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Minimalist Planes

Donmy Kerman
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Donmy Kerman

Donmy Kerman

Posted
Posted (edited)

When he crashed his plane into the island runway, Jeb lost his plans for the XF-59. He now has to quickly draft up plans for a simple plane to show to the KSC administration to avoid being fired.

Challenge:

Make a plane with as few parts as possible.

Scoring:

Planes will be scored by part count. Ties will be resolved by cost.

Rules:

  1. Your plane must be able to fly from KSC to the island runway, land there, take off, and land at the KSC without parts breaking, running out of fuel, and entirely under its own power.
  2. Flying on other worlds is allowed, as long as that world has an atmosphere and you spend multiple minutes in the air.
  3. No using the engineer's special abilities.
  4. No exploits.
  5. No mods that add parts, change physics, or change the stock solar system. Visual and informational mods are allowed.
  6. The craft must have at least one kerbal for the entirety of the flight. The kerbal must be inside a pod, airlock, or sitting in a chair.

Categories:

  • Normal: Make a plane with fewer than 15 parts.
  • Hard: Make a plane with fewer than 10 parts.
  • Bonus: Make an impressive submission. Low cost, even fewer parts, a good-looking plane, bending the rules, the possibilities are endless.

Leaderboards:

Normal (the people who completed the challenge as intended with a plane)

  • OJT (14 parts) - 21,676 funds

Hard (<10 parts)

  1. QF9E (3 parts) - 21,305 funds
  2. QF9E (4 parts) - 5,135 funds
  3. The Dressian Exploder (4 parts) - 6,622 funds
  4. Nazalassa (7 parts) - 2,495 funds
  5. QF9E (7 parts) - 7,458 funds
  6. QF9E (9 parts) - 16,456 funds

Bonus (particularly impressive submissions)

  • Nazalassa (7 parts) - A very nice little plane.
  • QF9E (7 parts) - Unconventional landing gear
  • The Dressian Exploder (4 parts) - Nice use of the combined intake-fuel tank part.
  • QF9E (4 parts) - No wings!
  • QF9E (3 parts) - "Is a rocket a plane?"
  • RoninFrog (0 parts) - Literally used 0 parts.
  • OJT (14 parts) - Made an SSTO for the challenge.

Rule benders

  • RoninFrog (0 parts) - 0 funds - Didn't use a craft - a kerbal on their own can fly on Duna, it seems.

Submission format:

Video/screenshots of craft flying, landed, and in VAB/SPH, showing cost and part count.

Edited by adsii1970
moderator edited: TOTM tag added.
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Nazalassa

Nazalassa

Posted
Posted (edited)

Does the plane have to be kerballed during flight? I assume it does, but I can be wrong.

Anyways, here's the "S-plane": 1 Kerbal, 7 parts, vertical take-off/landing, Kerbal's parachute is main wing.

SPH stats:
s-plane_00.png

Flight:

Spoiler

s-plane_01.png
At KSC

s-plane_02.png
Since the S-plane uses the Kerbal's parachute as a wing (apparently they provide some lift), it is deployed.

s-plane_03.png
Approaching Island Airfield

s-plane_04.png
Landed at Isand Airfield

Spoiler

s-plane_05.png
And the mandatory flag

s-plane_07.png
Speed record for the S-plane!

s-plane_08.png
Descent at KSC

s-plane_09.png
About to land...

s-plane_10.png
Landed!

The S-plane is a bit tricky to land, since jet engines do not respond immediately to throttle change.

You can download it here if you want: https://kerbalx.com/Nazalassa/S-plane

Edited by Nazalassa
Challenge complete[d].
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QF9E

QF9E

Posted
Posted (edited)

For a similar challenge a couple of years back I made this monstrosity, with just 7 parts:

It's landing gear is just a construction plate, as these have rather high impact tolerances.

It would take me a lot of time to find the design in my very messy KSP savegame folder, does a KerbalX link to the craft file also serve as proof of parts count?

https://kerbalx.com/QF9E/Low-part-count-plane-c

Edited by QF9E
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The Dressian Exploder

The Dressian Exploder

Posted
Posted (edited)

Behold! The Silly-O! A surprisingly capable airborne tomfoolery device that uses only 4  parts!
http://kerbalx.com/DressianSploder/Silly-O-4-Part-Aerobatic-Aircraft|
7s740a.jpg
 

7s743f.jpg
I'm yet to successfully fly to the island airfield and back without crashing, but I know it to be possible.
7s745f.jpg
This was the end of my attempt to do so. I made it to the airfield, and flew back, but got cocky and tried to land on the VAB helipad. This craft's achilles' heel? Its engine's very low crash tolerance.

I will record another attempt of the flight soon.

Edited by The Dressian Exploder
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Nazalassa

Nazalassa

Posted
Posted

Well, the 2.5m command pod has integrated RCS thrusters... Although I don't think it counts as a plane and it will probably not be able to liftoff in Kerbin's gravity and sustain flight until IA and back.

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QF9E

QF9E

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Nazalassa said:

Well, the 2.5m command pod has integrated RCS thrusters... Although I don't think it counts as a plane and it will probably not be able to liftoff in Kerbin's gravity and sustain flight until IA and back.

I believe the 2.5m command pod's RCS is only capable of rotating the craft, not translating it.

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QF9E

QF9E

Posted
Posted

Rules clarification: nowhere in the current rules does it say that the entire crew must stay with the craft for the duration:

On 7/9/2023 at 5:37 AM, Donmy Kerman said:
  • Your plane must be able to fly from KSC to the island runway, land there, take off, and land at the KSC without parts breaking, running out of fuel, and entirely under its own power.
  • Flying on other worlds is allowed, as long as that world has an atmosphere and you spend multiple minutes in the air.
  • No using the engineer's special abilities.
  • No exploits.
  • No mods that add parts, change physics, or change the stock solar system. Visual and informational mods are allowed.

Would it be ok for one Kerbal to get out of the craft along the way (and land under their own parachute), as long as at least one Kerbal stays with the craft to complete the flight?

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Nazalassa

Nazalassa

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, QF9E said:

I believe the 2.5m command pod's RCS is only capable of rotating the craft, not translating it.

It can translate it, but only sideways. I tested it and it doesn't have enough thrust to liftoff.

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QF9E

QF9E

Posted
Posted (edited)

Three part submission:

I mainly used the parachute to turn the craft retrograde so that it can use its rocket engines for a landing burn.

Note that I ran out of fuel a second or so before touching down on the KSC runway. If that is sufficient grounds for disqualifying me under rule 1: "running out of fuel", so be it. There's a couple of times in the flight where the flight was less efficient than it could have been, so it should be possible to perform the flight and not run out of fuel.  Therefore I hope you will accept my submission as-is.

jKXQ34C.png

Edited by QF9E
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