Weekly Challenge #53: Build a Seaplane!

[Urus28]

7 minutes ago, Goddchen said:

looks quite windy

My kerbals like it this way !

[Urus28]

Never tried an amphibious airplane, it was interesting =)

[Urus28]

What better idea for an SSTO than taking an erkanoplan organization plan ? This beauty is screaming SPEED !

POWER !!!!

Let bo honest, it's a bad spacecraft... But I can circularize at 80km.

Coming back home.

Finally at the KSC, unfortunately the mass distribution with empty tanks is a little bit off. But I landed without breaking anything.

[mattihase]

I've been messing around with kitbashing some more seaplanes, this time for "would something this shape fly?" reference for another project and I can positively say that the ocean is a lot more forgiving in ksp2 than it was in ksp1 when it comes to landings.

I don't want to say to an "unrealistic degree" considering the kerbals don't really make anything not durable enough to survive a rocket launch but definitely it feels like there's a comfortable margin for error.

I haven't videoed any of these, just done a quick take-off, fly about to see if they worked as planes, and landed, with mixed results, although I've included the best screenshots I have.

"Old Bess"

Spoiler

This one was an attempt at a WW1/post WW1 biplane... it's a design format that doesn't seem to work well with the parts available but then they may have sucked IRL too so that could just be accurate. Still, it got in the air, eventually. It can do practically no ariel maneuvers and doesn't mantain airspeed very well. It's also just kind of a mess.The big stonking tailfins on the back were a vain attempt to give it enough yaw to stall turn but even then it just doesn't work. I am very dissapointed in this thing.

Interceptor A22

Spoiler

This one was inspired by some of the Supermarine seaplanes from the 30s. I ended up hanging the jet engines off the side of the body to approximate where the mass/thrust of them would be coming from if it was a prop plane, which was a big improvement over putting them on the tailplane which really messed with performance. It also has an almost normal COM/COT/COL setup going on, so it flies very normal by seaplane standards, though needs some serious wing angling to take off and still dunks itself if you throttle above 85 before the last moment of takeoff. I managed to do a 3 bridges run though forgot to make any screenshots in the excitement of the moment.

Chesterlé Flying Fortress

Spoiler

This one was supposed to be a mix of the Douglas Dolphin and Lancaster Bomber, originally supposed to have some Beaufighter influence but that dropped pretty quickly, and probably with some B17 influence coming in with the name. Complete with faux turret emplacements at the rear. It steers horribly, drifts around the ocean like a shopping trolley and the air like an unfolded sheet of paper, but compared to "Old Bess" it's fun garbage rather than absolute garbage, also all those intakes on the engines aren't just for show, It genuinely flames out constantly without them. It is the exact big stupid nugget I was trying to build and I love it.

 

Edited April 30 by mattihase

[mattihase]

(I accidentally didn't save the craft file for the A22 after I'd adjusted everything to work nicely so I just spent an hour painstakingly repositioning wings on the same craft all over again)