[challenge] land a spaceplane at KSC after one orbit

[plazmaXIII]

wow nice design. what's that like to get into orbit? very shuttle-like

ive used sleds before and had a lot of success with them so i will try to fit them somehow

where are you landing? the gears don't seem like to rough land?

[Guest LoSboccacc]

well, the trick was to mount radial booster at the end of the first stage that compensate for the attached ship weight. it was quite a nightmare to balance properly, but now it's pretty stable (also SAS! ).

Also, I managed to land that thing, with the escape tower wildly wobbling around. It wants to be landed at less than 50m/s, and it requires to maintain the control surfaces pointed to generate some torque to ease the weight from the front gear, like this (just a bit):

I think it depends a lot from the craft. the wobbling nose will add random weight on the front gear. probably unstable wing will have the same effect on the rear, dunno

[plazmaXIII]

im really not happy with the amount of drag + size of the landing gear. I know they are not deployable yet but in reality no plane could fly at Mach speeds with the landing gear out and stay airworthy; tail fins are also undesirable (although they make you more stable lower to ground).

i think im going to have to mod landing parts to zero drag (as if they were inside the wing) because its not realistic

[your mom]

you mind sharing that ship?

[Zeroignite]

is it possible to land with one gear you think? perhaps someone needs to mod a lighter smaller set of gear . . . (hint)

It is possible to land a small plane on a single skid, though it takes very smooth and level piloting on the approach and touchdown.

[nivvydaskrl]

I'm exceptionally bad at flying, given that I'm only using a keyboard, but I've been experimenting with landings. I've found that CaptainSlug's radial parachute makes an excellent landing chute. If you can glide to ~30m altitude at about 30 m/s horizontal and near 0m/s vertical, deploying a radial chute mounted near the rear of your plane slows you pretty quickly to safe skid speed.

[Guest LoSboccacc]

you mind sharing that ship?

Sure. I was planning to upload it anyway, but I'll not be at home until sunday.

I redid it on my laptop and uploaded on the spaceplane exchange thread. have fun!

[AlexM]

i HAVE made something of this description, I can go round kerbin (or at least 3 quarters berfore I increased the amount ofo fuel and it seems to work fine.

Does the orbit have to go out of the atmosphere? Mine cant go higher than 17000 meters on a good day (once the fuel is jetisoned)