Will this ever get into orbit or should I start over from scratch?

[Weatherman159]

First of all, hello to the KSP forums.

So I started designing planes, to take a break from rockets. My first attempts failed miserably, as you might imagine. So I searched the webz for tutorials, watched some youtube videos, read through a couple of helpful topics here on the forums. After applying all of the knowledge I gained to my designs, I managed to create a working plane, take off and even land (although the engines break off on touchdown every time). With this, my ambition soared, and I aimed for Kerbin orbit. This has, however, proven to be quite problematic. Could any of you experienced spaceplane designers take a look at my attempt and try to point out design flaws?

This is the five series of my planes, but it's the first that is designed for going into orbit.

The 5.0, inspired by the magnificent men in their flying machines, crashed and burned at the end of the runway.

The 5.2 took off quite well, handles pretty decently in the air as well. Climbed to roughly 14 000 meters on jets, then made it up to about 60 000 on rocket power. Unfortunately, it ran out of fuel and couldn't get into orbit.

I added more fuel for the 5.3, but this made it too heavy to take off, so I adjusted the landing gear for the 5.4.

In this configuration it managed to take off, but the added fuel didn't help, only reaching about 10 000 meters on jets and around 50 000 on rocket power before falling back to Kerbin.

So you see my problem, and I look forward to any tips you might have for me.

Unrelated, is there a way to adjust the time of day? It's been night for forever in my game...

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

You can just sit on the runway at fast foward till the sun comes up

[crusaderuk]

to adjust time there is the Warp facility (basically this speeds up time in increments), it is available by pressing the following keys

to increase the speed that time passes (warp) press the "." (I prefer to see it as the > faster)

to decrease the speed that time passes (normalise) press the "," (I prefer to see it as the < slower)

be aware that it is incremental, so multiple presses of these keys will give greater/lesser values

Hope that helps

[groundcontrol]

Twin wings surely just extra drag and weight?

[Weatherman159]

I am aware of time warp, I was just under the impression that it didn't work within the atmosphere...silly me apparently.

[Bluejayek]

Could any of you experienced spaceplane designers take a look at my attempt and try to point out design flaws?

This is the fiv

Try going back to the 5.2 but remove the ramjet intakes, and the nosecone. These parts do nothing currently and simply add weight/drag that will slow you down. Also, replace the LE-45 with an aerospike, it is more efficient and so will help you get up higher in altitude. I'm not sure if these minor improvements will get you there, as it is not clear how close you have gotten (What was your horizontal velocity at 60km?), but they will help.

[Serratus]

If You're trying to build SSTO, I'd say that You need BIGGER wings, and MORE rocket thrust. Replacing current engine with Aero-spike would probably get You to sub-orbital trajectory. But if I were You, I'd add two of theme with 2 separate fuel tanks each.

[djnekkid]

Hey mate

Take a look at my SSTO attempt here. It is a quit successfull one as well. Craft-file is in the video comment on youtube. Two Turbojets, an aerospike and about 1100 liters of fuel and some carefull flying is enough to get to an orbit with a semimajor axis of 80km or so.

With spaceplanes arent neccesary more fuel = more height, as them turbojets wont get you high enough and fast enough, and adding more turbojets makes the plane heavier for the upper stage, getting you a lower thrust-weight-ratio (TWR), thus you need more rocket eninges, and then you need more fuel, and now we are in an evil circle.

On my plane do i get to about 14500meters and there I have a speed of about 360m/s, and about 100liters of fuel is used. Acheveing orbit takes another 900 liters or so, and i have about 100-150 liters left for the landing

[bsalis]

Can I have the craft file please.

[EndlessWaves]

The design looks sound too me, it's just a case of optimising it so that when you turn the rockets on you've got as little extra weight as possible.

[Serratus]

@djnekkid - Interesting design. But certainly NOT an SSTO. Just 'sayin.

[djnekkid]

@djnekkid - Interesting design. But certainly NOT an SSTO. Just 'sayin.

You mean the ditchin' of the aerospike on return? I've solved that issue, but I did that quite late last night. I just need to record one without the ditchin', but my spare time have not allowed it yet. Might be today, most likely tomorrow.

[Vanamonde]

time warp, I was just under the impression that it didn't work within the atmosphere...

It won't while you're flying, but will while you're on the ground.

[Weatherman159]

Apparently I am just a crappy pilot and have to compensate for it with bigger fuel reserves. Behold the SpaceDuck Mark I. in orbit around Kerbin.

Unfortunately I completely screwed up my reentry and landed in the ocean east of KSC, but that can be fixed. The orbit in question was something like 300 by 200 km, if I could fly the thing better it would probably have way more fuel left.

[winged_wolf]

I think it will work, just bolt some rockets on there and fire them up when you're at a high altitude then decouple.