"Fastest" Juno-powered Airplane

[Lisias]

42 minutes ago, purpleivan said:

Didn't notice the "no ballast tanks" before taking a leaf out of @Lisias book and slapping something together that uses them.

I don't really consider my last entry as... a "real entry", I was agreeing with @Laie using an argument based on example. Just took my preivous entry, replaced the PAX with ore, added a bit of lift and called it a day.

Personally, I like PAX more. We don't use airplanes to ferry ore.

[Laie]

1 hour ago, purpleivan said:

Didn't notice the "no ballast tanks" before taking a leaf out of @Lisias book

No worries, ballast tanks are not forbidden. @swjr-swis has already pointed out why this would be useless, there's nothing I could add.

Anyone using ore tanks should be aware that they're building X-planes which have no purpose beyond the scope of this challenge. But... that's the way of challenges, I guess: almost every higher / better / faster / stronger challenge seems to converge on one particular kind of optimization that rules them all. We have found ours. I see no point in fighting it.

Which brings me to today's issue of "anything worth doing, is worth overdoing":

2.5m Parts are rumored to be the most aerodynamic of them all, so I gave them a try. Lo and behold, the rumors are true! It looks as if longer is better, and this one could certainly be longer still. It struggles to go supersonic, but once it's through, it won't stop: 670m/s (the fastest so far) 13 engines, a bit over 60 tons.

That would be 3100 points... however, one ore tank is hidden in the cargo bay, together with the cockpit. I'm not yet certain just how much of a difference this makes, but clipping parts into bays or fairings is a kind of optimization I don't want to see, so this one doesn't qualify.

So, that's what I did in KSP today. I didn't get around to updating the leaderbord, though... that will be the first thing tomorrow, I promise.

[Laie]

...and then I fell sick. Next time I could gather a clear thought, a whole week had passed. Neat.

But as nothing happened over the course of this week, I presume that this challenge is, by and large, over. I've combed over the thread once more and put every entry on the leaderboard, I think. Complain if something's still missing.

As for a summary / findings:

• Scoring system worked even worse than expected, with the very fist entries being overweight subsonic.
• my mental model of how aerodynamics work was utterly broken. Fuselage contributes much more drag than I bargained for, and Mk1 ore tanks are more aerodynamic than most every other Mk1 part. They'd be the got-to choice even when *not* trying to increase mass, something to keep in mind for later occasions.
• tweaking the incidence of wings involves a lot of trial and error, and is also error-prone. Variable-incidence wings solve all of these problems in one go. @swjr-swisI've seen it from you first. May I credit you with the idea, or if not, would you happen to know who came up with it?

[Dman Revolution]

6 hours ago, Laie said:

...and then I fell sick. Next time I could gather a clear thought, a whole week had passed. Neat.

But as nothing happened over the course of this week, I presume that this challenge is, by and large, over. I've combed over the thread once more and put every entry on the leaderboard, I think. Complain if something's still missing.

As for a summary / findings:

• Scoring system worked even worse than expected, with the very fist entries being overweight subsonic.
• my mental model of how aerodynamics work was utterly broken. Fuselage contributes much more drag than I bargained for, and Mk1 ore tanks are more aerodynamic than most every other Mk1 part. They'd be the got-to choice even when *not* trying to increase mass, something to keep in mind for later occasions.
• tweaking the incidence of wings involves a lot of trial and error, and is also error-prone. Variable-incidence wings solve all of these problems in one go. @swjr-swisI've seen it from you first. May I credit you with the idea, or if not, would you happen to know who came up with it?

 

 

Can I still crash this challenge? I didnt read anything prohibiting the use of KAL controllers. This is 2 junos and 70 tons.

 

 

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, Dman Revolution said:

Variable-incidence wings solve all of these problems in one go. @swjr-swisI've seen it from you first. May I credit you with the idea, or if not, would you happen to know who came up with it?

I didn't copy it from anyone, that's all I can say for certain. So if you want to throw around credit, I'm fine to 'be it' for now - but be prepared to rectify if and when someone else pipes up and claims it.

[Lisias]

On 2/3/2020 at 5:59 PM, swjr-swis said:

I didn't copy it from anyone, that's all I can say for certain. So if you want to throw around credit, I'm fine to 'be it' for now - but be prepared to rectify if and when someone else pipes up and claims it.

I used this last year on the previous Fastest Juno, and I can tell you for sure it's highly improbable I had invented it - besides not remembering if I had saw someone else using it before or after I created this stunt. But, yet, swjr-swis had already did it before me on that challenge. But after this one.

(and yeah, I learnt a lot on that challenge, it's the reason I have some remembrance of the entries!  )

[Lt_Duckweed]

I would like to submit my entry for supersonic fixed wing.  1 engine pushing 2.481 tons at 628.1m/s which gives it a score of 1558 points.

If the fact that Jeb's head is peeking out a bit and the battery is overlapping with the rtg a tad are an issue, I can redo with slightly different placement.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Lt_Duckweed

[Lt_Duckweed]

No bay shenanigans this time, what you see is what you get.  And what you get is a fixed wing craft with 1 juno pushing 3.180 tons of craft to 632.2 m/s for a score of 2010 points.

[Lt_Duckweed]

Last post of the night, I promise.  1 juno pushing 4.249 tons to 539.4 m/s giving a score of 2291.9 points.

[klond]

 DC9-like regional jet.  6.662t minus some fuel.  282*(~6.5\2) = 916.5

[Castille7]

Not sure why it seems more engines and weight is better then higher speeds when scoring? I may be misunderstanding something here but here's what I have with my Mini SR-71

617.9 (1.726) = 533.2477
                 2

Mini SR-71

[Kernel Kraken]

On 1/18/2020 at 9:11 AM, Laie said:

Another five tons of payload, taking off with any more than that would require a longer runway. Again, it looks as i it will do better at altitude, but has barely enough power to climb. Right now it's 151m/s @ 15.695t -> 2370 and score is still rising.

I wonder if I could submit it to @Kernel Kraken's Bomber Procurement Challenge...

Building the heaviest plane off a single Juno seems to be an interesting challenge as well, but is not quite what I had in mind. It definitely needs to be it's own category (and preferably it's own challenge, but i won't run two of them).

Wow, people saw that? That was so long ago I had prayed everyone forgot that mess of a poorly- written, invalid challenge. Cool plane BTW

Edited February 25, 2020 by Kernel Kraken