No Helmet Speed Record

[Pds314]

Mission

Make an aircraft controlled by a Kerbal (A Kerbal on their own is not considered an aircraft here) and go as fast as you can without a helmet on. (The Kerbal should be in a command seat).

You may not put a helmet on at any point after takeoff.

You may use any legitimate propulsion mechanism. The aircraft and Kerbal must survive.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Pds314

[Kerbal110802]

I have reached 200 m/s. 

 

Nvm 330 m/s, both Kerbal and craft survived.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Kerbal110802

[Reactordrone]

On an external command seat I'm assuming.

[Pds314]

1 hour ago, Reactordrone said:

On an external command seat I'm assuming.

Well yeah.

[sevenperforce]

First attempt with a half-full Kickback got me to 724 m/s trivially. Higher is clearly possible. Didn't slap chutes on this but obviously recovery is trivial.

 

 

[sevenperforce]

A Kerbal's altitude limit is roughly 10 km ASL before they run out of oxygen. If you put one in a fairing then they can go pretty much as fast as you want. So this is just a speed test under 10 km.

[sevenperforce]

Got up to 1,179 m/s at around 6 km with a kickback as the first stage and two Whiplashes and an aerospike for the second stage. No problems. Recovered successfully. Looks like being helmetless doesn't hurt Kerbals at all under 10 km.

 

 

[doggonemess]

12 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

A Kerbal's altitude limit is roughly 10 km ASL before they run out of oxygen. If you put one in a fairing then they can go pretty much as fast as you want. So this is just a speed test under 10 km.

With a fairing, it pretty much doesn't matter if the Kerbal has a helmet or not, right? I thought the point of this challenge was to see how much an unprotected Kerbal could take.

[sevenperforce]

10 hours ago, doggonemess said:

With a fairing, it pretty much doesn't matter if the Kerbal has a helmet or not, right? I thought the point of this challenge was to see how much an unprotected Kerbal could take.

I didn't see any indication that a fairing was disallowed.

If a Kerbal has a helmet and is exposed to the air he can handle up to 800K at over 1 km/s . However, sans helmet his resistance is much lower -- in level flight at 400 meters I got "Jebediah Kerman died without a helmet, too hot" at just under 400 m/s.

Tucked behind a heat shield, but still exposed to the elements, Jeb died at a slightly higher speed (but also at a slightly higher altitude) so I don't think it makes any difference.

[llertag86]

Well I assume with a faring there are no aerodynamic forces experienced by entities inside of it, so I opted to use a cargo bay to prevent Jeb from getting to friendly with the atmosphere, according to the aerodynamic overlays he still experiences drag but this time no overheating problems. Run speed 1238m/s

Turned the craft around to have a land landing as I am not going to keep experimenting with fuel and engines as I have it set to burn every last drop to hit max speed and coast in for a landing.

proof Jeb experienced drag over the trip, forgot to take a photo at max engine burn so the next one is from a failed attempt as I didn't pay attention to the altitude, 8 Wiplash and 6 Vector for peak performance

Run submission with max speed of 1238m/s

Jeb thinks he's flying but we have a drone core in front of him set to ignore all dangerous inputs from the pilot and his joystick.