The Rocket Javelin Challenge!

[EndlessWaves]

Finally managed my first successful design, it went far enough on the first run to get 10th place but I'll tweak it a bit before posting. If I can get it to fly straight then it should be good for 30km at least.

EDIT: Revision 2 seems to be a monstrosity. 0.3m/s descent speed for 15m/s surface speed. From it's height of 1600m I estimate at least 80,000km - after an hour and a half of flight. Is this how you're getting such distances or did I just get lucky with the balance?

p.s. It's actually doing all this backwards some some reason. I wonder if my other space planes would work better upside down?

EDIT2: Speed is dropping, down from 15.2m/s to 14.7m/s over 10 minutes so it looks like it may crash sooner.

Edited August 23, 2012 by EndlessWaves

[SamNxGn]

Hey EndlessWaves, this challenge is very much about precise aerodynamics. A long distance for the glider category requires, as the name suggest, a very good glider

[EndlessWaves]

It wasn't so much precision as blind luck

I was trying to get them balanced to generate as much lift as possible during thrusting, I had no idea that such lossless gliding was possible - I'd assumed you were getting the distances through efficient use of thrust to get as high as possible.

Still going at 45 minutes and 13.6m/s. Height just went through 999m.

[Suprablaski4]

on mine my ship will climb to 5500ish as it dose a full loop and a half before rolling into position and gliding the opposite direction it started, depending on the direction it rolls seems to determine how far it goes, it with either start gliding at around 4k altitude or fall to around 3k and then glide but not go as far, but it will catch a glide no matter how poorly it launches and go far, just not always over 100k. it will also climb and dive for a few mins as it levels itself out, but its balance is perfect and the only time it hasnt landed itself is when it hit a mountain lol

give it a shot if you got an hour to spare or just wanna redesign it http://www./?yd96wpcn2zy0b5w

after its launch loop and its turning into its roll, if it turns to the north it will catch a glide at a higher altitude and go further, if it turns to the south it will not go as far lol

[Trebuchet-Launch]

Greetings, gentlemen! I woke this morning and had a bit of inspiration, an improvement in my design which would extend my range much further. And, indeed, it did, although my morning flight ended prematurely when it ran into a tall hill/short mountain... at 225 km out. So, now that I have returned for the evening, and after much thinking, I am tinkering with my new ideas. I'm wondering how far away you can get one of these, ultimately. Out of a decision to set my goal high, perhaps impossibly high, I am shooting for... I can't believe I am typing this - 1000 km distance.

Is it possible? I no longer doubt it out of hand, at least...

EDIT: I realized - why bounce off the ground? Bounce off the AIR. Dynamic soaring, Silbervogel style. Does it work in the game? YES. My version of the SilberJeb will dive into the atmosphere and then *back* above 10000m before gliding.

EDIT: It's gliding directly towards a mountain range again.

EDIT: This sort of thing will take a long time to perfect, given the sheer length of time a good glider can stay up. Perhaps I should retry all flights that are headed into mountains or going in inconvenient directions...

EDIT: EndlessWaves, my approach started off as efficient use of thrust, along with the completely kerbal tactic of ricocheting the rocket off the runway (before we were allowed inclined launches). I am now incorporating gliding. My current design leaves the atmosphere, comes back in, goes back OUT of the thick air, and then does a final glide.

EDIT: Not only am I aimed at the mountains, I am aimed at A mountain. So, this test flight is going to end soon.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Trebuchet-Launch

[Padarom]

Just got a pretty good flight. I added wheels to my craft and started it as low as possible with an angle of 0°. It rolled about 50m, then it took off, went another few hundred meters before it did a pretty long turn (which I don't know the reason for) and landed safe. One wing crashed while it landed, but it rolled out pretty good and made another few meters.

Maximum altitude was below 8000m

http://www.imagebanana.com/view/2ha3jeuw/KerbalSpaceProgram08232012231611.jpg

This one is 25,023m!

Edited August 23, 2012 by Padarom

[EndlessWaves]

An hour later at 1:45 flight time and it's still going. 325m altitude and 11.9m/s forward speed. If this thing doesn't stall there's at least another half an hour to go.

[SamNxGn]

@Trebuchet-Launch If you can get one to fly 1000Km I will give you an honorary mention in the Opening Post

@EndlessWaves Thats a long time! Make sure to take the correct screenshot of the End Flight screen so that I can record your entry!

[Suprablaski4]

lol figured it was only a matter of time, i enjoyed my lead ;-p could work on something to glide at a higher altitude but meh

[Trebuchet-Launch]

Final stats:

Highest altitude: 54,521 m

Ground Distance: 214,849 m

Highest Speed: 1,504 m/s

It has a *very* good glide ratio and slammed into a mountainside at 1289 m altitude.

I can beat this.

EDIT: New flight looks promising so far.

EDIT: D'oh

EDIT: Bouncing off the atmosphere is as unpredictable as bouncing off the tarmac.

