5th Generation Fighter Challenge

[TheKrakenHerder]

Welcome to my very first challenge!

 

Background: It’s the mid 2010’s, and the Kerbin States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps are looking for a next-gen multirole fighter to replace their ageing fleet of Kold War era jets. The fighter must be fast, manoeuvrable, agile, and excel at Air-To-Ground and Air-to-Air combat.

 

Rules:

The fighter must be able to seat at least one kerbal, bonus points for two, but two maximum.

 

To allow for more interesting designs, AirplanePlus is allowed. However, the design must be high quality, not just slapping some modded parts together and calling it a day.

 

BDArmory is allowed, but bonus points for giving it working stock Air To Ground and Air To Air weapons.

 

Both DLCs are allowed.

 

The fighter may only use MK1 and MK2 sized parts.

You may make separate variants of the fighter for each service branch, but the changes must not be too major (e.g completely changing the airframe and shape of the aircraft.)

Kerbin States Air Force Requirements:
 

The fighter must be able to achieve speeds of 600 m/s or over.

 

The fighter must have thrust vectoring engines.

The fighter must have a range of 2000 kilometres or more.

 

Kerbin States Navy Requirements:

The fighter must be capable of short takeoffs and short landings.

 

The fighter must be capable of extremely precise altitude control (e.g. Holding altitude reliably with SAS.)

 

The fighter must be able to rapidly slow down from max speed to 100 m/s

 

Kerbin States Marine Corps Requirements:

 

The fighter must be capable of Vertical Takeoff and Landing

 

The fighter must be able to land in the wilderness on rough terrain

 

The fighter must be capable of rapid transition from vertical flight to horizontal flight

 

Scoring system:

 

Basic points for fulfilling all service branches requirements: 100

 

Bonus points for two-kerbal crew capacity: 20

 

Bonus points for stock Air To Air weapons system: 30

 

Bonus points for stock Air To Ground weapons system: 30

 

Bonus points for reliable crew ejection/escape system: 20

 

Bonus points for fulfilling all service branches requirements in a single aircraft: 50

 

Bonus points for internal weapons bay: 10

 

Bonus points for being able to mid-air refuel from a tanker plane: 40

 

 Maximum possible points: 300

 

Good luck!

Edited January 8, 2022 by TheKrakenHerder

[Thundrevv]

Quote

The fighter must be capable of short takeoffs and short landings.

How short? I mean, some would consider vertical landing short, and some would consider Island Airfield short

[TheKrakenHerder]

4 hours ago, Thundrevv said:

How short? I mean, some would consider vertical landing short, and some would consider Island Airfield short

Let’s say half the length of the island airfield runway. Double points if you can do a fully vertical takeoff/vertical landing.

[Thundrevv]

2 hours ago, TheKrakenHerder said:

Let’s say half the length of the island airfield runway. Double points if you can do a fully vertical takeoff/vertical landing.

Boy that's short. I can do VTOs alright, but landing's still bit of a problem. I think I'll try the Air Force jet first

[Akagi]

Ah, yes, time to get to work.

[4D4850]

6 hours ago, Akagi said:

Ah, yes, time to get to work.

Indeed. Right now, I'm working on a hypothetically 190 point SSRT that is an aircraft not even in name, but can be flown unmanned and crashed into stuff, giving an effective combat method. Actually, that'd make it 250 points.

[Akagi]

16 hours ago, 4D4850 said:

Indeed. Right now, I'm working on a hypothetically 190 point SSRT that is an aircraft not even in name, but can be flown unmanned and crashed into stuff, giving an effective combat method. Actually, that'd make it 250 points.

Coming soon from the brains (me) and the production crews (also me) at AAI,

the Crossjet!

VTOL, tailsitting fighter with stock missiles

[4D4850]

My current plan for fulfilling the Air Force requirements, since I cannot fly a plane to save my life, is a orbital 'Rods from God' style fighter, which has 8 MIRV-Os (Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles - Orbital) totaling in at about 200 tons. It will reach about 2200 m/s by going into orbit, satisfying condition 1; The MIRV-Os and crew pod have Cub verniers, fulfilling condition 2; and it can stay in orbit indefinitely, gathering as much downrange distance as it wants, fulfilling condition 3. I was going to try a helicopter for the Marine Corps, but it's dubious if a helicopter ever switches from vertical to horizontal flight, and it was Highly Uncontrollable^TM, which made it impossible to safely land on the VAB helipad, causing me to scratch that off the list.

[TheKrakenHerder]

2 hours ago, 4D4850 said:

I was going to try a helicopter

Remember it has to be a plane

2 hours ago, 4D4850 said:

orbital 'Rods from God' style fighter

I should’ve specified, has to be a jet plane which flies in the atmosphere. You don’t have to fly it yourself, you can let mechjeb do it if you want, just to make sure it’s functional.

[4D4850]

2 minutes ago, TheKrakenHerder said:

Remember it has to be a plane

I should’ve specified, has to be a jet plane which flies in the atmosphere. You don’t have to fly it yourself, you can let mechjeb do it if you want, just to make sure it’s functional.

Ok. I had actually completely forgot Mechjeb has an aircraft autopilot, since I rarely use aircraft.