Challenge: An aircraft capable of flight... using ion engines.

[Tarantulae]

Another little bug I noticed with solar, when you hit M to view the solar system map, you get a brief charge of electricity (about 0.1 on this ship). You get the same bonus going back. I didn't abuse it, but worth noting as a bug/exploit.

[michaelpooper]

This is my aircraft

The Electric Eagle.......

Anyways it has a cruising speed of 30 m/s, It has so far reached the island airport. It combines batteries and solar panels for power. It has a light and simplistic construction. I was surprised at the beauty and manoeuvrability of it. The craft uses a detachable bogie for launch as the wheels are too heavy to carry. The force of the decouplers could be considered a boost, yet it would work with out them.

Edited July 27, 2013 by michaelpooper

[Tarantulae]

Tried it again at a time when I had time to let it just fly. Ended up with this. 4h7m2s crashed, just as the sun was coming up. Going to try adding a few front facing panels to see if it can save itself.

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[koshelenkovv]

This is my aircraft

The Electric Eagle.......

Anyways it has a cruising speed of 30 m/s, It has so far reached the island airport. It combines batteries and solar panels for power. It has a light and simplistic construction. I was surprised at the beauty and manoeuvrability of it. The craft uses a detachable bogie for launch as the wheels are too heavy to carry. The force of the decouplers could be considered a boost, yet it would work with out them.

IIRC, standard landing gears weights nothing despite on figures in VAB.

[rodion]

Here's my crude early attempt so far, the X-2 Boreplane. Turns out the name is partial misnomer since actually flying this deathtrap is an intensely "exciting" experience, and shortly painful.

Main features:

- Manned! ("Kerballed")? Seats one brave pilot.

- Lightweight-yet-strong design means the craft weighs only 8.28 tons despite the large wingspan and area.

- Harnesses the colossal power of no less than EIGHT stock ion engines. When combined with the previous point, the result is hair-raising 0.05 TWR on the ground. Seatbelts optional.

- Elegant and efficient construction! A mere 211 parts.

- SAS (sorry, reaction wheel) unit up front gives it a red cyclops eye and makes it look sinister. This doesn't have anything to do with the functionality of the craft, but it rules so I'm adding it here.

- With a deficiency of 17 units of electricity per second (full throttle, midday) from a power supply of 4,000, you will be sure to have hundreds of seconds of airborne fun before the resource crisis forces you to slow down (to sub-stall speed).

- If a cloud passes over the sun or it gets dark, you will fall down and die immediately. Fortunately, "clouds" are mythical phenomena that have never been observed on Kerbin by reliable sources, so this has never actually happened yet.

[Tarantulae]

My newest attempt. I set up a macro to take screenshots for me every minute. I strung them into a timelapse for you guys. I had the info on one of the new front solar panels open to see how much help it had. Ended up crash landing on some other continent, and I was a doofus and didn't grab the F3 data. However, I did break 1,000m. My newest problem seems to be the slow turning of the ship. Going to try adding a tail fin to stop that from happening.

[Tarantulae]

And take 3... Lasted for a few days. But during the night it finally slowed down to its stall, and oscillated up and down until it started sliding back down backwards. Only 990m achieved this time. Maybe I should play with the location of the tail fin, but I'm not sure if I can keep its speed up over the night.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb7KwkBav_8

[Captain Sierra]

Question. I have the hybrid electric ion engines pack. The hybrid engines use both liquid fuel, oxidizer, xenon gas, and power to run. Are they considered ion propulsion or no? I have yet to actually use them so i don't know how quiet they are. Either way, the mod also has larger versions of most of the solar panels and RTGs which comes in handy. I accept this challenge and will also attempt it in 'hard' mode.

Note: As a former flight sim pilot, I find FAR to be more realistic, more intuitive, and easier to fly with a joystick. For me, Ferram is not hard mode.

[zekes]

This isn't too hard, I've done it before.

Consider challenge accepted.

Also 1300th post! Woot woot!

[Tarantulae]

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Mark 3. Using 2 engines now. Climbs much faster. Reached 1369 on stock parts and ion power only. I read that as 50 for stock, 100 for ion only power, and 1 for the altitude. 151 total. Just like bacardi.

[ButterNugget]

Its so beautiful!!!!

[automcdonough]

the one i'm working on is giving me fits. as soon as i turn on SAS it wants to dive! D:

[automcdonough]

So once it was on a good path I went to sleep. Woke up to see that it went for over and hour and reached 1234m, traveled nearly 60km.

I think I can do better. Looks like it just ran out of fuel!

also it took off on rover wheels. so only 101 points..

edit:

trying again, took off on ions only (landing gear dropped off w/ decoupler)

up to 151 points. plenty of fuel , i feel good about seeing 2 or 3

Edited August 2, 2013 by automcdonough

[wingnut]

Does anyone know who the author of the Solar Glider shown in the gallery of the Wiki article for the PB-Ion Electric Propulsion System is and if there is a .craft file available for download?

[PhD_Metal]

100 pts only stock parts

20 pts altitude

50 pts start

170 pts!

I think it is actually possible to orbit with unkelbaled plane With pilot it is hard... plane made of 617 parts was little to small

[MarvinKitFox]

Since the new ion engine has been buffed * 10 power, this challenge is trivial. (well, not the "orbit" part)

see:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75704-Reach-for-orbit-with-an-ion-glider!?highlight=ion+orbit

This thread was for the pre-buffed ion engines, when it was a really hard challenge.

[Wavechaser]

Xenonlizer, a relatively big and quite laggy ion powered aircraft, can fit 3 Kerbals in it.

And Xenonlizer Lite, a smaller and less laggy one. It does not have a pressurized cockpit. It can fit into B9's S-2 Widebody Cargo Bay.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Wavechaser
Fixed pictures

[Fengist]

Sorry, i duplicated marvin's response. This has been done many times over.

[2001kraft]

Xenonlizer, a relatively big and quite laggy ion powered aircraft, can fit 3 Kerbals in it.

And Xenonlizer Lite, a smaller and less laggy one. It does not have a pressurized cockpit. It can fit into B9's S-2 Widebody Cargo Bay.

http://i.imgur.com/K05dlkB.png

http://i.imgur.com/Cjn6Dfn.png

stats?

what's the max speed?

what's the max altitude?

[cerberusti]

It was from a different patch, but you should take a look at this thread for an in depth discussion and an ion only plane which made orbit without control surfaces:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/85728-Ion-glider-collier-trophy%21?highlight=ion+collier

[Slam_Jones]

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Off-the-top-of-my-head stats: (underestimating until I get exact numbers)

Stock only: Yes!

Ceiling: 5km

Max speed: 70 m/s

Orbit: Nope!

Take-off: Nothin but Ion