Kronus' 1:1 Stock Airliner Replica Hangar

[Kronus_Aerospace]

WELCOME TO THE HANGAR
Here there be giants

With part counts measured in the thousands, these colossi of the skies aren't for the faint of heart
Look inside to find detail-oriented replicas of some of the largest passenger and cargo liners ever built or conceived
With no mods or DLC required, these craft are open to all who can handle their bulk!

 

Boeing 747-100

Spoiler

Partcount: 410
Mass: 417.25 Tonnes
Dimensions: 73.71 W x 20.97 H x 67.8 L

The 747, unarguably the most iconic aircraft in the world. This craft was my first airliner replica, and utilized a custom fairing fuselage, it would become the blueprint for most of my future builds.

Date Built: 2018-01-05
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-747-100-2P-Andean

 

Antonov An-225 "Mriya"

Spoiler

Partcount: 979
Mass: 640.3 Tonnes
Dimensions: 88.3 W x 18.13 H x 87.49 L

The largest and heaviest aircraft in the world, This beast is remarkable for both its size and its beauty.
There's a reason they call it the "Dream". This craft improved upon the building techniques used on my 747-100

Date Built: 2018-02-04
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-Antonov-AN-225-Mriya

 

Boeing 747-8

Spoiler

Partcount: 1150
Mass: 414.6 Tonnes
Dimensions: 72.15 W x 20.0 H x 79.79 L

The largest of the 747 family, The 747-8 is the longest passenger liner in the world. This craft features my first use of custom turbofans.

Date Built: 2018-04-09
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-747-8-Peregrine

 

Airbus A-380-861

Spoiler

Partcount: 2159
Mass: 645.8 Tonnes
Dimensions: 78.83 W x 25.63 H x 74.57 L

The largest Passenger liner in the world, some proposed variants would have 1000 seats! This craft features my first use of a custom aerofoil.

Date Built: 2018-09-03
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-A380-861

 

Boeing Pelican "ULTRA"

Spoiler

Partcount: 2857
Mass: 1,799.16 Tonnes
Dimensions: 150.28 W x 46.25 H x 117.8 L  

With a cargo capacity of 1200 tonnes, this ekranoplan could swallow a 747 in its gigantic cargo hold. Designed in the year 2000, but unfortunately never built. This craft is powered entirely by 4 massive stock turboprops, which give it a maximum takeoff weight of 3000 tonnes!

Date Built: 2018-09-16
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-Pelican-ULTRA

 

Hughes H-4 Hercules "SPRUCE GOOSE"

Spoiler

Partcount: 2141
Mass: 310.95 Tonnes
Dimensions: 97.48 W x 17.85 H x 66.9 L

This massive seaplane speaks for itself, a truly herculean aircraft and a gargantuan waste of money! This craft is powered by 8 stock turboprops and features a more advanced custom aerofoil.

Date Built: 2019-03-02
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-H-4-Hercules-Spruce-Goose

 

McDonnell Douglas MD-11

Spoiler

 

Partcount: 1485
Mass: 270.61 Tonnes
Dimensions: 52.55 W x 17.73 H x 64.88 L

An enlarged variant of the DC-10, this airliner was meant to resuscitate its terrible reputation. The craft features custom control surfaces, giving it excellent roll authority for its size.

Date Built: 2019-06-09
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-McDonnell-Douglas-MD-11

 

Scaled Composites Stratolaunch

Spoiler

Partcount: 3150
Mass: 650.58 Tonnes
Dimensions: 118.63 W x 17.44 H x 72.82 L

Possessing the largest wingspan of any aircraft ever flown, the Stratolaunch is designed to air-launch rockets and other vehicles. Despite being completed before my MD-11, technical difficulties that plagued this craft postponed its release, the payoff for this trouble is my most detailed and highest part count replica to date.

Date Built: 2019-10-28
Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-Stratolaunch

 

Boeing 747sp (WIP)

Spoiler

 

 

Partcount: N/A
Mass: N/A Tonnes
Dimensions: N/A W x N/A H x N/A L

The shortest variant of the 747, this aircraft's portly appearance earned it the nickname "Sutter's Balloon".

Date Built: N/A
Download: NOT YET (Be patient!)
 

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by Kronus_Aerospace

[IkranMakto]

https://www.curseforge.com/kerbal/ksp-mods/tweakscale

[Kronus_Aerospace]

On 8/9/2019 at 3:26 PM, IkranMakto said:

https://www.curseforge.com/kerbal/ksp-mods/tweakscale

That would save me a great deal of trouble, but alas, I am cursed (by my own arbitrary standards) to build stock!

Edited September 11, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[HafCoJoe]

These are beautiful! I'm also a stock part purist so I can really appreciate the effort that you've gone through to make these!

