Eve and jets

[kerbal fella]

So I'm gonna send a plane to Eve ahead of my lander and I need to know, do jets work on eve?

 

[FTLparachute]

No, but if you have Breaking Ground you can use the propellors.

[Duke MelTdoWn]

I prototyped such an Eve SSRT with propellers. It still needs to get a lot bigger to work for Eve and I have not tested it there yet.

Some considerations I had along the way:

- Put the propellers inside service bays. Close them when you switch to rocket motor to reduce drag.
- Use counterrotating propellers to cancel torque.
- Use fuel cells (inside forward service bay) to energize the propellers. This causes less drag than using e.g. OXSTAT solar panels.
- Use some super efficient engines like Vector or Dart.

Some open questions I have:
- How fast can you fly on Eve before aerodynamic forces tear up deployable solar panels?
- How high can you fly on propellers in Eves atmosphere?

Edited Wednesday at 10:34 AM by Duke MelTdoWn

[kerbal fella]

10 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

I prototyped such an Eve SSRT with propellers. It still needs to get a lot bigger to work for Eve and I have not tested it there yet.

Some considerations I had along the way:

- Put the propellers inside service bays. Close them when you switch to rocket motor to reduce drag.
- Use counterrotating propellers to cancel torque.
- Use fuel cells (inside forward service bay) to energize the propellers. This causes less drag than using e.g. OXSTAT solar panels.
- Use some super efficient engines like Vector or Dart.

Some open questions I have:
- How fast can you fly on Eve before aerodynamic forces tear up deployable solar panels?
- How high can you fly on propellers in Eves atmosphere?

Its gonna be a unmanned scout drone to find a landing spot

 

[Vanamonde]

Air breathing engines do not work, but as people have said, wings and propellers work even better and are a viable alternative. 

[umbra humanus]

You should make a helicopter with propellers  for Eve. Not that it is practical, but it is a cool idea.

[KerikBalm]

On 2/12/2025 at 11:26 AM, Duke MelTdoWn said:

- Put the propellers inside service bays. Close them when you switch to rocket motor to reduce drag.

Meh, I just put their pitch to 90, and lock the rotation to reduce drag

On 2/12/2025 at 11:26 AM, Duke MelTdoWn said:

- Use fuel cells (inside forward service bay) to en questions I have:

I use a combo of those and batteries and small solar panels, so that I can recharge and fly around if I run out of fuel on eve's surface and need to fly back to the fuel station 

On 2/12/2025 at 11:26 AM, Duke MelTdoWn said:

- How fast can you fly on Eve before aerodynamic forces tear up deployable solar panels?

Not sure, I tried this, I think the angle is important, but even keeping gigantors horizontal to their airflow didn't get me anywhere close to fast enough 

On 2/12/2025 at 11:26 AM, Duke MelTdoWn said:

- How high can you fly on propellers in Eves atmosphere?

Depends on your wingloading and power to weight ratio for the props.

Obviously I can make something that flies higher on props if I don't have to lug a bunch of rocket fuel and engines up (ie, something like a U2)

For my orbital designs, I think I was getting to about 10 or 11k