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Amphibious VTOLSSTO (Image heavy)

Levelord

By Levelord
in KSP1 The Spacecraft Exchange

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Pyromaniacal

Pyromaniacal

Posted
Posted
My current Kethane plane is designed for atmospheric flights because it just barely makes orbit because of it's weight. If you want a design for vacuum landings, I'll do a re-design. It might take a while :) Most likely I will remove the command pods and make it a single seater craft to save on weight.

All I need is something for Mün. Weight should be less of an issue.

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Levelord

Levelord

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All I need is something for Mün. Weight should be less of an issue.

I have an early prototype here.

I've encountered some balancing problems for vacuum VTOL at 1/4 tanks, but only at full thrust (which you probably won't need to do if you descend gradually). Other than that, the VTOL performs well in atmosphere and the plane can SSTO.

It's also quite fun toggling the VTOL engines and surfing the munar landscape to enjoy the sights. Even better if you have MechJeb's translatron to maintain altitude and sit back as the plane 'glides' in space.

screenshot134.png

.craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16683090/KSP/Amphibious%20VTOLSSTO%20Kethane%20Vac1.rar

I'll come up with more revisions, or even a complete redesign from scratch if I really want to remove the balance issues completely. The problem is that you can only choose one or the other, vacuum VTOL, or atmospheric VTOL, as they require different placements of the engines. I could be wrong though and I might come up with a plane capable of both in future. Free free to make changes to the prototype and see if you can help improve on it. :)

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automcdonough

automcdonough

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I really wished you used the avionics ASAS instead of normal ASAS, I have a hell of a time trying to fly this thing. Other than that pretty cool. I really haven't used no-clip to make stuff, it's neat to see what can be done. That said I think I will stick to normal techniques, it feels like cheating and is a bitch to modify. :/

Fun though. I've been inspired to try rolling my own SSTO.

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Spektyr

Spektyr

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I'm a bit of a newb here, but I have some questions regarding the orbital flight profile for this craft. I've made and returned from orbit in the stock Aeris, but when I tried a similar flight in this plane I couldn't get much forward speed out of her and just couldn't get her to go over about 38000m. Had the nose up, throttle pegged, and she started coming back down.

What's the best way to get to LKO in this?

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superm18

superm18

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This is the first craft i'm truly in awe of! with the interplanet thing its truly something uniqe!!

I'm never gonna use others craft and niether am i gonna try this, but i'll use it for inspiration :)

Very good work!

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Levelord

Levelord

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I'm a bit of a newb here, but I have some questions regarding the orbital flight profile for this craft. I've made and returned from orbit in the stock Aeris, but when I tried a similar flight in this plane I couldn't get much forward speed out of her and just couldn't get her to go over about 38000m. Had the nose up, throttle pegged, and she started coming back down.

What's the best way to get to LKO in this?

If you can get the stock Aeris up into orbit, I'd consider you fairly well skilled. :)

I head up at 45 degrees up to 20,000m then I flatten out my pitch to gain horizontal speed.

3H7F1xS.jpg

5sWh3fi.jpg

At around 30,000m you would gain about 1800m/s in velocity. (I goofed mine)

Qu7uVAE.jpg

Turn off the jet engines, close off the intakes, pitch the nose up to 45 degrees and turn on the LV-909 engines. Keep this profile until you reach your desired apoapsis.

iTw2MXn.jpg

UQKDL3A.png

Circularize, and you should have about 500-600 units of fuel to play with in orbit.

JH6cta6.jpg

Hope this helps! :)

Edited by Levelord
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Spektyr

Spektyr

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Thanks, I was just flying it like I did the Aeris - point her up at 45, throttles forward until the jets are about to gasp, kill them, close air intakes, light the candle and hold the nose at 45 until apoapsis is above atmosphere.

I did shift the wings back a bit to give me a center of lift further behind the center of gravity, but once I burned up all the fuel I don't think it was properly balanced anymore and I couldn't keep the nose steady even with SAS running the show. This plane is much better designed, I haven't seen any sign of needing to move fuel around to keep it balanced, and I'm a terrible pilot. The biggest saving grace is that you gave it such an incredible fuel endurance so guys like me can loiter around for extended vertical landings.

Is it more efficient to take off traditionally with this? Using all four jets?

I think I may get out my joystick and see if that helps me fly planes without the spinning and the flipping and the screaming Kerbal pilots.

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HoY

HoY

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I'm going to take a couple of these to Laythe with my upcoming mission, and just want to get your name pronunciation right to credit you for the craft :)

Lev-y-lord ? I have a more than capable ssto but its a single seater and not VTOL, I have a feeling ill need to rescue some pilots from the drink on Laythe in the near future lol.

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Tristavius

Tristavius

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This thing is utterly, utterly brilliant. Building a SSTO isn't easy - combining it with VTOL I've found near impossible. Making the whole thing controllable...and actually VERY controllable just makes the mind boggle. And then, just for the hell of it, it can land on water too.

*clap*

Quite new to SSTO, I've managed to get it out the atmosphere but realistically not with enough fuel to get it to somewhere to refuel, but I'm probably doing it very inefficiently (haven't actuallly looked at any tutorials on the topic yet, still investigating myself first). Landing is so easy, glide down, tilt the VTOL engines forwards and come to a near stop, then just throttle so you're dropping slowly.

The downside is I now can't be bothered building any myself as I don't really see how this could be improved on really

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Levelord

Levelord

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I'm going to take a couple of these to Laythe with my upcoming mission, and just want to get your name pronunciation right to credit you for the craft :)

Lev-y-lord ? I have a more than capable ssto but its a single seater and not VTOL, I have a feeling ill need to rescue some pilots from the drink on Laythe in the near future lol.

would you mind if a submitted a custom version of this to a youtuber with of 16000 subscribers (http://www.youtube.com/user/MaceyDean) for his ksp series in wich he is looking for ships. bearing in mind that i would of course credit you as the original creator.

Sure! Go ahead and submit them and play around with the ship! :D

My username is pronounced Level-Lord, in reference to the Duke Nukem level editor of the same name. :P

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Spektyr

Spektyr

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It looks like you did more than a few modifications to the rover version - a third vertical engine for one. The other mods look like they'd be simple enough to perform with the base model, but the rover variant looks like you've reworked the balancing a fair bit to keep it stable. Could we get a craft file for it by chance?

Also, your Kethane ferry version - is that simply to move Kethane from the surface to a station or did you put Kethane engines on it as well?

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