Peridoot's smol plane challange!

[dnbattley]

I won't submit anything technically legal, but physics-defying, but suffice to say 3-part or <500kg manned flight can be achieved... >:D

I will, however post a link to a micro VTOL I made some time back, rated for 3 minutes of relatively fun flying...

 

 

 

[Klapaucius]

18 hours ago, peridoot said:

this plane meets every requirement except for the flight time. but because this was made before that was specified, i will allow it.

Does that mean powered flight time or time aloft?  Because it will certainly glide for longer than 30 seconds.  I just hit the chute immediately.

@swjr-swis "Reckless Machines of Death"

 

That sounds pretty par for the course in many Kerbal challenges 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Klapaucius

[peridoot]

On 4/10/2021 at 10:09 PM, swjr-swis said:

A small kerballed supersonic plane on a single Juno and with an actual cockpit:  https://kerbalx.com/swjr-swis/LT-Supersonic-II

1.68t wet weight, 4400 funds, only 68 science points to spend on the tech tree.

Flies 1 kerbal at mach 1.6 @ 11 km using 0.02 LF/s, cruise range upwards of 800km.

Lands horizontally, chute for braking (the smallest low tech gear have no brakes of their own).

 

Does it count?

 

ehhhh with the large pod i will have to say this wont count because a lot of designs im looking for could almost FIT inside a pod

[swjr-swis]

13 minutes ago, peridoot said:

ehhhh with the large pod i will have to say this wont count because a lot of designs im looking for could almost FIT inside a pod

Fair enough. That one fulfilled its purpose already in a different challenge.

 

Btw, aren't you adding the other entries you approved to the leaderboards?

[Max von Kerman]

Dangit i cat even fly a space shuttle so plz dont make me fly a TINY plane  

[swjr-swis]

55 minutes ago, Max von Kerman said:

Dangit i cat even fly a space shuttle so plz dont make me fly a TINY plane

<affecting my best Jeremy Clarkson impression>

Some say the space shuttle was a mistake. Some say it's little more than a flying brick and shouldn't have been flown in the first place.

All we know is, it stalls on stick.

Edited April 16, 2021 by swjr-swis

[Max von Kerman]

7 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

<affecting my best Jeremy Clarkson impression>

Some say the space shuttle was a mistake. Some say it's little more than a flying brick and shouldn't have been flown in the first place.

All we know is, it stalls on stick.

The thig is that i don't know how to fly anything plane related, I'm more of a rocket guy.

*Everytime i try landing a shuttle, it does a colombia style spin and break up.*

[Klapaucius]

I managed 50 seconds of air time and even landed it!

Here is the craft file:  https://kerbalx.com/Klapaucius/Poe-Sepratron-Microlite

Thanks for this very fun challenge. You inspired me to create my own!

 

 

Edited April 16, 2021 by Klapaucius

[peridoot]

i am getting to the leader board part. its just really hard to decide!

[DRAG0Nmon]

Is the plane allowed to take slight damage upon landing?

[vyznev]

On 4/7/2021 at 3:16 AM, peridoot said:

the challange is simple: make the smallest aircraft possible in stock KSP (you can use DLCs)

RULES:

must have some form of part that can generate lift (like a evelon)

Does a Kerbal with a parachute count as a lift-generating part? If yes, let me present…

 

Spoiler

 

Critics have called the BYOA rocket paraglider "nothing more than a sepratron strapped to a steel chair", but while this may have been an accurate description of the early development versions, the new advanced electric attitude control system — installed after test flights revealed that Kerbals could not properly steer using their parachute while sitting in a chair* — makes the BYOA much more than that. Yet it's still just as fun to ride!

*) Attempts to develop an even more lightweight version that would omit both the electric guidance system and the chair, and simply attach the rocket directly to the pilot's butt, have so far been unsuccessful.

The latest production version also adds a high impact tolerance grip pad for extra landing safety. (If you don't have the Breaking Ground DLC installed, don't worry — the craft is fully stock except for the grip pad and flies just fine without it, it's just a lot harder to land intact while staying under the 7 m/s impact tolerance of the cuboctagonal strut.)

Operating instructions: Before launch, turn SAS on and preferably switch to fine control mode and open the pilot's right-click menu. Stage to launch. Pitch up during launch for a longer flight. Deploy chute near apogee and pitch down to about 5° below the horizon. If stalled, temporarily pitch down more until you gain enough forward speed, then pull up again. The optimal pitch and ground speed for gliding and landing seem to be a few degrees below horizontal and about 12 m/s. When steering, make sure to keep the center of the navball below the horizon or you'll quickly lose speed and stall. When landing, pitch up a little just before touchdown to kill excess horizontal velocity.

 

KerbalX link: https://kerbalx.com/vyznev/BYOA-Rocket-Paraglider

[peridoot]

On 4/14/2021 at 10:40 PM, dnbattley said:

I won't submit anything technically legal, but physics-defying, but suffice to say 3-part or <500kg manned flight can be achieved... >:D

I will, however post a link to a micro VTOL I made some time back, rated for 3 minutes of relatively fun flying...

 

 

 

i kinda want to see this 3 part plane.

[DRAG0Nmon]

All you kids with your new-fangled "SRBs" and your fancy "jet engines ", back in my day we had to use propellers if we wanted to fly! 

