO of Kerbal Space Program's SSTPO Sector

Edited October 6, 2018 by 4472TJ

[CrazyJebGuy]

On 10/6/2018 at 10:46 PM, 4472TJ said:

Can we add a new category? You may consider this as an SSTO but it is more of an SSTPO single stage to partial orbit. Nowadays with plans for space tourism, why leave out the Kerbals? An example if an SSTPO would be an aircraft that flew fast enough to get the navball to change to orbit but not any higher than 100km aka space. It would have to fly from a rolling takeoff and be able to land at the KSC. Takeoff speed would have to be under 120/ms but minor allowances could be made. This could be charged at a high price per passenger and this would give the company a fair bit of money. If you would like a (bad) example of what I mean ask me and I shall give. 

4472TJ CEO of Kerbal Space Tourism and CEO of Kerbal Space Program's SSTPO Sector

No, we're an airline company. This challenge has enough categories and reviews are already well behind (I'm surprised nobody has done a review and caused me to do another, I thought that would get lots of attention) and it's also very hard without rocket engines, those are strictly banned.

[4472TJ]

Just out of interest I have been able to make an SSTPO with only aircraft parts just as my second aircraft I've ever made.

[sturmhauke]

I didn't get a chance last week, but in the interest of restarting this thing, I've downloaded the planes in this post and will review them this week. I'll try to post at least one review by the weekend.

[sturmhauke]

Psst, @CrazyJebGuy, yeah I know I'm a bit late, but here's a review.

Test Pilot Review: @Box of Stardust's A-104-3B Aspen

Figures as Tested:

• Price: $19,776,000
• Fuel: 934.4 kallons 
• Cruising speed: 165 m/s
• Cruising altitude: 2300 m
• Fuel burn rate: 0.05 kal/s
• Range: 3084 km

Review Notes:

The Aspen is an excellent aircraft - easy to fly, easy to land, and nice to look at. It can still fly decently well with the loss of one engine, although the rudder has some trouble compensating for the adverse yaw in that event. It costs slightly more than advertised, but also has slightly better range. The turboprop engines are a bit noisy, but that's to be expected, especially for economy-class cabins. Most of the 32 seats will have good views outside, other than the wing seats.

One note on landings: the Aspen has a lot of wing for its size and is very streamlined, which gives it outstanding glide performance. But this also means that it doesn't naturally slow down much on its own. Fortunately it comes equipped with speed brakes and reversible engines. Pilots should be reminded of that aspect so they don't overshoot the runway.

All in all, this will be a great aircraft for lower traffic routes.

The Verdict:

We will buy ten and put them into service as soon as possible.

[Thorn_Ike]

Hi,

So I am designing a turboprop, and noticed most entries with MK1 crew cabins have about 16 seats if the capacity of 2 to a cabin is taken, while the requirements state that there must be 24 seats.

Is there something I'm missing here? My craft is an abomination and needs to be lighter.

[panzerknoef]

27 minutes ago, Thorn_Ike said:

Hi,

So I am designing a turboprop, and noticed most entries with MK1 crew cabins have about 16 seats if the capacity of 2 to a cabin is taken, while the requirements state that there must be 24 seats.

Is there something I'm missing here? My craft is an abomination and needs to be lighter.

In the OP it says: 

• The Mk1 and Mk2 Crew Cabins count as 8 Passengers
• Mk3 Passenger Module and Size 2 Crew Cabin count as 24 Passengers

[Thorn_Ike]

13 hours ago, panzerknoef said:

In the OP it says: 

• The Mk1 and Mk2 Crew Cabins count as 8 Passengers
• Mk3 Passenger Module and Size 2 Crew Cabin count as 24 Passengers

*slaps head profusely*

Thanks!

[Andetch]

On 10/4/2018 at 8:03 PM, CrazyJebGuy said:

I don't remember the Night Fury very well because I didn't review it, (short range and very innefficient and uncomfortable or something like that?) the Type G was something else. That thing could pull the sharpest of corners with the ability of a fridge, with landings as soft as brick walls. Really, how did some of these problems not get noticed in testing?

