What did you do in KSP1 today?

[KerikBalm]

Speaking of Rotorcraft... well, I'll get to that

While waiting for Kopernicus to update, I started designing a VTOL SSTO for use on 3x Rald, and I figured I'd try and make it Duna capable as well. The initial design was rapier only (closed cycle would have been used for takeoff on Rald, 8 rapiers wouldn't produce enough thrust in airbreathing mode in the thin air)

Its hover stability was bad though, I ditched half the rapiers, and added vectors... same mass, more Isp, more gimbal for hover stability. 4 Rapiers was enough for horizontal flight anyway. I allowed them to rotate 180 degrees to function as braking engines for landing too. I also re-positioned the engine nacelles a bit.

Like Brik, I came back to tilt-rotors, and I gave up on using control surfaces with different deploy states, and stuck with servos. The ability to use the main throttle as an axis group helped a lot, I need 1 for throttle, 1 for nacelle rotation, and 1 for blade pitch.

The first design barely lifted itself off the ground:

but was decently fast:

I doubled up the blade area, and could hover much better, although it was a bit slower:

I took it out for a flight to the island airfield, and landed on top of the 2nd hangar

Spoiler

Blade clearance was a problem, and it clipped a lot... so... excuse the resemblance to a certain symbol that resulted from a resdeign:

It could go pretty fast.

I did a tweak using struts, it still flew well:

and still reached 90 m/s

I took it in for a nice landing

Spoiler

 

It did the whole think on battery power, has 2 gigantors to recharge faster, or in theory, deploy during a hover to recharge if the lighting is right:

Blooper with time warp on one of them:

Spoiler

The nacelles came off at 4x time warp!

Luckily, it still was flyable as a glider:

Unfortunately, its vertical lift capability is still mediochre, it only seems to be able to lift about 16 tons

[Tweak[Box]]

 

Posting my MAV-inspired Duna Lander based on the movie, The Martian. 

NOT A REPLICA

23 hours ago, Cazzojake said:

Very Curious to see this.

Here it is buddy.

 

Presenting the first stage:

 

The second stage, for the return trip back to Kerbin:

Spoiler

 

And finally, the descent module:

Spoiler

Here's the full link to the album -> LINK (sorry for the unarranged-ness) 

And here's the link for the craft file -> Google Drive

Edited June 18, 2019 by Tweak[Box]
Added craft file link

[KerikBalm]

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I redesigned the light Eve tilt-rotor Ikarus for more balanced aerodynamics, and discovered that with a few tweaks it performs excellently on Duna as well. It cruises there at over 100 m/s with unlimited daytime endurance. I also fitted a large scanning arm in the cargo bay, on an alligator hinge so I can flip it out to easily reach scannable features. 

That's going to be perfect for a multi-role light craft there. I'll use it for science, for scouting out base locations, and possibly other things. It was also easy to get it to orbit just by strapping on a couple of boosters. I just need one more node in my career game and I can build it.

I think this career will be the first one where I establish a base on Eve as well. These rotorcraft make all kinds of things possible!

Unfortunately, subs (particularly without exploiting part clipping and service bays) remain rather heavy affairs. I'm still looking for a tilt rotor or helo that can lift 40 tons

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Unfortunately, subs (particularly without exploiting part clipping and service bays) remain rather heavy affairs. I'm still looking for a tilt rotor or helo that can lift 40 tons

I tested the BAK-68 Super Kadzook C with a 36 ton payload. In fact my first working subs did not exploit part clipping or service bays, and it could deliver them with no trouble. On Kerbin anyway.

I'm sure I could push it a quite a bit past 40 with some rotor tuning, and a quite a bit beyond that by using dual engines per rotor instead of rotor + freewheel. Someone else explored the max lifting capacity of a single engine + freewheel + rotor combination and clocked it at 70 tons. So with two of those, it should be possible to make a 100-ton-plus skycrane, allowing for craft mass + inevitable efficiency losses from having to make it flyable.

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-68-Super-Kadzook-C

(There is an early BAK super-sekrit project in the works along these lines; I want to make a flatbed skycrane capable of delivering base modules. That would certainly work for subs also.)

Edited June 18, 2019 by Guest

[Hotel26]

Penguin is another break-apart transporter that aerially deploys a Mk3 cabin:

  

It has the beneficial property of arriving at the destination with as much as 8,000 kallons of fuel, which can be siphoned into the reservoir tanks of an existing base leaving just enough for Penguin to take to its natural habitat one last time before breaking apart to hatch the Mk3 cabin.  Penguin can't break Mach 1 but that's about what you'd expect...

                                                                                                                            

And I've been doing a little kaizen on the RCS translators on Peregrine, my passenger SSTO:

It's still pretty ugly, like a wart, but very effective.  Two of these bracketing the CoM...