5,370 funds,  799kg with Pables Kerman on board and 705kg without her.  6.804 cubic meters (dimensions are shown in the video) and made with 22 of the finest parts. Its rather large compared to the other planes here, but its also powered by eight pieces of metal spinning at 460 RPM. I'm also positive that I can make it smaller,  so now i have something to do over the weekend.

[peridoot]

2 minutes ago, DRAG0Nmon said:

All you kids with your new-fangled "SRBs" and your fancy "jet engines ", back in my day we had to use propellers if we wanted to fly! 

5,370 funds,  799kg with Pables Kerman on board and 705kg without her.  6.804 cubic meters (dimensions are shown in the video) and made with 22 of the finest parts. Its rather large compared to the other planes here, but its also powered by eight pieces of metal spinning at 460 RPM. I'm also positive that I can make it smaller,  so now i have something to do over the weekend.

sooooo uh that i that part that the chair sits on? i see you have mods. i did not say mods are allowed. i said DLCs

[DRAG0Nmon]

@peridoot I have EVE, Scatterer, and KER installed for visuals and information. The chair is sitting on 3 rotated and offset stock fuel cells, which provide 4.5 electric charge for the propellers, which consume 3.2 electric charge. The craft is entirely stock, as said in the vid's description.

[peridoot]

ah. ok well you got a valid plane! have a badge!

[dnbattley]

12 hours ago, peridoot said:

i kinda want to see this 3 part plane.

Here you go   Raw video footage of me taking it for a spin to the island and back.

 

[dnbattley]

And, while I'm at it, a flyable lightweight version. 251kg, without pilot. Flag is not used as a lifting surface, so I believe this is still within the rules.

Flys quite nicely

 

Though landing is a little bit hairy - and no reaction wheel to assist...

[peridoot]

7 hours ago, dnbattley said:

And, while I'm at it, a flyable lightweight version. 251kg, without pilot. Flag is not used as a lifting surface, so I believe this is still within the rules.

Flys quite nicely

 

Though landing is a little bit hairy - and no reaction wheel to assist...

i did say no kraken drives. so this wont be allowed

[peridoot]

On 4/16/2021 at 1:02 PM, DRAG0Nmon said:

Is the plane allowed to take slight damage upon landing?

i would say if more than 25% is destoryed you have to do a redo

[dnbattley]

9 hours ago, peridoot said:

I did say no kraken drives. so this wont be allowed

That's fair: I didn't see it in the original rules, but you did subsequently comment that way. I think I can do a three part unmanned version which doesn't use a Kraken engine, but does equally exploit Ksp's engine...

[vyznev]

4 hours ago, dnbattley said:

I think I can do a three part unmanned version which doesn't use a Kraken engine, but does equally exploit Ksp's engine...

Technically, the original version of my BYOA had only three parts — a command chair, a sepratron and a cubic strut (to serve as the root part for attaching the other two) — and used no exploits. But it was basically uncontrollable after chute deployment, so the only way to land it without breaking any of the three parts was by pure luck.

(I did realize that I could trim the six-part version I posted earlier down to just five parts, since the reaction wheel can serve as the root part, making the strut superfluous. And technically I could even get rid of the grip pad too, if I'm allowed to break one of the four remaining parts on landing as the OP mentioned above. Or I just need to learn how to land more gently — hitting the ground at less than 8 m/s to avoid any parts breaking is definitely possible, just hard.)

[dnbattley]

Okay, so two more craft to throw into the mix:

1. 4 part, exploit-(but not kraken-) powered, so infinite range (as long as the battery holds out, anyway). It was more stable when I moved the aileron to the back, but flew in either configuration:

2. A actually legitimate entry, although I still haven't managed to land it successfully (it's highly unstable): 3 parts

 

[Guest]

Edit edit: Okay, this is my final submission. 1841 Funds, 78 kg, 4 parts, 0.4 * 0.4 * 0.6 = 0.144 m³. 

It's basically the same as the previous entry, minus the solar panel. It turns out it has juice for over 30 seconds in the air with the 5 EC carried by that little probe core. I don't think this design can be shrunk much further, and it's clearly the minimum part count for a copter design in any case, since you need lift + power + control and you can't subtract any of the parts without losing one of the three.

1766 Funds, 5 parts, 83 kg, 0.5 x 0.6 x 1.2m = 0.36 m³, no exploits, no clipping, unlimited daytime endurance. 

It can only go up or down, but the ability to  go sideways wasn't specified...

Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/mc

Edit: An even tinier variant,  although a bit more expensive; with clipping since that's allowed. 1916 Funds, 5 parts, 83 kg, 0.4*0.6*0.6m = 0.144 m³

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by Guest

[vyznev]

38 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

It can only go up or down, but the ability to  go sideways wasn't specified...

Stick a reaction wheel on there and it'll go sideways too just fine.

(Well, OK, not exactly fine. It's kinda janky to control because the reaction wheel keeps "slipping" and letting the craft rotate by a few degrees every few seconds so you have to keep correcting the attitude. That might be a bug, but KSP reaction wheels work by pure magic anyway so who knows. But it flies and is basically controllable enough to land anywhere you want.)