J-30 Heron - 16-passenger Jet Airliner Using Kerbal Seats (Fixed design and reupload)

[nerdboy64]

Design

After much experimenting with the new Kerbal seats as open cockpits for aircraft (which resulted in the creation of the highly successful Kerbwith Swallow biplane), the idea came to me to use seats for an airliner. After many two- and four-engined prototypes of a plane called the "Condor," which had success rates ranging from "slightly flawed" to "totally unflyable," I managed to produce one reasonably effective aircraft. It was fairly stable, not difficult to fly, and easy to land as well. However, with only two standard jet engines, it wasn't exactly quick.

Taking inspiration from the real-life Boeing 727, I added a third engine to the tail section with an intake in front of the rudder. This gave the aircraft the extra boost it needed to be a viable airliner, without adding too much extra weight or screwing up the center of mass. At that point, I renamed it from the "Condor" to the "Heron" and launched a full-scale test flight to try it out. It got up to over 300 m/s (1100 kph) at an altitude of 10km, and managed an intercontinental trip to across the ocean to the west of KSC, with fuel to spare. As this was a test flight, only the crew were on board, but I don't doubt that it could make the trip again with a full compliment of passengers.

I chose not to include SAS because I noticed that it would flap the control surfaces around, artificially increasing its speed as a result of the infiniglide bug, which I saw as cheating. Besides, that much shaking would be very uncomfortable for the passengers. The downside of this is that it takes some careful trimming and control to keep going in the right direction.

Disclaimer: This plane is very laggy when fully loaded. Use at your own risk. Trans-Kerbin Airlines is not responsible for any damage to computers, Kerbals, and/or aircraft that results from flying with lag.

Images and Video

Fully-loaded Test Flight Video

Flyin' High:

Landed at the end of the test flight:

Fully loaded with Kerbals:

Statistics

Part count: 180 (not including passengers)

Seating: 16 passengers + 3 crew

Top speed: ~1200 kph (330 m/s) at 10km

Cruising Altitude: 10,000 m (recommended)

Propulsion: 3 x Basic Jet Engine (450 total thrust)

Download

J-30 Heron Mk. I

Edited May 26, 2013 by nerdboy64
Added video, changed title

[Alpha372]

LOL .......what a nice idea

[minerman30]

Haha, nice idea, you should make it with the engines on the wings for more realism.

[Maxed-Rockets]

Haha, nice idea, you should make it with the engines on the wings for more realism.

For being a Boeing 727 replica the engines are where they should be.

http://www.al-airliners.be/a/air%20france/af727-2-2.jpg

[nerdboy64]

Haha, nice idea, you should make it with the engines on the wings for more realism.

I tried it that way in previous prototypes, but it was very unstable. This is actually a realistic configuration, based off the Boeing 727, which had two engines in pods at the rear of the fuselage and one more in the end of the tail, like so:

[Austin]

Quick question, Wheres there car after they leave the plane? D:

[nerdboy64]

Quick question, Wheres there car after they leave the plane? D:

What the moving stairs truck you see at small airports?

[Alpha372]

What the moving stairs truck you see at small airports?

yeah! build a moving stair truck!

[nerdboy64]

yeah! build a moving stair truck!

Challenge accepted!

[Alpha372]

Challenge accepted!

even harder would be a fuel truck ....which connects to the plane through a jr. docking clamp to refuel the plane

[nerdboy64]

I noticed that this version tended to roll to the right when flying level. Turned out that top air intake was slightly off-center, so I edited the ship and reuploaded the file. Everything should be fixed now.

[Colonel_Panic]

aw damn someone beat me to it.

Although at least mine is different in that it's SSTO.

[Tankbuster32]

the 727 has the engines on the side and in the tail end of the fuselage