 

"Really, how did some of these problems not get noticed in testing?" - The man who made a super-jumbo which will tear all 6 wings off in a mild turn.

Well I assure you the Night Fury family was actually very good. Good enough for purchases to be made. Good range, great handling, excellent comfort.  

The original G-Type works very well as a STOL aircraft and is an absolute pleasure to fly. Sadly, by adding passenger cabins as floats it ruined it. As for testing - it was the old thread and the front page wasn't updated so I rushed it through development and testing in the mistaken belief that there was no other seaplane on the market - alas, I was misled.

Still, as far as flying fridges go, it rocks!

It's just a shame it wasn't designed as a fridge, and it also struggles to keep things cold (apart from creating the cold, dead bodies of passengers after another messed up landing).  

[panzerknoef]

Test Pilot Review: @TaRebelSheep's - Trifekta Aeronautics: Albatross

Figures as Tested:

• Price: 102.632.000
• Fuel: 3950 kallons
• Cruising speed: 280m/s
• Cruising altitude: 7000m
• Fuel burn rate: 0.36kal/s
• Range:  3000km

Review Notes:

It's a plane, but not as we know it. Gotta say, first time our engineers and pilots laid eyes on this aircraft, their expressions were mostly among the same line, a word which I shall not use here... But despite its extraordinary looks it's not a bad aircraft at all.

So, flying... It took us a while to find the flaps because they weren't on the first keybindings, but rather on the latter ones. Once we got a hold of those we powered up the engines and let her roll. First time we tried to actively take off and that ended up giving us a takeoff speed of about 100m/s, too high. However, just letting the plane roll forwards without any control input at all gives it a takeoff speed of the described 80m/s. Still fairly long for a medium regional jet, but totally acceptable. Once in the air we were surprised by the pitch behavior, it's pretty sensitive and the plane can make pretty short loops (to the joy of Jebediah, but our test passengers definitely weren't happy if we can judge by the amount of used barf bags). As expected with a design that has significant weight on the wing edges, the plane has a pretty poor roll rate, combine that with a standard yaw rate and you have a plane that isn't particularly easy to align with a runway. Once you get to cruising altitude (which we guessed would be around 7000m since no numbers were given) it's a very easy plane to fly, you don't have to give any input at all and it'll just fly straight ahead forever, keeping altitude without even the slightest issue. Range was lower than the 3500km mentioned in the brochure, but 2800km of range is still a very respectable number. It also glides exceptionally well, which does compensate for the difficult steering when it comes to airport approaches. With the massive thrust reversers it can also stop fairly quickly. The thing also doubles as a seaplane since it's a piece of cake to land and take back off again from water.

Moving on to comfort then. No real complaints in this category. There's no inline engines to cause any significant vibrations, there's no air intakes on or even near the cabins either to do that. The engines are at the end of a very long wing which means all vibrations get absorbed by that and only very little sound makes it to the cabin. Though the high wing does make for a slightly higher sound level in the cabin than you would get with a low wing, but that's about the only complaint we can come up with. Every cabin offers splendid views on the world below, so our passengers will surely enjoy squishing their faces into the windows (should we count window cleaning cost as maintenance?)

Finally, price... This is where the Albatross kinda lets down. at 102.632.000 it's an expensive plane, there's no way around it. 66 parts is somewhat above average but not that much, so we don't actually expect a massive amount of maintenance as far as that is concerned. 2 engines also is a fairly standard amount, sure they are big, but once again, no big costs there. The plane does however have a fairly unique flying style and it will take some specialized training for our pilots to get used to this, that's definitely a cost we gotta take into consideration.

The Verdict:

For such a weird looking airplane, the Albatross really is a very decent craft. Sure it has some bad points in the flight behavior category, but that's nothing that can't be resolved by sufficient pilot training. Comfort is exceptional and it can be used for a wide range of applications thanks to its ability to land on water. The major negative about this plane is its pretty steep price though. Considering everything, we've decided to acquire 5 Albatrosses for use on a wide variety of long haul routes.

