Who here has landed a usable aircraft on Laythe?

[thereaverofdarkness]

I have. *points at ribbons*

Laythe is pretty, but it's annoying that I can't pan the camera up very well.

Anyone know what its gravity is? Based on my EVA attempt, I conclude it's at least 60% of Kerbin gravity, and based on my landing, I think no more than 85%, but I wish I could get a more accurate figure.

[Trux]

Try using the scientific parts to get a gravity reading, the alternative is to look on the wiki for Laythe. I would do the research yourself though

[Brofessional]

The info panel in the map view lists the various specs about the planets/moons.

Laythe is 80% Kerbin gravity.

[Moar Boosters]

I have.

No real idea on the gravity value though, my plane doesn't have any scientific equipment. Felt closer to 80%, but it's difficult for me to tell because my plane was full of fuel when I landed on laythe and it's always close to empty when I land it on kerbin.

The main thing I noticed was how thin the atmosphere feels if you try and land on a 4km high mountain. Quite a few crashes before I changed to a sea level landing site.

[7499275]

I have never even managed to get a space plane into LKO although now thinking about it I might try later on today .

[thereaverofdarkness]

That's a really big plane! Mine was small and simple. I sent it up as a SSTO, but it had so little Delta-v on rocket fuel that I had to re-fuel it five times to get it to the Joolian system. It took a stop at every station I had up, including all three around Kerbin. It was barely able to come from the last station into an intercept orbit, which I carefully adjusted to come screaming at full speed into Laythe's atmosphere. Good thing they don't have re-entry heating/damage yet!

It was easy to land, but I had to try it over about five times because after coming down gently, I would always accidentally tip the craft slightly and it would experience sudden unexpected disassembly for no apparent reason.

[Levelord]

[El wonso]

I will do that as soon as resources are in games (probably next year).

[Moar Boosters]

It was designed as a SSTO that would get to Duna and back. Obviously the launcher extends its range by quite a bit, getting it into LKO fully fueled with a big drop-tank attached for the joolian transfer. It flies nicely with no wobble or anything, but seems WAY more explody on laythe than in Kerbin or Duna's atmosphere. Maybe it doesn't like Jools radiation.

Currently I'm working on making it bigger so it can get to Jool without the launcher. The main problem is that it's so heavy and the part count is so high, it now takes about half an hour in real time just to get it to orbit.

[Zeroignite]

Flying jets on Laythe is wonderful. My favorite is the long north-south archipelago around -170, though finding a flat landing area can be hard. The last time I visited Laythe was all the way back in 0.18 --- ended up landing on the north polar ice cap, which made recovery kind of difficult.

[RoboRay]

Do airships count?

Edited September 16, 2013 by RoboRay

[Talonsin]

Robo, that is seriously a BA design. I love the rover/airship design. Seriously nice work mate.

[Unistrut]

I eventually gave up and just strapped parachutes to my plane. I'm not very good at either plane design or landings, so I crashed many, many times.

So my "landing" procedure was extend gear, slow down as much as you can and then pop the chutes. Once on the ground, have the pilot repack the chutes and you'd be ready to go somewhere else.

[musicpenguin]

I have. tencharsstuipid.

[Van Disaster]

One shot from KSC runway, no refuelling.

[RoboRay]

Robo, that is seriously a BA design. I love the rover/airship design. Seriously nice work mate.

Thanks! I spent a lot of time on it. Here's a mission album if you want to see more pics: http://imgur.com/a/k9ng3#0

[JazzXP]

Currently working on a mission to do so. Just waiting on my transfer window and sending rovers to other planets while I wait :-)

[_Aramchek_]

I have, and not to brag, but among the people that post...I think I was one of the very first to do so and find out that you could even use jet engines on the planet.

My planes were a bit simple though, compared to ones posted here.

[spikeyhat09]

not just a USABLE aircraft, but a stock SSTO

[thereaverofdarkness]

I have, and not to brag, but among the people that post...I think I was one of the very first to do so and find out that you could even use jet engines on the planet.

My planes were a bit simple though, compared to ones posted here.

Simple compared to mine? (post #6)

not just a USABLE aircraft, but a stock SSTO

Mine too!

[_Aramchek_]

Simple compared to mine? (post #6)

Oh yeah, I just threw some parts together and sent it out there, my only goal was to find out if the jet engines would work.

Edited September 17, 2013 by _Aramchek_

[sneakeypete]

I've landed (just) landed a fully fueled SSTO spaceplane on Laythe. I just put more wings onto my regular Kerbin SSTO. However, it turns out i really should have put even more wings on, even with the 80% lower gravity, as it was very, very tricky to land with its full load of fuel. It was, however, much nicer to get back into orbit.

[Geschosskopf]

I have this one on tap. I call it the LOSER (Laythe Observational Seaplane Extemporized Rover). Using a combination of B9, Firespitter, and KAS, it seats 4 Kerbals, can fly at least 1/2way around Laythe, can land on land or sea, and can safely rover over almost all terrain there.

I say "on tap" because this is has so far only been "simulated". Hence no ribbon for this in my stack yet. Tests on Kerbin have proved the plane can fly and also be launched vertically to LKO atop a rocket. And I can dock an interplanetary tug to it with sufficient delta-V to get it to Laythe. However, it hasn't "physically" been there yet. The pic below was taken in the "KSC R&D Simulatron", which is a separate save file. In that "simulator" game, once I knew the Kerbin end of things was viable, I used HyperEdit to get it to Laythe orbit, at which point I de-orbited it and flew it around to test how it will behave on Laythe. It works great there, too, so now I'm just waiting on a launch window to do the trivial task in the middle of actually letting it coast out to Jool.

But there's 1 other fly in the ointment. Much depends on the Kethane distribution on Laythe. Given that Laythe has such a small amount of land area, there's a good chance Laythe will have no useable Kethane. The LOSER largely depends on being able to be refueled on Laythe. If that's not possible, I might end up not actually sending this there and doing something else entirely.

[bsalis]

But there's 1 other fly in the ointment. Much depends on the Kethane distribution on Laythe. Given that Laythe has such a small amount of land area, there's a good chance Laythe will have no useable Kethane.

Well you won't know until you scan and find out. Failure is always an option.

This guy found plenty of the green liquid....

[Bishop149]

Not yet for me. . . but establishing an outpost on Laythe is my current goal.

I have a heap of stuff on route to Laythe, currently all on the long loop out to Jool encounter:

3 Planes

1 Base (+ 3 Kerbals!)

2 Fuel Tanker rovers

More planned . . . and the base might have a design flaw. It seemed to work fine in early tests on Kerbin but recent tests see it ripping itself apart on parachute deployment!

I may need to send a redesigned replacement + a different landing craft to transfer the Kerbals to.