Kerbal Express Airlines - Regional Jet Challenge (Reboot Continued)

[hoioh]

49 minutes ago, MiscelanousItem said:

Just a little question:Do we lose points if we make a super jumbo witch needs the gap at the end of the run way to take of?

You will need to move your landing gear forward, tilt your wings back a couple degrees (part angle display mod works great for this bit!) and maybe you're a bit underpowered, but do the above first and you'll find out soon enough.

Let's just say that a plane that needs the gap at the end can't serve a great many airports and would therefore not be very interesting for KEA to purchase while there are competitors that don't need the gap at the end.

I figured this kinda stuff out over time and am now able to make a superjumbo VSTOL, only thing I cpuldn't manage was landing on the VAB with it, because it's too long. But a better pilot might

[CrazyJebGuy]

On 1/24/2019 at 2:04 AM, MiscelanousItem said:

Just a little question:Do we lose points if we make a super jumbo witch needs the gap at the end of the run way to take of?

Super-jumbos are hard, and I haven't seen anybody design one which does it well. The Brittanic I made comes close, but I'm not satisfied with it because it's a lot slower than I'd like. Landing gear is fairly simple though, you can't go too wrong with long gear up front, and just behind the CoM; just be careful to make it so it won't tailstrike and break things. (Which can be done by sticking another smaller landing gear or a steel beam at the back to protect the tail.)

[MiscelanousItem]

Thanks @CrazyJebGuy ,and @hoioh for your answers,hoioh could you give me a link to the mod you were talking about ?

[hoioh]

4 hours ago, MiscelanousItem said:

Thanks @CrazyJebGuy ,and @hoioh for your answers,hoioh could you give me a link to the mod you were talking about ?

I can, but I still need to work for the next 8 hours, so that'll be later tonight

If you want to check out a reference plane you cab check my Kerbal-x in my signature

The fatboy 3+ is a jumbo VSTOL and the Gigantor is a super jumbo that flies pretty much like a normal jumbo and has a very reasonable part count because I used some tweakscale on it (not sure about tweakscale use on the Fatboy)

[hoioh]

12 hours ago, MiscelanousItem said:

Thanks @CrazyJebGuy ,and @hoioh for your answers,hoioh could you give me a link to the mod you were talking about ?

Here you go:

 

[Mathrilord]

VSTOL ?????? I know VTOL but not VSTOL what does it eat?

16 hours ago, CrazyJebGuy said:

Super-jumbos are hard, and I haven't seen anybody design one which does it well. [...]

Really? Take a look at my ebauche super-jumbo. (kerbal-x)

8 hours ago, hoioh said:

[...]check my Kerbal-x in my signature[...]

There is no link in your signature.

[hoioh]

1 minute ago, Mathrilord said:

There is no link in your signature.

Yes there is:

3 minutes ago, Mathrilord said:

ebauche super-jumbo

Looks good! bit high on the part-count maybe, but for style, so many things are suddenly allowable 

[Mathrilord]

@hoioh In my browser I see this:

[hoioh]

4 minutes ago, Mathrilord said:

@hoioh In my browser I see this:

so used to a 1440p screen these days...

https://kerbalx.com/hoioh/craft

[Jacke]

22 minutes ago, hoioh said:

so used to a 1440p screen these days...

https://kerbalx.com/hoioh/craft

I don't see the bottom of your signature on my 1080p screen.  You may want to redo your signature (scale it down?) so more others can read it.

[panzerknack]

I had been following this thread for awhile, cool stuff - hadn't posted before though.

 

I have a bunch of High Quality Non Death Trap designs to show off, but I also see the reviews are quite backlogged -

which makes me ask first; could I send a sample review to one of the existing test pilots?  I'm quite experienced at crashing things into the ground and waxing poetic about the Long Way Down, and perhaps having more people reviewing existing models could help the KEA team plow through the queue faster?

