VTOL Fuel efficiency challenge

[Pds314]

Your task is to design a VTOL aircraft (or rocket) which can land on and take off from a mountain peak, on top of the VAB, etc. It must be Single-stage, and carry at least one Kerbal which can be safely on-loaded and off-loaded from or to the ground.

Additionally, it must not use Infiniglide or anything that does not consume liquid fuel as a source of propulsion.

The goal is to fly as far as possible over Kerbin, if you do get to Orbit, the distance between your landing point and KSC is your distance, and that over the amount of liquid fuel burned is your score.

Allowed mods:

Please note any and all mods used during the flight.

FAR - seperate category, encouraged.

Any auto-pilot mod so long as it doesn't apply forces from nowhere (MechJeb is allowed).

Any engines must be cleared with me, and must burn liquid fuel or be powered by something that does.

Any aerodynamic surfaces, save those with physically silly properties like an impact tolerance of 50, more lift for their size than is realistic and believable, etc are allowed.

Damned Robotics or like mods may not be used for propulsion, just reconfiguration of the vehicle mid-flight.

Any mod with no effect on the flight is allowed.

Any mod which adds cockpits, seats, fuel tanks, etc must be cleared if you plan on using said parts.

Hyper-edit or the debug window cheats may not be used, if you can't fly 50 km, take off, land, avoid exploding, etc, in your vehicle, with the assistance of SAS, MechJeb, and any other autopilots, you have a worthless vehicle to begin with.

The vehicle must fly for at least 50 km in order for the run to count.

Remember, getting into orbit may be a good way to get to the other side of the planet, but it will also consume ludicrous amounts of fuel. The most you could possibly get out of it is about 2000 km, but if you consume 900 units of fuel to get there, you'd barely beat a helicopter.

Scoring for multple Kerbals:

If you choose to bring multiple Kerbals, any dying or being accidentally stranded immedietely disqualifies that run.

Each Kerbal adds 20% more to your score, E.G., a 2-passenger vehicle gets a score of 120% normal, and an 8-passenger vehicle, gets one 240% normal.

Why only 20%? because Kerbals only carpool or take mass transit 20% of the time.

It is assumed that oxidized is cheap enough to get in mass quantity for basically free and in an environmentally friendly way, and therefore is of no concern (besides extra weight) to the fuel efficiency.

Submissions should include a picture at launch with the resources tab open, a picture of vertical take-off occuring, a few pictures in flight, a picture mid-landing (remember, vertical landing, I will be highly skeptical if there is a jet trail behind you and you are moving at 45 m/s.) a picture landed with the resources tab open, and a picture of the flight statistics screen showing how far you flew over land.

Bonus points if you land somewhere impressive like on a mountain top! (there are some around 55 km from KSC as well.)

I'll get to posting an entry later. My current vehicle (basically a 2-passenger 11-ton hover-car) should have a score of:

50 km burned about 45 units of fuel last flight, giving it 1.111 km per liter, with an adjusted score of 1.333 km/L. It was buillt in FAR but has no wings or control surfaces whatsoever.

Records:

Name - Name of Craft - Score - Adjusted Score

1. ---

2. ---

3. ---

Unconfirmed records: (please provide better evidence for these records if you set them.)

Name - Name of Craft - Score - Adjusted Score - Place among Confirmed - Place among all - Reason for lack of confirmation:

1. ---

2. ---

3. ---

FAR Records:

Name - Name of Craft - Score - Adjusted Score

1. ---

2. ---

3. ---

Unconfirmed FAR records: (please provide better evidence for these records if you set them.)

Name - Name of Craft - Score - Adjusted Score - Place among Confirmed - Place among all - Reason for lack of confirmation:

1. Pds3.14 - HoverX - 1.111 km/L - 1.333 - 1st - 1st - no photos posted.

2. ---

3. ---

[Cupcake...]

Might have one or two ships that can do that... Score might be a bit tricky to work out though.

Kerbin - Minmus - Kerbin

Kerbin - Duna (Refuel) - Kerbin

Kerbin - Minmus - Mun - Kerbin

Kerbin - Minmus - Kerbin (2 Passengers)

Edited October 1, 2013 by Cupcake...

[Kodiak42]

A nice little challenge, but I have a few complaints about your guidlines

Mechjeb is a very powerful autopilot, and some mods make constructing a VTOL a piece of cake compared to using stock parts. Mods used should be taken into account when scoring.

