Dispatcher's Self Flying Planes (Mostly); and a Rocket

[Dispatcher]

Now version 1.1 Removed all solar cells & most ladders. Moved thrusters on space planes. Adjusted some wings and added some control surfaces on some planes for improved flight behavior. How is it possible to have self flying planes, you ask? These planes are designed to take off, reach altitude, fly until out of fuel (and most glide down to finally safely ditch or land). They work in KSP v. 0.21 (and probably in earlier versions too). Only stock parts are used and most assembly is normal (minimal use of shift S or whatever to adjust part fit). These are not modded and craft files are not edited. So aerodynamics and (dynamic) mass balancing are the key design factors.

Why make such planes? I wanted to make planes which anyone could use to learn to fly in KSP. I decided that if a plane could fly without a pilot, such a plane would be good for beginners as well as more experienced pilots to fly. These should be no harder to fly than any other KSP plane. Perhaps easier!

The planes:

Air Wasp (Experimental) – mixed engine jet uses rocket fuel.

Crazy Ivan – rocket plane (name from “Hunt for Red October†novel and movie, due to runway behavior)

Hammerhead – turbojet

Hawk V. 1.1 – mixed engine jet uses ... jet fuel. Adjusted lift surfaces.

Last Shadow – single engine jet. Adjusted control surfaces.

Mosquito – ramjet

Nova Hawk – mixed engine jet. Better for experienced pilots. Kept ladders.

Shrike – turbo ramjet

Wasp – rocket jet. Fire both stages at launch from runway. Only fire first stage from orbit.

There is also a rocket:

Hubris of Debris – concept demonstration craft. It shows staging techniques, various kinds of jet, liquid (even solid if you can find them) multistage boosters, “asparagus†fueling, jettisoning some fins; all in one craft. The payload is also staged. Unlike most of the plane designs, either use SAS or fly it manually!

Try the improved version!

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/dispatcherplanesv1-1/

Edited August 15, 2013 by Dispatcher
Improvement Version 1.1

[astropapi1]

1- If you're using spaceport for that, use only the craft tag.

2- Could you post some pictures and descriptions here?

I like the idea of self-flying planes.

[Dispatcher]

I'm glad you like the idea of self flying planes. They are essentially concept planes that can and should be flown manually, just like any other plane; but most do really well on their own. :-)

I did use appropriate tags inc. craft, but I did not check everything else for tags, which seems prevalent (or the search engine needs work).

The download is small (around 11 mb) and includes photos and stats on each plane and the rocket, as well as a pdf read me which spells out more detail.

If you still want descriptions, just indicate that and I'll provide more details.

According to the permissions at the bottom of my view of this page, I do not have permission to post attachments (which I'd assume includes photos). Its probably due to me being a noob here. Or I really can post attachments and I'm not supposed to know it yet. :-o

[sgt_flyer]

You can 'link' to images hosted on a image sharing website (the basic is with the tag - with the image's address between the tags.

Else, for the spaceport, it's confusing for the people if you use multiple tag categories, notably ones like Vehicle assembly building or the structural parts tag - because the spaceport is used to host mods too - for example, when people later want to search for modded structural parts in the spaceport, they will have your upload has an additional result, because it has a 'structural part' tag.

It's because tag researchs work like this : you select a specific tag, and the search engine will show you all the entries which have that tag - regardless of what other tags they have, then people can limit the results by adding another tag, etc, which is why many people here dislike seeing spaceport entries with too much or irrelevant tags - it 'pollutes' the researchs

Ideally, your spaceport entry should only use the craft tag, eventually a 'stock' tag, and the tags you created, which we can see between the commas. The other tags should be used by mod packages (given the number of mods for ksp )

[Dispatcher]

Let's try this:

Mosquito:

Wasp (which is more touchy since I added ladders, solar panels; and actually thrusters):

And let's try the rocket, Hubris of Debris:

I hope this works!

Edited August 14, 2013 by Dispatcher
Wanting to actually show the pics here.

[Dispatcher]

It appears that having added ladders, solar panels and even thrusters may affect the behavior of the planes. This may affect flights which are "pilotless" or do not use any auto piloting.

If you want your flight experiences and results to be closer to my testing data, try removing the ladders, solar panels and even thrusters before flying; otherwise for normal piloting, the planes seem responsive to pilot control.

May you find these to be fun!