EDIT: Going back into the mountains. Ugh.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Trebuchet-Launch

[EndlessWaves]

So much for stopping when it hit 0m, after 2 hours 20 minutes and it splashed down, only to take off again and bounce along the surface of the water. It's at 9m/s and losing 0.1m/s every couple of bounces so it shouldn't take long now.

A minute and a half later it seems to have come to a stop. Ground distance covered: 117,346km. Maximum height: 3,514m.

Images here: http://imgur.com/a/xCbgd

I launched horizontally and I think I fluffed up the launch a bit so it could potentially go a fair bit further, if I can find three or four hours to spare. I'll post the craft file after I've had another crack at flying it.

[SamNxGn]

Good job EndlessWaves. You might get to the top spot with that thing

[NetBlitzer]

Greetings, gentlemen! I woke this morning and had a bit of inspiration, an improvement in my design which would extend my range much further. And, indeed, it did, although my morning flight ended prematurely when it ran into a tall hill/short mountain... at 225 km out. So, now that I have returned for the evening, and after much thinking, I am tinkering with my new ideas. I'm wondering how far away you can get one of these, ultimately. Out of a decision to set my goal high, perhaps impossibly high, I am shooting for... I can't believe I am typing this - 1000 km distance.

Is it possible? I no longer doubt it out of hand, at least...

EDIT: I realized - why bounce off the ground? Bounce off the AIR. Dynamic soaring, Silbervogel style. Does it work in the game? YES. My version of the SilberJeb will dive into the atmosphere and then *back* above 10000m before gliding.

EDIT: It's gliding directly towards a mountain range again.

EDIT: This sort of thing will take a long time to perfect, given the sheer length of time a good glider can stay up. Perhaps I should retry all flights that are headed into mountains or going in inconvenient directions...

EDIT: EndlessWaves, my approach started off as efficient use of thrust, along with the completely kerbal tactic of ricocheting the rocket off the runway (before we were allowed inclined launches). I am now incorporating gliding. My current design leaves the atmosphere, comes back in, goes back OUT of the thick air, and then does a final glide.

EDIT: Not only am I aimed at the mountains, I am aimed at A mountain. So, this test flight is going to end soon.

Treb, if you can go 1000km, you can go further than quite a few of my powered space planes

And also, I accept your challenge Treb, even though I've so far not been anywhere near that distance, and I now am aiming for 1111km!

[Trebuchet-Launch]

I may have... Wow. This one is going over the water. No mountains. Hopefully it goes in the right direction after the atmospheric bounce. *crossing fingers*

EDIT: A world of blue below, with no inconvenient mountains. See screenshot50, attached.

EDIT: Sonova... it's heading RIGHT BACK towards KSC

EDIT: I have it consistently headed over the ocean. It's fine if I fire it off axis as long as it's not above 45 degrees elevation, right? ::loophole abuse::

EDIT: The SilberJeb's atmosphere bounce is so good, even the failures where the stupid thing decides to go home are further out when I End Flight out of irritation than anyone else's flights, and they've barely begun to glide.

EDIT: I'm just gonna let this one fly until it crashes and see what kind of ground distance I get.

EDIT: Posting an atmosphere bounce so people know what I'm talking about, screenshot 51. After re-entering the atmosphere, it deflects off the lower air, bottoms out around 7000 meters, and goes flying back up. I think this is bounce #2.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Trebuchet-Launch

[taekwondeal]

Hey Trebuchet, maybe you can help me. I'm trying to replicate your "bounce-launch" procedure, but I'm not getting anything even close to a good result. You said in your original description that you had one pair of canards that were angled in such a way as to pitch the nose up but if I try to do that it just spins everywhere. Is there any chance of you posting a video of a bounce-launch? I'm still not sure I understand it, but I want to try to do it myself!

[EndlessWaves]

EDIT: Sonova... it's heading RIGHT BACK towards KSC

I don't think that matters, it's distance covered rather than distance you can get from KSC. Good luck with the Megametre record.

[NetBlitzer]

EDIT: I have it consistently headed over the ocean. It's fine if I fire it off axis as long as it's not above 45 degrees elevation, right? ::loophole abuse::

Yes, 45 degrees is the max launch angle. You can however do some tricky stuff to get it to point up after the launch.

It seems that I keep being surprised at how little of wings you have on your Treb. Maybe I need to rethink my entire approach...

Edit: Removed some wings off my last test craft and after it reached its max height, it did a quick flip and half roll and is now going backwards. But that's not the weirdest part. The craft rocks back and forth in about a 120 degree angle of rotation. And because of this, it kind of flaps and keeps gaining height, then losing it, then regaining a bit of it back. Seems to lose about 10 meters of altitude over each flap, which lasts for about 10 seconds. And yet it's going 35m/s over land...

Edited August 23, 2012 by NetBlitzer

[Trebuchet-Launch]

Believe me, I am the master of "tricky stuff to get it to point up". I invented bounce-launching, remember.

