The Right Stuff?

[SpaceBadger]

Good Morning Aviators one and all.

I'm Badger. Well.... "Space Badger" here, but that's because one of the faux Badgers got here before me. (They're all over the place you know!)

I'm thrilled to have finally taken the plunge and dipped my toes into the addictive waters of "KSP", having tried the demo ages ago and determined it was definitely worth keeping my eye on. I've only been playing v1.7 since yesterday, but it's obvious already that "KSP" is going to be one of those perennial games which just stays on my hard drive forever, while others come and go as the mood grabs me.

Inspired by the videos of Jef Major, I decided to take at least a few steps toward mastering flight within the atmosphere of Kerbal, before trying to get all "Houston we have a problem" and have already spent hours designing by the seat of my pants (because I have little clue about this kind of thing) trying to create something which might reach Kerbal's northern pole.

I optimistically christened my project "Pole Dancer", but quickly discovered that my real talent seemed to be in sending innocent Kerbals to horrible deaths and I had no idea how to even create something which would take off, let alone fly a distance!

"Pole Dancer 1" blew up on the runway when I started the engine! "Pole Dancer's" 2 & 3 started moving... but then span, tumbled and exploded! Oh Kerbals... I am so very sorry!

"Pole Dancer 4" was something of a breakthrough. True it never took off, but it "did" hold a straight course right down the runway... before exploding at the end of it. But that Kerbal gave his life to expand our knowledge hugely and that is probably what I'll be telling his wife and kids.

"Pole Dancer 5" was the first to actually achieve lift off and here at Badger Towers we cheered wildly, right up until it plunged into the sea!

"Pole Dancer 6" avoided getting its feet wet, by displaying an exiting ability to actually make a turn..... kind of. For a moment I thought I might be able to bring it back to the runway... but no. Another smoking hole in the ground.

Which brings us to date and the fantastic breakthrough of "Pole Dancer 7"! (I'm not to clever with the internet stuff, but if I've done this right you should see a picture of "PD7" below.)

"PD7" has exceeded my wildest expectations! The take off procedure requires some..... finesse to accomplish , but once in the air she is turnable, climb and descendable... why she's flyable for goodness sake! Not exactly what you'd call stable, pretty tricky to keep in a straight line and I'm not sure she's landable, but that's because I ran out of time on my test flight last night and couldn't work out how to save a flight ion progress, so I have yet top worry about bringing her down.

Can she reach the pole? Maybe....maybe not. One big problem I have at the moment is not being able to work out from the map view, which direction I am flying in and I don't seem able to find a way to set a waypoint. But as Lex Luthor once said, "North Miss Tessmacher!" I suppose if I try to keep flying as close to 00 degrees as possible, I can't go far wrong....... can I?

See you in space fellas

Badger Out.

[PhNon]

Welcome to the forums! I too am a recent recruit into the Kerbal Space Adventuring family, and I feel your pain in trying to get a jet off the runway. It seems your persistence has paid off though so congratulations! I resigned myself to editing a premade jet for my first fly around It helped me get used to shaping the jets and also helped me get a handle on how they fly.

If I might offer some advice, a larger control platform at the posterior section of the wings would help you gain more lift as well as increasing flight stability! Don't be afraid to use the "SAS" options too; Heavens know I can barely fly without them.

And as for your question, there's no way to plot waypoints with stock parts or interfaces, but there may be something regarding that in the addons section of the forums. I have just started delving into that behemoth of customization myself so I can't help you out much there, sorry!

Again, welcome to the forums and happy exploring! See you, space cowboy!

[sal_vager]

Hi SpaceBadger, welcome to the community

Nice plane, and yeah getting airborne can be a pain with some designs, as the engines have a tendency to impact the runway, you might have to mount your undercarriage on pylons so you have more clearance below your plane, just to make things easier.