[Kronus_Aerospace]

@Avera9eJoe Thank you very much! Doing these kinds of builds are a huge passion of mine, and account for 90% of my time playing KSP.

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

On 8/9/2019 at 8:00 AM, Kronus_Aerospace said:

some variants feature 1000 seats

@Kronus_Aerospace That statement is incorrect. Can you please fix it? According to Airbus, "the aircraft is certified to a max seating capacity of 853."

[Kronus_Aerospace]

2 hours ago, Bottle Rocketeer 500 said:

@Kronus_Aerospace That statement is incorrect. Can you please fix it? According to Airbus, "the aircraft is certified to a max seating capacity of 853."

Imprecise wording on my part. Airbus has proposed variants of the A-380 with 1000 seats, however none of the ones in the air have that many. It's been fixed.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Kronus_Aerospace]

This post was made before I fixed the issues with my Stratolaunch, read it if you wish to gain a true understanding of just how severe it was.

Spoiler

 

So, this sucks. Some of you may know that I have been teasing a Stratolaunch replica for a while, and believe it or not, it was effectively completed. Here it is!

This craft has about 2 months of near continuous work invested in it. However, only that first month was spent building it, the latter month was spent entirely with bug fixing.
Anything from parts not loading correctly, to the craft file being craft, to chunks of the aircraft completely loosing their relation to other sections of the aircraft. The kraken has it's grimy tentacles all over this thing. Everytime I solved a problem a new one sprang up, so after a month of trying to get this thing to function, I simply gave up.

With craft of this nature, you tend to get into the Sunk Cost Fallacy. I had already spent so much time working on it, why give up on it now? However, I eventually realized that I was dreading to open KSP, because this hell spawn of a craft file was waiting for me, so that was that, I moved on.

The craft was constructed in 2 distinct pieces, the fuselage, and the wing.

These were then put together to form the craft. But while they work fine individually, together they summon the kraken. I rebuilt the craft multiple times by taking these two components and putting them together, but everytime I did this wholly distinct problems arose, complete unique each time I built the craft, and these problems somehow get worse over time, which is ultimately what forces me to rebuild it again.

The end to this sad saga. I'm giving these parts out! I don't think they are particularly useful on their own, but hell, better than letting them rot.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ivjrbfh68rehpoy/AABx3vK6yy4DDcqne3qqsfnCa?dl=0

If you want to take a stab at putting this craft together, the engines that are meant to be used with it can be found here...

https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-PW-4056-Turbofan

As for me, I'm moving on to greener pastures.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

@Kronus_Aerospace After you finish the 747SP, can you please try making the 737-800 with split scimitar winglets? I see that you are creating giant beasts, but I think it would be interesting to see something a little bit smaller from you. Currently, there are no accurate 1:1 737s and though it is smaller in size that some of your other builds, it would still be fairly challenging to make some of the details such as the flat-bottomed engines.

[Kronus_Aerospace]

@Bottle Rocketeer 500 Actually @Munbro Kerman has been working on just such a replica, I don't know if it is complete or not or when he'll end up posting it, but there you go!

That isn't to say that I couldn't make my own, but I'd prefer to let him have the glory. I've never been one for one-upmanship.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Munbro Kerman]

5 hours ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

@Bottle Rocketeer 500 Actually @Munbro Kerman has been working on just such a replica, I don't know if it is complete or not or when he'll end up posting it, but there you go!

Well, before seeing these awesome replicas I would have said that my 737 was pretty much done, but now after flying on a 737-800 during my vacation a few weeks ago I feel inspired to go back and redo a few things. Also, I really wouldn't mind (in fact I would be interested) if you went ahead and made a 737, since there aren't that many 1:1 scale replicas of it in the first place.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Munbro Kerman

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Spoiler

 

I've decided to post updates to the 747sp as new posts on top of adding them to the OP, once it is finished I will condense these down into spoilers. On that note, Tonight's update!

The main thing I've been working on is the stock Zap Flap mechanism (not a Fowler Flap, but similar). The flap itself functions as a large custom control surface when not deployed. It has gone through multiple redesigns and countless changes before arriving at the current set up, and it is much smoother, smaller, less part intensive, and more reliable than the initial prototype. Though it isn't that strong, and I will likely have to revisit it again.

The actual mechanism for deploying the flap is a nightmare. This flap is heavy, so trying to build a mechanism capable of reliable moving the whole thing has been a pain, currently it just barely works when deploying the flap, though 1/4 times it'll just get stuck somehow and self destruct. It suffers severely from flex and cannot retract the flap again. Tonnes of RnD time has been put into it, and despite it's current state it has improved a lot, and I suspect that it'll just be a matter of making gradual improvements until it works to my satisfaction.