As far as lack of wings goes, I'm trying to stay minimal for drag reasons. The concept of the SilberJeb is to fling it out of the atmosphere and have it skip like a stone a few times over the dense air, then glide. Depending on how well it goes here, I'll see about fiddling with more wing.

EDIT: I would guesstimate that I've already passed my previous best. We'll see when it inevitably hits a mountain.

EDIT: This is a reply to taekwondeal - I can't believe I had overlooked your post previously! First off, I don't know the hotkey for video capture (is there one? Or is everyone using some other capture method for video?) but if I did I would record a bounce after this current flight crashes. As far as the canards go, there is a picture of my bounce-launcher on page 4 of this thread, although it's a bit small. The front set of wings is NOT angled. The back set is very slightly angled down. There are two pairs of landing gear wheels. You want a rocket that turns very little. It basically flies sideways, drops a bit before it picks up speed/lift, and the impact with the ground ricochets it up.

EDIT: 227 km. Nuts. Into a mountain again, obviously.

EDIT: Current flight has been airborne for an hour now.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Trebuchet-Launch

[NetBlitzer]

Well, my craft's rocking more or less stopped (still is going in about a 20 degree turn angle now) and it seems to have stabalized. Backwards. But no matter, it's going 25m/s while only dropping 1 meter every second or two. It's at 2500+ meters in altitude over the ocean. We'll see how far it goes.

Edit: It's certain I'll beat my 58km record, it's just a question of by how much.

Edit2: OK, it looks like it'll be able to go about 120+km hopefully.

Edited August 23, 2012 by NetBlitzer

[Trebuchet-Launch]

Flight finished. Final stats of this flight of the SilberJeb:

Highest Altitude Attained: 59,421 m

Ground Distance Covered: 271,062 m

Highest Speed Achieved: 1,555 m/s

729 km short of 1000 km. Heh.

EDIT: I shall return later... hopefully with some method of squeezing out more distance.

[NetBlitzer]

Sorry for the second post, but I just wanted the pictures to be in a separate post.

So, after taking off some wings, I managed to make a craft that glided for 1 hour and 46 minutes. And this was just a test of what this plane could do.

After some flight I decided that this was going to go far...

The glider went so far that it flew into the night...

Total distance of 142.9km on a TEST. I'm going to retry again and see just how far this can go.

So that test concluded with the new record 142.9km flight in the 'Under 25km' category. In the last image you can see some land which is actually the island in the middle of the ocean east of the KSC on the map. I was glad to not hit it. As a side note, when this thing hit the water, it kept going because it was dropping at such a slow rate (1 meter every 3 seconds).

Edit: Nice job Treb, but if I can get this thing into the upper atmosphere, or just about 10km up and stabilize it there, I think I'll have you beat by over double...

Edit2: Well Treb, you still are in the lead. While I was getting my rocket set up for a 45 degree launch, I accidentally moved a wing and it threw the balance off completely. After around an hour of work, I have yet to get the perfection that was there originally. Time for ANOTHER redesign!

Edited August 24, 2012 by NetBlitzer

[Trebuchet-Launch]

I am testing a new version of the SilberJeb. Having worked out the dynamic soaring, bounce-off-the-atmosphere trick, I'm now working on better gliding and a more vigorous "air bounce". Or to put it another way: yes, if you can get that thing into the upper atmosphere and keep it stable on re-entry, you could top me. The thing is, it's the lobbing and re-entering that's the trick!

EDIT: It's really hard to improve on 271 km, though. Also, a goof-up with a bounce-launch made the fastest ground vehicle I've ever seen.

EDIT: Also while fooling around, I realized, hey, since they're unmanned, you can do multiple simultaneous launches! Attach a bunch of fuselage sections, put multiple copies of your rocket on it, and let loose! Check the attachments.

EDIT: I made one that fires ten at once. It's awesome!

Edited August 24, 2012 by Trebuchet-Launch

[NetBlitzer]

Well Treb, you can have the medal for tonight, but tomorrow! Oh TOMORROW! I'll probably not be able to beat you.

Edit: Actually a craft I'm testing right now crashed and broke off half its wings before continuing on at around 30 meters in the air going 11.2m/s. It dropped roughly one meter every nine or ten seconds. So this new design could possibly be a major winner, if I can launch it correctly.

Edited August 24, 2012 by NetBlitzer

[pebble_garden]

Here's my entry, the Javelin 05:

I managed to reach a ground distance of 182.457km, with a launch angle of 35 degrees, and an apoapsis of 62.486km. If I depressed that angle I might gain some distance, by continuing along a 90 degree heading rather than arcing over to 270, and skipping off the atmosphere as others have done. I got lucky in that my ship turned out to be self-righting (the bracket, I think) and self-leveling (gotta love canards).

Launch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27964403@N08/7849001024/in/photostream/lightbox/

Apoapsis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27964403@N08/7849011400/in/photostream/lightbox/

Splashdown: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27964403@N08/7849005754/in/photostream/lightbox/

Edited August 24, 2012 by pebble_garden

[Suprablaski4]

lol who would have thought days of heated competition on this one