In the shadow of Olympus: Eve HTOL

[Plummet]

I've been enjoying the challenge of trips to Eve and after completing the KSP2 Eve mission and taking a few (non-returnable) planes there, I wanted to see if I could build a horizontal take-off and landing plane.

 

The end result uses 5 Vectors and 6 Aerospikes. It can glide to a landing on Eve and then return to a low Eve orbit. The wings, stabilisers, tanks and engines all separate in stages during the ascent until only a remaining small stage is left.

 

 

 

It was super hard.. the biggest problem I had was struts disappearing which my plane relies on and which are also needed for the re-entry heat protection structure. I ended up rebuilding the craft from the top-down to see if that stopped the problem but it still happened. In the end, I had to teleport in a replacement vessel (exact same fuel state and orbit) with save file editing.

Also, the Kraken loves to chew on the shields on the top of the re-entry structure, and the 2 refueling stops (1 in Kerbin orbit, 1 in Eve orbit) required very difficult docking. I clocked up hundreds of quicksaves...

 

 

Still, the landing and return-to-orbit were fun to fly!

For my next mission, I am going to do something way more simple...

 

[Vanamonde]

That is an odd ship design.

[BechMeister]

On 2/14/2024 at 6:32 PM, Plummet said:

 

Man I cant stop thinking about the forces of compression or stretch that 90° bend will have to survive xD

Cool plane though. But that's a lot of aerospikes.. is that the best engine for this craft? I often think that adding multiple aerospikes add a lot of mass and makes the plane hard to balance out.

[Plummet]

21 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Man I cant stop thinking about the forces of compression or stretch that 90° bend will have to survive xD

Cool plane though. But that's a lot of aerospikes.. is that the best engine for this craft? I often think that adding multiple aerospikes add a lot of mass and makes the plane hard to balance out.

I always seem to end up with a combination of Aerospikes and Vectors for Eve missions. Maybe fewer Aerospikes and a couple more Vectors would have been better!

[BechMeister]

I love the aerospike engine too.. I had a lot of early designs where that was the only engine i used xD

But i found out it was easier to balance the craft with other engines.

I have no experience with Eve. Im a KSP noob, only just leaving Kerbin SOI - so dont take my advice too seriously. See it more as me thinking out loud

Edited February 18 by BechMeister