Space Planes

[Stilgar2300]

Ok So I'm onto Stage two of my Space Station Construction and I'm trying to make a shuttle type ship for Ferrying Kerbans to and from my New Station. However I've never made any planes and my first few attempts were well Explosives. Any tips on making Space Planes? If I can get this down pat I have Missions planned for Unmanned UAV's to other planets. Any tips?

[astropapi1]

*Kerbals.

[arq]

Start small. One turbojet, 2 LV-909s, and 3 intakes should be enough to get you up. Or try 2 turbojets, 3-5 intakes, and a LV-45 engine. Learn to make bigger ones from there.

[Stratoroc]

There are entire threads dedicated to space planes featuring showcases, discussions, and beginner tips. Head over to the spacecraft exchange subforum and try that novel search feature.

Also keep center of lift behind center of mass.

[Hodo]

My biggest bit of advice, is keep it simple at first.

Depending on what plugins you are running will vary your design a bit.

Like myself I run these plugins

-Deadly Reentry

-FAR

-KSPX

-Kerbal Engineer

-B9

-Crew Manifest

-the chat one for random Kerbal comms (I needed the ambiance)

-TAC Fuel Balancer

-Arcturus Thrust Corrector

Like here is one of my recently successful designs. Its useless other than going into space orbiting and then coming back. But hey its a start.

Successful shuttle, uses quite a big booster to get to space but otherwise flies well, and handles extremely well at speed. Capable of mach 2.1 at 20km alt.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Hodo

[Mr. Scruffy]

Cant help the OP, really. Just want to point out that he probably wants his shuttle to have more than one seat.

[lammatt]

my advice is

have enough lift and enough thrust

fuel is probably not a big concern, if u can get ur plane flying at ~1400m/s before the jets die, (lko is about 2250m/s)

[MiniMatt]

I'm not very good at space planes yet but tips acquired thus far:

Action groups

Toggle jet engine(s) & intakes on/off in one action group.

Toggle rocket engine(s) in another.

Kill the jets just before flameout (keep a keen eye on the intake air resource) and light the blue touch paper on the rockets

Simulate mass distribution on re-entry

On the runway put the brakes on and burn off all your rocket fuel and half your jet fuel (throttle back a bit so as not to overwhelm brakes).

Then try to take off, fly around a bit and land some place - a fully laden plane can fly beautifully yet have the grace of a falling hippo once mostly empty.

Ideally centre of mass is just in front of the centre of lift & remains so despite fuel usage.

Don't launch like a rocket

Ie. don't just point at 45 degrees and see where that takes you.

Everything is governed by the intake air resource. If that's fine then keep on climbing.

If it's going too low too quickly then level off and try to pick up some horizontal velocity to get more air in the ram intakes, then try climbing a bit more.

When you think there's not much more left, make a final stab for the stars, killing the jet engines just before flameout and igniting the rockets.

Practice landing

A lot.

Ideally design planes with enough lift to take off and land at slow speeds.