Best part is, once I finish that, I still have to build a whole 'nother one from scratch. Honestly didn't expect large functioning flaps like this to be so difficult, but it's worth it for the cool factor alone.

This all brings the part count of the wing up to 218 parts and 21 tonnes. Which isn't really surprising, since by every possible metric it is more accurate and complex than any other wing I've built. I expect progress to be slow but steady.

 

747sp Update

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Yaeah]

very impressive

what kind of fps did you get taking that screenshot with all of the airliners?

[Kronus_Aerospace]

3 minutes ago, Yaeah said:

very impressive

what kind of fps did you get taking that screenshot with all of the airliners?

The very concept of measuring the frames per any unit time smaller than an hour is a joke when talking about that screenshot.

[TheFalcon]

7 hours ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

The very concept of measuring the frames per any unit time smaller than an hour is a joke when talking about that screenshot.

Hahah, painfully accurate

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Spoiler

 

The zap flap mechanism is now actually fully working. It's slow and takes a million and one steps, but it's working 

 

I'm working on it to ensure that it reconnects flush, as you can see at the moment it sags a bit on the right side.

 

747sp Update

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[IkranMakto]

Well, that looks great, but your ksp will just die when you'll try to launch the whole plane

[Kronus_Aerospace]

2 hours ago, IkranMakto said:

Well, that looks great, but your ksp will just die when you'll try to launch the whole plane

Most certainly. But my most complex replica has 2800 parts, I'm estimating the part count of this one to be around 2500, so nothing I can't handle

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Spoiler

 

The zap flap mechanism was functional, but only barely, and certainly far from my satisfaction. So I rebuilt the mechanism from scratch, this rebuilt version has less parts, and is far stronger.

I realized that I didn't need the docking ports to be inline with the motion of the mechanism, this allowed me to replace the twelve .625m docking ports with three 2.5m docking ports oriented flat, allowing them to easily fit inside the 747sp's thin wings.

Only problem now is that this version of the mechanism is so much larger that I'm having trouble finding a place to fit parts to drive it.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Spoiler

 

The new version of the zap flap mechanism functions extremely well. All that's left now is final adjustments and tweaks.

The zap flap mechanism requires AG 2 to extend, and AG 3 to retract, with AG 1 devoted to the krueger flaps. I would have preferred for all of this to be done using 1 AG, but how action groups work in this game precludes this possibility.

The mechanism is also compact enough that a scaled down version will easily work for the smaller second zap flap that still needs to be added.

The wing's total part count is now 225 parts and its mass is 37 tonnes, exactly 1/3 of each of those figures come entirely from the zap flap mechanism. Compared to my A380's wings, this wing so far has 130 fewer parts and is 5 tonnes heavier, impressively.

 

747sp update

Edited November 4, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Kronus_Aerospace]

I've now finally finished work on the zap flap mechanism. It's not built to be smooth (If you couldn't tell) but rather to be robust and reliable. However, I am quite happy with how it works, so I'm putting it up for download on KX for those whom may be interested.

Download Link: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-Zap-Flap-Mechanism

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Spoiler

 

Great Progress has been made on the wing, most of the underside is now complete.

As you can also see, I've started work on the next zap flap. It currently only functions as a control surface as I have yet to add the mechanism for it to extend.

The second flap was built quite differently from the first, specifically, it was built to be lighter. While the first flap has a hefty mass of 3.5 tonnes, the second flap has a mass of just 950 kilograms. This was necessary as the second flap will have much less room for its mechanism inside the wing, the 747sp's wings are remarkably thin to begin with, and that far out from the base it's only .8 meters thick. Considering that the wing panels are around .15 meters thick each, that means I'm down to just .5 meters of space at the most.

While this wing is far from finished, and there are sill some serious challenges to overcome, I am nonetheless rather happy with the current progress. It feels great to finally see details like the Sutter's twist materialize.

 

747sp update

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Spoiler

 

It took me quite some time to figure out a solution for how to actuate the second smaller flap of the 747sp. However, I managed to come up with a satisfying design.

It should just be a matter of adding docking ports and every flap mechanism in the wings will be complete!

 

747sp update

Edited November 4, 2019 by Kronus_Aerospace

[IkranMakto]

Will it work in flight? 

[Kronus_Aerospace]

3 hours ago, IkranMakto said:

Will it work in flight? 

Ah, that's the big question. I have worked on similar mechanisms in the past (although not quite as extensive), so I have a good idea on how robust they need to be to survive in-flight loads. The Krueger flaps and the second zap flap I'm very confident in. The larger zap flap is where I'm worried. I fully expect it needing to be optimized, one easy way to do this would be to replace the wing parts that make it up with radiators, that's what I'm gonna be working on next.