Mountain lake landing challenge

[kerbonara]

Hello there!

Congrats for being TOTM!

I decided to take my first challenge in the forum, and after some saves and loads I finally achieved it! When I got to the lake I noticed it was going to be harder than I thought but ended up sucessfully landing and taking off. Two photos below for the records and also linked a more complete imgur album below.

Aircraft is built using stock parts only. Done in a modded 1.3.1 install (no mods affecting physics or engines however).

 

 

https://imgur.com/a/JVcF92X

 

Edited June 18, 2018 by kerbonara

[Adsixnine]

Absolutely insane landing and takeoff

[Rus-Evo]

Slightly dumb question.  How do you use coordinates to navigate on a planets surface?  

[kerbonara]

19 minutes ago, Rus-Evo said:

Slightly dumb question.  How do you use coordinates to navigate on a planets surface?  

I use a mod called Waypoint Manager, which allows you to create custom waypoints. If you are not into mods there is also a way:

 

On 6/16/2018 at 12:52 PM, oAsAo said:

P.S.:Small tip: Alt+f12 -> Console -> /waypoint Kerbin 30.495 -42.453 Mountain Lake

 

Edited June 18, 2018 by kerbonara

[The Minmus Derp]

Im making a City here.

Edited June 27, 2018 by The Minmus Derp
K removal team. BEEP BEEP whirrrrrrrrr

[Klapaucius]

9 hours ago, Rus-Evo said:

Slightly dumb question.  How do you use coordinates to navigate on a planets surface?  

I asked this very question myself.  I realized I knew how to get coordinates from the end of a mission, but had no idea how to navigate either.

 

Edited June 18, 2018 by Klapaucius

[Rus-Evo]

23 hours ago, kerbonara said:

I use a mod called Waypoint Manager, which allows you to create custom waypoints. If you are not into mods there is also a way:

 

 

Thank you.

[Smokey the Bear]

Would using a craft with a propeller engine mod disqualify a submission?

 

[Klapaucius]

1 hour ago, Smokey the Bear said:

Would using a craft with a propeller engine mod disqualify a submission?

 

No, it is fine.  As long as the propeller is not being used as rotor like in a helicopter and is mounted horizontally with a more or less horizontal landing.

[Rus-Evo]

Oh my, the pictures dont do it justice!!

I sent a very high speed recon drone to have a look-see, approach at 190ms not a good idea.  I need a plane that can fly at 40ms to land, and 1,000ms to commute there!!

ITS THE TOILET BOWL OF DOOM!!!

[Smokey the Bear]

Alright, so here's my submission for the challenge. I've been refining this incredibly simple prop airplane design for a few weeks, just flying it around. relatively low takeoff speed, extremely maneuverable. 

 

View post on imgur.com

I came in low, along the "river" of sorts coming from the lake, then dumped airspeed with a few dips, and landed a little bump-ily in the tiny lake. Fun little challenge! Getting out with my craft might be possible, but I haven't been successful yet xD

 

edit: I can't seem to figure out how to make the album appear here... *shrugs*

Edited June 23, 2018 by Smokey the Bear

[Klapaucius]

4 hours ago, Smokey the Bear said:

Alright, so here's my submission for the challenge. I've been refining this incredibly simple prop airplane design for a few weeks, just flying it around. relatively low takeoff speed, extremely maneuverable. 

Nice! 1st prop entry.  Very cool.

[swjr-swis]

I adapted one of my seaplanes for this challenge, recorded the run, then promptly forgot all about it until a recent post from Klapaucius reminded me of this. Better late than never.

Spoiler

Skip ahead to about 3:20 for the lake dive.

Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/swjr-swis/SeaPlane-One-B1

Still pics on the imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/SohfMJn

Edited June 25, 2018 by swjr-swis
video link

[Klapaucius]

@swjr-swis

That may be the finest attempt yet.  I am astounded by the airbraking capacity of your plane.

BTW: What is the waypoint mod you are using?

[swjr-swis]

20 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

I am astounded by the airbraking capacity of your plane.

A combination effect of 1) deploying four pairs of actual airbrakes, 2) the pair of rudders with opposing deployment, and 3) the rear service bay opening, adding the drag of the bay and all science parts contained within.