[neistridlar]

1 minute ago, panzerknack said:

I had been following this thread for awhile, cool stuff - hadn't posted before though.

 

I have a bunch of High Quality Non Death Trap designs to show off, but I also see the reviews are quite backlogged -

which makes me ask first; could I send a sample review to one of the existing test pilots?  I'm quite experienced at crashing things into the ground and waxing poetic about the Long Way Down, and perhaps having more people reviewing existing models could help the KEA team plow through the queue faster?

Yes! Please do. There is very much a need for more judges. If you feel comfortable with it you can just post a sample review right in the thread as well. Pick any of the previously reviewed crafts, so you (and us) have a previous review for reference.

[Shaun]

Yes I would also like to submit a sample review. I haven't posted any craft for the very fact it would take months or even years to receive a review.

[neistridlar]

2 hours ago, Shaun said:

Yes I would also like to submit a sample review. I haven't posted any craft for the very fact it would take months or even years to receive a review.

You are very welcome to do so. As I said above pick a plane, preferably one that has already been reviewed, and post it here as a trail, or PM me if you are more comfortable with that.

[panzerknack]

Jumbo success!  Assuming the distance between the KSC and the Korean-shaped peninsula is at least 300km, this baby can do 4000km+ with 160 passengers! Only 67M! (note distance covered is in absolute space, this is taken after one complete global flight or roughly 3700 km, leaving 300 more.

I'll formally post it down the road when reviews are caught up - one issue I noted with the 4000km ER aircraft is the Capacity/rate*speed/1000 becomes less accurate with extreme distances and fuel loads - as the weight reduction actually becomes non-negligible like a rocket via Tsiolkovsky's equation - meaning at initial cruise range was maybe predicted at 3500km, but I flew the whole thing and it ended up being a fair bit more.

[neistridlar]

1 hour ago, panzerknack said:

-snip-

one issue I noted with the 4000km ER aircraft is the Capacity/rate*speed/1000 becomes less accurate with extreme distances and fuel loads - as the weight reduction actually becomes non-negligible like a rocket via Tsiolkovsky's equation - meaning at initial cruise range was maybe predicted at 3500km, but I flew the whole thing and it ended up being a fair bit more.

Yes this is a bit of a shortcoming to the formula. It has been discussed previously in this thread. The decision is to use the fuel load at take off, and use the speed and fuel consumption as soon as cruise has been achieved. This is to make the reviewing process as simple as possible. Since it is the same for all submissions it is still fair.

[Shaun]

14 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

Yes this is a bit of a shortcoming to the formula. It has been discussed previously in this thread. The decision is to use the fuel load at take off, and use the speed and fuel consumption as soon as cruise has been achieved. This is to make the reviewing process as simple as possible. Since it is the same for all submissions it is still fair.

Why not use an average? Take off with full fuel and get cruise stats, then do it at 20% fuel (not empty because reserves) and test cruise stats again, then average them out. This is because many aircraft would obtain higher altitudes with lower mass, therefore being more efficient.

[panzerknack]

Ok sounds reasonable.  Also I read earlier in the thread (or perhaps prior thread) there was discussion of revision to passenger compartments - has any more been discussed on this?  It seems to my unqualified opinion this is the biggest "Waffle-factor" as the mk1 is so disproportionately priced and sized- so we end up seeing loads of MK1 cabins in a tile-configuration.  I'd think it'd benefit competitiveness to have different cabins offering different advantages - i.e. mk3 is most expensive but maybe densest, mk2 is considered the most comfortable inside, etc etc.  As it is right now, mk1 is superior in the two things that matter most - cost/passenger# and volumetric density/passenger#.

This also seems to go against conventional realism, since for a given fuselage diameter, increasing it scales the circumference and thus materials by the same diameter factor, while the walls can remain more or less the same thickness-however you get much more interior room from the squared area function.