[TaRebelSheep]

Ah yes, I've been looking forward to that review, I cooked that plane up in about ten minutes.

[panzerknoef]

14 hours ago, TaRebelSheep said:

Ah yes, I've been looking forward to that review, I cooked that plane up in about ten minutes.

And it only took us like a year or more to get to reviewing it...I was quite surprised by how decent it was despite that oddball design! 

On another note, yes I'll do some more reviews in the near future 

[panzerknoef]

Test Pilot Review: @neistridlar's - Neist Aircraft Company: Slinky 40s

Figures as Tested:

• Price: 19.061.000
• Fuel: 1350 kallons
• Cruising speed: 950m/s
• Cruising altitude: 1500m
• Fuel burn rate: 0.32kal/s
• Range:  4000km

Review Notes:

We were quite pleased to hear that there were more members of the Slinky family to be tested, and when this plane rolled out of the hanger, we were still pleased. No flaws can be see on the exterior, no weird design choices, just a good normal and decent looking plane. We put Jeb in the pilot seat and watched him crank open the throttle and accelerate away. The plane took off right around the 45m/s point that it was supposed to take off at. After taking to the air the first thing that stood out was just how agile the plane was. It can fairly easily fly in circles around the VAB! Impressive to us, sickening to the kerbals who volunteered as passengers. Flying in a straight line for a bit we picked up some speed, but we also discovered that the winglets at the back were tuned back to 50%, we -of course- cranked them up to 150%, made a turn, pulled 20G's and lost the wings, point made, having them at 50% is good. After having fished up the wreckage and reassembled everything we took off again, for a more serious attempt this time. Flying up at a 20° angle we got up to 15000m quickly enough and started speeding up. Once again the plane was fairly fast to reach the described 920m/s (which we couldn't keep, so we cruised at 950 instead). While cruising the plane still steered very easily, and it was quite fuel efficient.  There's really no bad remarks when it comes to the flight behavior of this aircraft!

Comfort does have some pretty major drawbacks though, but nothing can be perfect, and especially not for that price. First of all there's an inline engine, which means vibrations and noise. One can argue that both of those would be a bit dampened by the part between the engine and the cabins, but that's an air intake, so instead it creates vibrations and noise of its own. The result is a ride which can best be described as "an experience", while not saying it's an experience you really don't want. Half the cabins does have a proper view out the windows, the other half sees a wing, so nothing really special there. 

Price is once again good news though. 19.061.000 is cheap for a supersonic aircraft, and 18 parts is so few that maintenance will pretty much be for free. Not to mention that except for the engine, all parts carry over to the other Slinky aircraft which we've already bought! Despite it flying quite different to the other Slinkys, we don't expect a lot of pilot training costs, simply because of how easy it is to fly this aircraft.

The Verdict:

We've decided to just give the passengers free headphones and call the vibrations "massage chairs". There's simply no saying "no" to an aircraft that flies so well, so far and so cheaply. We'll gladly take the negatives it has (though if a more comfortable version would be made, we'll definitely look into it). We're ordering an initial set of 16 with an option for 12 more should an improved version be made.

[CrazyJebGuy]

The Slinky-40 impressed me, and I've never really done that sort of plane, (~40 passengers, single whiplash) so I decided I would take the general idea and change it a bit. I'm aware similarly impressive ranges have been achieved, (I think I did it accidentally once) but I've got a fuel efficient (.0095 gppm) and fast (1327m/s) with a range of almost 9,000 km. It's slightly cheaper than the Slinky 40, but has almost double the part-count. There are three fuselages, the centre one with the engine and fuel tanks, all passengers sit on the side two, so it's probably a lot more comfy than the slinky. Probably not as nice to fly at low altitudes, due to being slightly asymmetrical and having an elevator which is very powerful. (but works better at high altitude in the thinner air)

 

Also I am using a tricycle landing gear with tail-strike protection, but I will experiment with a tail-dragger as the takeoff speed is higher than I'd like. (75m/s) I will also do some reviews coming up. (Sorry for the delay)

[TheFlyingKerman]