The core is an octa strut.  Two Vernors on in symmetry mode; then rotate the strut 90 degrees to put two more Vernors on.  Top it off with one on top and then slide it down flush with the roof.  Shift-click the octa to copy the whole assembly to go under the belly and all 3 axes are covered.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Hotel26

[KerikBalm]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

I tested the BAK-68 Super Kadzook C with a 36 ton payload. In fact my first working subs did not exploit part clipping or service bays, and it could deliver them with no trouble. On Kerbin anyway.

I'm sure I could push it a quite a bit past 40 with some rotor tuning, and a quite a bit beyond that by using dual engines per rotor instead of rotor + freewheel. Someone else explored the max lifting capacity of a single engine + freewheel + rotor combination and clocked it at 70 tons. So with two of those, it should be possible

Well, how fast do they go?

I was impressed by your speed record for a conventional helo. Larger rotors should help lift payloads, but tilt rotors seem to have fairly small rotors.

I still haven't gotten over 20 m/s with conventional helos, but my last tilt rotor was approaching 50 m/s with very moderate rotor tilt.

And as always, no airbreathers

[Guest]

The Super Kadzook goes at about 30 m/s without the jets. 

I started my sub experiments with the Super Kestrel tilt rotor. It doesn't have quite the lift capacity of the Super Kadzook but it was sufficient to deliver a non-clip-exploiting sub to location, and it would also have some room for optimising the rotors. The Super Kestrel cruises at up to 90. 

If I had to design a rotorcraft lifter to your spec -- 40 tons, 50 m/s, Eve -- I think the easiest way to do it would be to scale up the Super Kestrel's rotors, increasing wingspan if necessary. 

Another possibility would be to start with the Super Kadzook and replace the jets with a pair of rear-facing props. I think I could fit those on the design. It would certainly have more lift capability and should be able to hit your required cruise speed too.

[Guest]

It’s interesting how people don’t like how slow rotor propellers are etc... but if my math is right the speeds people are getting work out to between 100-200kph which isn’t too bad! And when people have had enough time to think up creative methods that speed will probably improve.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

It’s interesting how people don’t like how slow rotor propellers are etc... but if my math is right the speeds people are getting work out to between 100-200kph which isn’t too bad! And when people have had enough time to think up creative methods that speed will probably improve.

They're only slow if you compare them to jets. If you think of them as flying rovers they're super fast and also much less crashy.

Highest speed I've reached on Kerbin on a non-compound, non-tilt-rotor helicopter is 107 m/s which is about 385 km/h. My tilt-rotors and compound helicopters usually cruise at around 80-90 m/s which is about 300 km/h, give or take a few tens of km/h.

On Duna they'll go a good deal faster than that, it's quite easy to break 100 m/s with a tilt-rotor. On Eve they're slower; something that's good for 90 m/s on Kerbin is likely to only do 55-60 on Eve.

I haven't actively explored how fast a propeller craft can go but I expect it's a good deal faster than that.

[capi3101]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

On Duna they'll go a good deal faster than that, it's quite easy to break 100 m/s with a tilt-rotor. On Eve they're slower; something that's good for 90 m/s on Kerbin is likely to only do 55-60 on Eve.

Depends on your altitude, in my experience. My Echo 3 and Delta 1 quadcopters are the same design; on Duna, the flight ceiling is 8,000 m, not enough to clear the highest peaks. Gotten it up to about 120 m/s. On Eve, it's 28,000 m, plenty high, and got it up into the transonic - but only at the higher altitudes. That Eve soup level makes quite the difference - electric proprotor craft are definitely the way to go there.

I will say to exercise caution lower down in Eve's atmo; Q gets to be a factor when you're trying to change altitude. 10 m/s up and down is a-plenty there.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, capi3101 said:

Depends on your altitude, in my experience.

Oh for sure, I meant Eve ASL.

Edit: FYI @KerikBalm, I managed to hit your spec with the Super Kestrel C simply by increasing the rotor diameter. It'll lift 40 tons ASL on Eve. It would need some further tuning to get it to handle better with that payload but it has the muscle. If you want to turn it into a sub delivery platform you'll probably want to turn the cargo bay upside down and make something like the deployment/recovery bay in the Kalypso. 

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

I polished up the BAK-6000D. It now works pretty nicely on Duna and carries a useful payload too.

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-6000D-Ikarus

Additionally I did some experiments with heavy lifting on Eve. I didn't finish tuning any of my experiments but I did show that both the Super Kestrel and the Super Kadzook can be adapted for Eve. The latter required an engine swap; with twin props it still cruises at an acceptable 50 m/s or so, while retaining its massive lift capacity. Both craft should be beefy enough to deliver a mini-sub on Eve -- even one built without clipping exploits.

(N.b.: I don't mind using clipping exploits on subs. It's just silly that there isn't a ballast element we can use, so I'm just pretending I filled a couple of ore tanks with lead.)