Tip: that last one is a very effective and compact aerobrake solution for a 1.25m stack: stock a bay with several 'discs' of 6 elevon-4 in 6-way radial symmetry, offset inwards so the elevons are neatly enclosed when the bay is closed (zero drag). During reentry or aerobraking, just open the bay and all elevons will suddenly be subjected to the full effects of drag, which is maximized by the elevons being perpendicular to the airflow. Additionally, the bay and stack still shield the elevons from heating.

 

23 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

What is the waypoint mod you are using?

No mods, it's all pure stock.

The window in which I created the waypoint is the stock debug menu (Alt-F12 on PC/Win), the waypoint indicator on the navball appears when rightclicking a waypoint on the map view to 'enable navigation'.

The KerbNet window is a stock rightclick (or action group) option on probe cores (there's a small core in the forward service bay). The smaller window is the stock rightclick part action window of the surface scanning module at the top of the rear service bay.

[Rus-Evo]

I am still stuck trying to build a plane that will not disintegrate on touching water.  Is using structural fueselage as pontoons not a good idea?

[panzerknoef]

I too have managed to land in the teeny tiny little lake. Took a few tries for sure to get it right but eventually I did it without breaking anything. At first I tried coming in as slow as possible and going for a landing right away, but then I actually went under the 30m/s stall speed of my plane and plummeted towards the water, crash. So I actually decided to make as much speed as I could in a glide, fly all the way to the end of the pit and make a very sharp turn there. Using the superb maneuverability of my design to get it aligned with the lake and losing enough speed to go for a safe glide to the surface, success! Turns out that I didn't even need the airbrakes at all.

Spoiler

catching the first glimpse of the lake down below.

lining up in the valley.

cresting the final ridge and pitching down to get enough speed.

having picked up speed, it was now time to carefully start our 180° turn at the right time and altitude.

Turn successful, time to put her down carefully now, don't want to lose that engine.

success!

Putting the afterburner on allowed me to take back off again right in time.

et voila, a perfect escape, time to go home and get some snacks now.

 

[DaveTheFish]

@Klapaucius Would a plane with a thrust-to-weight ratio of above 1 qualify a plane as a VTOL?

[The Minmus Derp]

1 minute ago, DaveTheFish said:

@Klapaucius Would a plane with a thrust-to-weight ratio of above 1 qualify a plane as a VTOL?

No, so long as it does NOT take off vertically. 

Vertical TakeOff and Landing. 

VTOL.

[DaveTheFish]

Just now, The Minmus Derp said:

No, so long as it does NOT take off vertically. 

Vertical TakeOff and Landing. 

VTOL.

Ok, because a plane with that kind of thrust to weight would be capable of VTOL if it was stood with thrust vector facing downwards.

[The Minmus Derp]

3 minutes ago, DaveTheFish said:

Ok, because a plane with that kind of thrust to weight would be capable of VTOL if it was stood with thrust vector facing downwards.

But if you don’t use it for that, it is not a VTOL.

[DaveTheFish]

1 minute ago, The Minmus Derp said:

But if you don’t use it for that, it is not a VTOL.

Got it.

[The Minmus Derp]

Just now, DaveTheFish said:

Got it.

Yep.

[Klapaucius]

4 hours ago, DaveTheFish said:

@Klapaucius Would a plane with a thrust-to-weight ratio of above 1 qualify a plane as a VTOL?

The spirit of the challenge is to fly a regular aircraft. So, per the rules, any engines placed in non-standard configurations are not allowed. Also, you need to land horizontally.  If you come down tail first and then drop sideways at the last moment, your not really following the spirit of the challenge either.  Thrust to weight ration in and of itself does not matter one way or the other.

 

But really, just have fun.  No points are awarded or anything like that.  The challenge came about after I found this lake by accident and spent an hour trying to land in it--I think it was like 13 saves.  It was a cool to finally succeed, and I wanted to share that. 

[DaveTheFish]

I made contact with the lake, at a vertical speed of under 10 m/s and overall speed under 20m/s, and suddenly the Kraken struck. I have attempted twice, and both times my plane parts flew everywhere and Jeb died. Is it my plane, poor instrumentation, bad piloting, or is it like the Mohole for me and just me? I'm confused, although I should probably note that my plane is 80% airbrakes, 20% wing, and a negligible amount of Jeb, fuselage, and gear.