When  @panzerkonef says more reviews he means it

[panzerknoef]

Test Pilot Review: @KenjiKrafts's - Fae Aeronautics: HSC "Fairie"

Figures as Tested:

• Price: 90.712.000
• Fuel: 2760 kallons
• Cruising speed: 1350 m/s
• Cruising altitude: 15000m
• Fuel burn rate: 2.35kal/s
• Range:  1500km

Review Notes:

When we first saw the Fairie we thought we weren't seeing it right, that maybe there was an optical illusion, but no... The plane has a single massive landing gear up front and a handful of medium ones in the rear. This extraordinary setup means that the plane sits on the runway at a fairly high angle, making getting aboard a bit of a challenge. Getting up in the back and walking up is a great exercise for the leg muscles though, can't deny that! The other thing that really stood out on this aircraft was the use of Mk 2 crew cabins, a type which we rarely see. 

Flight behavior is an interesting mix. 4 Whiplashes make for massive thrust and torque, allowing the plane to accelerate very quickly then to get up to cruising altitude equally quickly while breaking mach 1 vertically. So yes, it's fast, but how does it turn? This is where it gets a bit weird. Fae Aeronautics have decided to go with FAT-455 control surfaces, these allow the plane to make very tight pitch curves, however these control surfaces are quite slow. The result of that choice is an odd delay between roll movement and pitch movement which certainly at first lead to some very dangerous situations where we couldn't pull up as fast as we thought we could. Yaw performance is as good as nonexistent, so any course correction has to be done by rolling and pitching. Thanks to the weird landing gear setup the plane is capable of taking off at around 50m/s with any input at all. However, this weird setup does make landing very hard! Not striking the tail is a case of exception on this aircraft, though we're already happy that it destroys itself on landing, that's just a tad safer than on takeoff. The usually handy airbrakes have the weird side effect of sharply pulling the plane towards a random lateral direction which is also fairly unpleasant. The craft also isn't capable of withstanding the G's it can create itself, this does coincide with the brochure, nonetheless it's a fairly unpleasant experience to try and pitch down at cruising speed and next thing you've got no wings.

Comfort is pretty reasonable. The Mk2 Cabins are renowned for their incredible comfort after all. Strapping a whole lot of air intakes to them kinda undoes that though, still they can be considered to be about as noisy as a standard mk1 cabin, which is all but bad. The 4 very loud and very screamy engines are placed somewhat away and behind of the cabins, which means that their noise has very little impact on the noise levels in the cabins. Vibrations of the engines will hardly be noticed at all. The planes cruising altitude is just a bit too low for the passengers to be capable of using the Mk2 cabins upwards windows for stargazing, so they're fully reliant on the in-cabin systems for their pass of time.

The price though, is rather high. Costing 90.712.000 - more than mentioned in the brochure- it's a very expensive bird to acquire. The part count of 97 is very high as well, combine it with 4 engines and you've got a plane which is exceptionally expensive to maintain. Then there's the fact that it guzzles fuel like nothing else, which drives the maintenance costs up even higher. Should we mention the fact that we have to replace the tail after every 2 flights as well? Then there's pilot training, it'll cost a lot of money for pilots to get accustomed to this aircraft and even then there will be tail strikes. All in all, it's very expensive.

The Verdict:

Flies weird (and not far enough), looks weird and is more expensive to run than building and maintaining a city. The only positive point is reasonable comfort. The board didn't need a lot of time to decide that this aircraft is not one which we want to add to our fleet.

[Kebab Kerman]

KlankCo Presents...

The LA-433!

A large-ish trijet. Very spacey, has room for 168 passengers, and has engines that are way more powerful than they normally are. Maybe it's the third fan at the rear of the nacelles that produces that extra thrust? Who knows!

Download

Range: Unknown (math is hard, cut me some slack)

Fuel Use: 0.9>(Gets lower the higher you are altitude,)

Fuel Capacity: 12,235

Price: 285,753,000

Takeoff Speed: 80-85 m/s

Cruising Altitude: I've changed this 5 times now, so screw it, it's as high as you can fly in this.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Kebab Kerman

[CrazyJebGuy]

11 hours ago, Kebab Kerman said:

KlankCo Presents...