I also tooled around a bit with flapping mechanisms for ornithopters. That's hard. It's not going to be easy to get enough power with servos, hinges, or pistons, and we don't have any gears so synchronising wing rotation with flapping in a system powered by a rotor that uses a connecting rod to translate rotation into flapping is going to be hard since the KAL-1000 doesn't allow us to bind anything to the phase of the rotor or any other element affected by it. I.e. it would have to be an all mechanical contraption somehow connected to the flapping mechanism itself; more connecting rods perhaps. 

If somebody builds a genuinely workable ornithopter I am going to be mightily impressed. I'm already mightily impressed that some people built ornithopters that get off the ground, even if they crash spectacularly shortly after.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

Eve coast private team Mission 

"Let's find some pancakes"

Predevelopement to surface scanning the first surface feature. A few more features to find soon

 

 

[cantab]

Built a lander in symmetry. Found one engine was out of fuel before the other due to very NON-symmetric fuel drain. Ugh. Kspplz.

[FahmiRBLX]

1 hour ago, cantab said:

Built a lander in symmetry. Found one engine was out of fuel before the other due to very NON-symmetric fuel drain. Ugh. Kspplz.

Do you accidentally increased fuel flow priority at one of the tanks? I know in symmetry, parts on the other 'symmetrified' parts will have the same configuration as the first part changed but since I never played with that (Only used fuel flow overlay to check whether every engines and tanks on my planes are connected to fuel supply), IDK.

Edited June 18, 2019 by FahmiRBLXian
Nuu but is not nut

[Cavscout74]

So I tried something new....

It behaved oddly but it did slow down quickly.  This was just a suborbital hop.  I need to design a plane that flies better, THEN make the wings feather.  Jeb was very pleased with my pilot escape capsule - decouplers on both sides of the cockpit, sepratron & parachute.

Then I went back to my career save.  The first Minmus base crew was getting past 30 days & a relief crew was sent, along with some additional equipment.

Relief crew coming in for a landing at sunset.   They all needed the Minmus landing & flag planting for experience in addition to relieving the vets camped out on Minmus.

Both crews working to attach spare monoprop tanks to the base, along with a second Monoprop Power Unit for nighttime power.  They also brought another radial snack can and some extra KAS stuff

While the new scientist & pilot work to maneuver the rover with extra gear around the base without breaking anything, the two engineers discuss where to mount the new MPU on top of the base

Finally, after upgrading the base, the old crew headed for home

Edited June 19, 2019 by Cavscout74

[Geonovast]

Accidentally played ring toss with a piece of freshly jettisoned debris.

[qzgy]

I... actually played for the first time ina  couple months.

And then made a stock (no DLC) fly-back booster with some popout wings. Still a WIP.

Needs some more work but its getting there.

[Jett_Quasar]

Craft files have been posted"

Download them all here:
https://kerbalx.com/Jett_Quasar/craft
 - Jett

[Zosma Procyon]

I might be going a bit overboard with my electric rotor powered experiments.

This plane uses 8 of the best rotor configuration I've found so far, in 4 counter rotating offset pairs. 4 pairs were needed because with just 2 the top speed was just above the stall speed. And I've determined that rotor propelled airplanes generally need RCS jets to make them more controllable.

[KerikBalm]

What was that speed? I'm making tilt rotors that don't need RCS, and get over 93 m/s. So far my payload is 24 tons, but I plan on doubling up the rotors from 2 to 4, and I hope to more than double the payload as a result (since the heavy cargobay and mk3 pod aren't also doubled up)

[Rogan Thoerson]

I tried to make a propeller plane on kerbin. It can cary science and 1 kerbal. It is going to 80m/sec. Not too fast but fast enough compared to rover and much more secure at high speed. I ll try to improve it to maybe reach 100 m/sec and have better climbing capabilities and carry several kerbals.

[cantab]

4 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

This plane uses 8 of the best rotor configuration I've found so far, in 4 counter rotating offset pairs. 4 pairs were needed because with just 2 the top speed was just above the stall speed. And I've determined that rotor propelled airplanes generally need RCS jets to make them more controllable.

Nice. That's some big wing, guess that's what it takes to fly slow. Regarding the control, I wonder if the airframe isn't helping though, in my experience tailless deltas are tricky to make fly well compared to a design with a seperate tailplane.

[cantab]

It's not much, but it's a start on my plan for modular landers. I've an eye on mod planets as well as the stock system, and the propulsion module packs 1000 m/s with a nominal 5t payload courtesy of a pair of Nervs. A chemical lander would be lighter overall but use more fuel, and I plan on refuelling and reusing it. I've mostly just been using debug cheats to system check it, stuff like heat tolerance near the sun and solar power when far away (should be OK at Jool and Eeloo with the deployables out).

Also, I swear it looked brighter in-game.

Edited June 19, 2019 by cantab

[qzgy]

Finished the skinning. Not too shabby if you ask me. Probably could have been done using fairings or something (something maybe I should learn to do....)

Also still flies and works. Probably need to mess with balance a bit more or add an auxilliary jet. It glides, but about as well as a brick.