The main reason I'd suggest this is it'd change the core design constraint from cabins to engines.  As I look at more craft to be reviewed, cabin config is the biggest difference.  As I understand in the real world, the engines are most of the cost, both upfront and recurring - how do we accomplish our design with the fewest and most efficient engines?  Also with Airplane plus/KAX there's so many engines with price points and performance envelopes this could make things much more diverse and interesting- right now engines are an afterthought to cabin design - its mostly "how can I best tile mk1s or Size2s in a way that won't get kraken'd?"

Just my 24 cents.

 

 

UNRELATED:  The reviews of @Bombstar10's craft are probably the hardest I've ever laughed reading something about KSP, my hats off to you guys.

Edited January 27, 2019 by panzerknack

[neistridlar]

9 minutes ago, Shaun said:

Why not use an average? Take off with full fuel and get cruise stats, then do it at 20% fuel (not empty because reserves) and test cruise stats again, then average them out. This is because many aircraft would obtain higher altitudes with lower mass, therefore being more efficient.

It's more than twice the work (you have to find all the fuel tanks and set them to 20% load.), and does not make much of a difference to which are better or worse. Also some aircraft consume more than 20% of their fuel before reaching cruise (an extreme example being my spear 40R, which uses over 50% of its fuel to reach cruise).

[Shaun]

59 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

It's more than twice the work (you have to find all the fuel tanks and set them to 20% load.), and does not make much of a difference to which are better or worse. Also some aircraft consume more than 20% of their fuel before reaching cruise (an extreme example being my spear 40R, which uses over 50% of its fuel to reach cruise).

Fair enough. Btw, how many passengers do the 1.5m (CRJ looking) cabin constitute?

 

[Mathrilord]

I did this for fun (stat comparison of the different crew part excluding science lab and storage container because they are ugly on a plane)

https://imgur.com/AXdkcxx

ps: mk2 volume was no fun

Edited January 27, 2019 by Mathrilord

[panzerknack]

i was looking at a similar thing myself- trying to understand your column notation - so each column is normalized for that amount of passengers for a row category?

[Mathrilord]

if I understand correctly your question then yes. but this is not official the kea column is the offiicial one for this challenge (cost X 1000)

Edited January 27, 2019 by Mathrilord

[Shaun]

On 1/26/2019 at 6:55 PM, neistridlar said:

You are very welcome to do so. As I said above pick a plane, preferably one that has already been reviewed, and post it here as a trail, or PM me if you are more comfortable with that.

I began to review your Swirlygigs (although I’m not sure the first review was genuine or not, page 27) and I have to say I just can’t beat it’s efficiency with my own turboprops, even if they’re lighter. I think it’s because I prefer stock wings over the fuelled ones so I have to use a belly tank or fuselage tank, which is just more drag. Hopefully I will release my review by tomorrow.

By the way, I made a great medium airliner candidate, but my question is am I allowed to clip a wing at the front of the fuselage to bring forward the centre of lift? Otherwise if I move the entire wings forward, the plane just looks off.

[neistridlar]

32 minutes ago, Shaun said:

I began to review your Swirlygigs (although I’m not sure the first review was genuine or not, page 27) and I have to say I just can’t beat it’s efficiency with my own turboprops, even if they’re lighter. I think it’s because I prefer stock wings over the fuelled ones so I have to use a belly tank or fuselage tank, which is just more drag. Hopefully I will release my review by tomorrow.

By the way, I made a great medium airliner candidate, but my question is am I allowed to clip a wing at the front of the fuselage to bring forward the centre of lift? Otherwise if I move the entire wings forward, the plane just looks off.

I would count the first review as genuine. And as to their efficiency, I spent like a week perfecting them, so don't feel bad if you can't beat them . There are only a handful of submissions so far that can compete with them in fuel efficiency.

As for completely clipping wings inside the fuselage, I would say no to that. You could possibly use some small canards, or wing streaks to help out. Also play a little with the angle on the tail-plane to compensate. I'm sure you can figure something out that works.