Rocket Plane Challenge - How Far Can You Go

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

Earlier today, I messed around in the SPH and built a rocket plane. As a dare to myself, I blasted off and decided to land it as far away from the KSC as I could - despite the fact that my Dart engine could only burn for 1 minute and 38 seconds at full throttle. That also meant a lot of gliding time, which paid off a lot since I managed to land 342.5 km away from the KSC (at a 45-degree flight heading after taking off from 0-9 KSC).

• I used MJ to check the distance by programming the KSC's coordinates as a rover waypoint.

 

Do you think you can go farther than that? Here are the rules for the challenge.

1. As the name implies, it should be a rocket plane. Which means rocket tanks and engines ONLY.
   1. No intakes or air-breathing engines allowed.
   2. If you use a RAPIER, keep it on rocket mode.
   3. (UPDATE) SRBs okay, but I wouldn't recommend it since you can't shut them off.
2. All stock parts.
   1. May use certain mods ONLY for navigation (like MJ), including:
      1. Determining pitch and speed (surface and vertical)
      2. Finding distance from KSC
      3. Getting orbital aspects.
3. No cheats (duh).
4. Need 1-person crew capacity and probe core (for remote control)
5. Be sure to have a battery and/or a power source.
   1. Since you'll be doing a lot of gliding, you won't have the engine's alternator.
      1. The RAPIERS also don't have alternators, either.
   2. Solar panels inadvisable since they get snapped off easily at high speeds.
6. Must land and take off like a plane.
7. Can only take off from Runway 0-9 KSC
   1. The runway you always take off from.
   2. May change heading after taking off.
8. Land in one piece.
   1. Failure to do so may result in a disqualification.
9. You don't need to make a complete orbit around Kerbin (or even leave the atmosphere). If you do achieve orbit, just be sure to get it back down safely.
   1. And be sure to include pictures of the orbit as proof to receive extra points.

 

Scoring system to come later (and yes, it will include the price). Have fun.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Mars-Bound Hokie
Update to the rules

[Klapaucius]

This sounds like fun.

 

Though I think you may want to keep restrict it to in atmosphere only. If someone gets to orbit, theoretically they can land anywhere.  This sounds like it is as much an efficiency and glide challenge as anything, so it seems adding a ceiling limit  would make it more of a competition.

 

Also, when you say one piece, do you simply mean "not crashed" or are you implying that no staging may be used?

 

Cool idea...just clarifying 

[EveMaster]

I built a rocket plane that can fly directly without gravity assists to the surface of Laythe.

This is the farthest you can go according to the rules as you can only land like a plane if the body you land on has an atmosphere.

Screenshots:

In low Kerbin orbit: https://imgur.com/Sm3pXUJ

In low Laythe orbit: https://imgur.com/qXyISMF

On laythe surface: https://imgur.com/bAw9txN

My plane could be improved somehow: If empty on fuel the center of gravity is behind the rear landing gear, so the plane sits on its tail. I could also add mining equipments, so that the plane has a way to get back to Kerbin.

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

14 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

Though I think you may want to keep restrict it to in atmosphere only. If someone gets to orbit, theoretically they can land anywhere

While that is true, getting into orbit in a rocket plane AND landing safely is an incredibly risky move. Aside from the fact that air-breathing engines are against the rules (if you use rapiers, use closed-cycle only), the engines with decent thrust forces aren't known for their burn times - not to mention the nerv engines TWR inside Kerbin's atmosphere. You don't have to go into orbit if you can't or don't want to; I'm fine with suborbital trajectories.

• To compensate for that, I'll add a little more emphasis on the price. Does that sound reasonable?
  • Alternatively, I could set a size/mass limit. After all, I wouldn't exactly call an extra-large 350-grand rocket a plane, would I?

 

14 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

Also, when you say one piece, do you simply mean "not crashed" or are you implying that no staging may be used?

Both.  

[Klapaucius]

I decided to go big for the fun of it. Thus, a very impractical Skiff-powered plane with less-than-stellar build quality. It took some tweaking to get off the ground fully fueled, but it did quite well once airborne.

 

I realized I had not reinstalled Waypoint manager on 1.7.3 so, I saved the game, closed it, installed the mod and re-opened it so I could get the distance. Evidently, a whole forest grew up in the meantime!

 

Total distance: 483.7.

 

 

[EveMaster]

My rocket plane weights 728 tons fully fueled. I disagree with that weight is something that constitutes what a plane is. No one would argue that the Airbus A380 isn't a plane because of its weight.

Instead of a weight limit I suggest a scoring system that encourages light planes such as achieved distance divided by launch mass.

The other stats of my craft in space and in atmosphere:

[Pds314]

People have gotten single stage rocket planes to Low Eve Orbit from Eve's surface on LFO alone, with enough xenon to get back to Kerbin for a runway landing. That is of course after SSTO'ing from Kerbin to Eve and refueling using ISRU. This challenge is effectively just "reach orbit and plop down your rocket plane far from KSC." Unless you're gonna make the challenge more difficult and make it harder to reach orbit I think this fits the category of solved challenge. 

Edited September 4, 2019 by Pds314

[Klapaucius]

2 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

People have gotten single stage rocket planes to Low Eve Orbit from Eve's surface on LFO alone. This challenge is effectively just "reach orbit and plop down your rocket plane far from KSC."

True, but at the same time, not all of us are as skilled in that department, and so it was still fun for me, who spends way more time building jets than rockets. So perhaps a good challenge for those of us looking to expand our horizons :-)

[Pds314]

1036 kilometers nominal, in a 9-tonne single stage caveman vehicle. I had a bit of a hard landing though.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Another cavebird, this time it's a successful SSTO with enough Delta-V for a free-return flyby mission to the Mun.

[TheTripleAce3]

Posting to remind myself to show rocket biplane w/ forward sweep on wings.

[TheTripleAce3]

Not giving range data because I was learning hyperedit at the time and fiddled with some things in the flight that likely invalidated the entry, but I'll retry it as soon as I get the time.