Kestrel transport VTOL (image heavy?)

[Mrspoonman09]

I've been working on regular aircraft lately to get ready for some laythe exploration. This project is designed to transport kerbals over long distances with an emphasis on safety and ease of use.

some stats: all based on kerbin.

Crew: 3

Payload: 16 kerbals, or can be fit with up to 2 tons of equipment

Cargo Bay: 4X2X2 structural panels. 16m^3

Top speed: roughly 150 m/s

Service ceiling: 12,500 meters

Range: really really long, almost halfway around kerbin estimated. (will test later)

Flies like its on rails with just a little bit of Upwards trim!

on the runway:

cargo bay:

bottom view:

top view:

vertical landing:

[Jeb Cubed]

Very nice job. I made a cargo plane that can carry three orange tanks. Sadly I couldnt make it a VTOL.

[Sigma117]

Problem I can see is that adding Kerbals might offset the com 3:

[Mrspoonman09]

The Com is right inside the cargo hold when its unloaded. With a 1.5 Ton weight placed in the cargo hold it flew fine.

I haven't taken the time to throw 16 kerbals in into it yet, but I don't think it should have any trouble.

The 4 rcs ports on the nose and 1 omnidirectional port on the tail give it a lot of resistance to pitch and yaw while hovering.

Sometime in the near future, I'm going to give this craft a big brother, the goal is to get 35tons (1 orange tank) onto a stable VTOL.

[zombiphylax]

Kerbals have a ridiculously low mass.

Nice work, Mrspoonman, how does it handle hovering while low on fuel?

[HoY]

1 kerbal is 0.079t, the equivelant of 4x of the radially mounted z400 batteries. I place 4 of those batteries on the chair for calculating dV and it should work with balance calculations in a situation like this

[Mrspoonman09]

Kerbals have a ridiculously low mass.

Nice work, Mrspoonman, how does it handle hovering while low on fuel?

it glides like mad. had force a stall about 5m off of the ground to put it down. lol