Also, VTOL fuel consumption for takeoff and landing should also be factored into the score in a major way.

I do have a little concern with the 20% per kerbal score addition, given that someone might just slap a couple command seats on the side to add boatloads of kerbals to the VTOL, my suggestion, some form of safety regulations.

Other aircraft properties should be taken into consideration, like maneuverability, I plan on putting on an airshow with my VTOL (if I can ever get it to work in FAR)

Also, Please give us at least a picture or two of your craft, It's one thing when somebody just gives us the pic of the craft on the runway and says what it did, it's a bit of another thing when the creator of the challenge didn't post any pictures of their VTOL at all. I really wanna see how you figured it out (btw, I'm using FAR and sub-assembly manager)

[Cupcake...]

A nice little challenge, but I have a few complaints about your guidlines

Mechjeb is a very powerful autopilot, and some mods make constructing a VTOL a piece of cake compared to using stock parts. Mods used should be taken into account when scoring.

Also, VTOL fuel consumption for takeoff and landing should also be factored into the score in a major way.

I do have a little concern with the 20% per kerbal score addition, given that someone might just slap a couple command seats on the side to add boatloads of kerbals to the VTOL, my suggestion, some form of safety regulations.

Other aircraft properties should be taken into consideration, like maneuverability, I plan on putting on an airshow with my VTOL (if I can ever get it to work in FAR)

Also, Please give us at least a picture or two of your craft, It's one thing when somebody just gives us the pic of the craft on the runway and says what it did, it's a bit of another thing when the creator of the challenge didn't post any pictures of their VTOL at all. I really wanna see how you figured it out (btw, I'm using FAR and sub-assembly manager)

Sadly I don't think this thread is going anywhere. I posted an entry about a week ago and haven't heard diddly squat.

Cupcake...

[Hodo]

A nice little challenge, but I have a few complaints about your guidlines

Mechjeb is a very powerful autopilot, and some mods make constructing a VTOL a piece of cake compared to using stock parts. Mods used should be taken into account when scoring.

Also, VTOL fuel consumption for takeoff and landing should also be factored into the score in a major way.

I do have a little concern with the 20% per kerbal score addition, given that someone might just slap a couple command seats on the side to add boatloads of kerbals to the VTOL, my suggestion, some form of safety regulations.

Other aircraft properties should be taken into consideration, like maneuverability, I plan on putting on an airshow with my VTOL (if I can ever get it to work in FAR)

Also, Please give us at least a picture or two of your craft, It's one thing when somebody just gives us the pic of the craft on the runway and says what it did, it's a bit of another thing when the creator of the challenge didn't post any pictures of their VTOL at all. I really wanna see how you figured it out (btw, I'm using FAR and sub-assembly manager)

I just made a VTOL, SSTO using FAR, it took A LOT of work but I managed to pull it off. It is still in the testing phase and I think there are some design improvements on the way.

[Cupcake...]

I just made a VTOL, SSTO using FAR, it took A LOT of work but I managed to pull it off. It is still in the testing phase and I think there are some design improvements on the way.

Put some pics up, it'll be cool to see it!

Cupcake...

[Hodo]

Put some pics up, it'll be cool to see it!

Cupcake...

Here you go.

I give you the SVO-3

I haven't taken pictures of it in space yet... but on its 5th test flight it flew to an orbit of 100km X 95km orbit without refueling and returned and landed at KSC. It was a close landing ran out of fuel 10m above the ground. On take off it burns about 15-20% of its fuel load on Kerbin but is designed for lower gravity worlds, and hopefully will be my first Dres and back SSTO/VTOL or SVO as I call them.

SVO-Singlestage Vertical Orbiter.

[Cupcake...]

Here you go.

I give you the SVO-3

I haven't taken pictures of it in space yet... but on its 5th test flight it flew to an orbit of 100km X 95km orbit without refueling and returned and landed at KSC. It was a close landing ran out of fuel 10m above the ground. On take off it burns about 15-20% of its fuel load on Kerbin but is designed for lower gravity worlds, and hopefully will be my first Dres and back SSTO/VTOL or SVO as I call them.

SVO-Singlestage Vertical Orbiter.

Nice, looking slick.

Cupcake...