The LA-433!

-snip-

I was reviewing your plane, but I've had to disqualify it due to the part clipping. There are several engines per actual 'engine' and the big fuel carrying wings are placed very very close together. There is a rule that part clipping is allowed, within reason, and this is not within reason. There may be more clipping, I have not thoroughly checked, but the engines alone is easily enough to disqualify it. There isn't even enough intakes for them, on takeoff it's kicking sparks out the back like there is no tomorrow. I'd discovered this after going to takeoff and seeing about 4 times as many engines show in staging as should have, given the 3 engines on the plane.

[Kebab Kerman]

4 hours ago, CrazyJebGuy said:

I was reviewing your plane, but I've had to disqualify it due to the part clipping. There are several engines per actual 'engine' and the big fuel carrying wings are placed very very close together. There is a rule that part clipping is allowed, within reason, and this is not within reason. There may be more clipping, I have not thoroughly checked, but the engines alone is easily enough to disqualify it. There isn't even enough intakes for them, on takeoff it's kicking sparks out the back like there is no tomorrow. I'd discovered this after going to takeoff and seeing about 4 times as many engines show in staging as should have, given the 3 engines on the plane.

Wait, I forgot to remove those!? Whoops. I'll remove 'em when I get the chance, then update it. I put in more engines to help with takeoff while I was testing it, because it has an issue with speeding up. I've built a shorter version, and I'll submit it later today without the extra engines.

As for the wings, they are like that due to there not being large enough stock or Airplane Plus wings for it, so I just clipped them and added a stabilizer at the edges to make the wings look more suitible for the aircraft. I could try using the modular wings, but it'll have more parts. I'll try to remove unnecessary parts on both versions before resubmitting again.

Before doing that, though, I'll be submitting another, smaller plane. No spoilers

Edited November 2, 2018 by Kebab Kerman
Forgot some stuff :P

[epicman81]

Any ETA on when the L-900 will be reviewed?

[MaverickSawyer]

1 hour ago, epicman81 said:

Any ETA on when the L-900 will be reviewed?

If it was posted anytime in the last six months or so... you're going to be waiting a while. XD

[KestrelAerospace]

Gonna throw one of my better designs in, with the 

Kestrel Aerospace KB-50 "Whisper" (Small Regional Jet)

 

Download Link: https://kerbalx.com/Kestrel/KB-50-Whisper

Part Count: 40 (Pure Stock)

Price: $24,466,000

Recommended Cruise Altitude: 8800m

Recommended Cruise Speed: 280m/s at full throttle

Fuel Efficiency at Recommended Altitude and Speed: 0.15kal/s

Stall Speed: 30m/s

Fuel Capacity: 700 Units 

Passenger Capacity: 32

AG 1: Toggles Engines ON/OFF  AG 2: Toggles thrust reversers AG 3: Toggles Flaps 1 AG 4: Toggles Flaps 2 AG 5: Toggles Airstair AG 6: Toggles landing-essential lights

Kestrel Aerospace engineers designed the KB-50 as a versatile bizjet capable of STOL and water landings, and as such incorporated flaps and thrust reversers into its design. The KB-50 doesn't really fit into any of the prerequisite classes of aircraft, but seems best suited for entry in the Small Regional Jet category, with the added bonus that it can take off and land on water. Its range as calculated using the given formula seems inaccurate, as testing reveals that it can travel for about 2000km on a full tank of 700 units of fuel.

This is a true pilot's plane - the airframe has been optimised for good handling characteristics at both high and low speeds, and responds well to control inputs at airspeeds as low as 25m/s (although Kestrel engineers advise against testing this with passengers onboard) and extremely short takeoffs are possible with flaps set to full. With use of thrust reversers, landings can take place practically on a penny, although this does require some forethought from the pilot. Recommended landing speed is anything less than 100m/s on land and less than 80m/s on water. Rotation speed is typically 40m/s when fully-loaded with pax and fuel.