Pushing the envelope...

[Darkeldar]

So I had my first "successful" flight today of the my latest Spike series aerospace plane (a kerbalized SR-71, sorry I don't have picture posting rights yet). With the help from the newbie thread I was able to group the two Sabre S engines together, and I found the oxidizer component I needed, to at least try the rocket mode. I'm still having a few issues about when it is most efficient to switch from air-breathing to rocket mode, as I wasted the first attempt as my one of the engines had already flamed out and the remaining started me in a flat spin. I was able to recover 3 times from a flame-out and bring the craft back under control. I discovered that I don't want too much higher than 20,000 m in air breathing mode. I was able to get Spike going over 660m/s in a shallow dive, but I need over 1000m/s to reach Mach 3. I had managed to land her on a beach, but far from the base, I just didn't have the time or inclination for a return flight.

So I'll do some more flight testing before I re-build her with more oxidizer capacity. Maybe I get hypersonic, one of these days.

[Odo]

Use turbo engines instead of the basic ones. They can go MUCH higher. It hink I got to 35k before they flamed out.

[Slur]

Use turbo engines instead of the basic ones. They can go MUCH higher. It hink I got to 35k before they flamed out.

Well, it depends on how much intake you have. More intakes, the more air you can catch.

[Spooks]

with 0.80 /1.00 intake air you can go up to 24k and with the b9 engines 15k+ you wil go easy 1000 m/s + try not to make it to op and put like 80 intake air on your ship

Edited October 12, 2013 by Spooks

[Darkeldar]

Posted pictures of Spike 3 in this thread http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52828-How-to-do-this-with-Action-Groups?p=699547#post699547

I built her for aesthetics, more than performance, but I have had her up to 2.25 Mach in my last flight. She uses up the entire runway to take off, so I'm going to raise the nose with a pylon attached to the nose gear, and adding radial air intakes to the engines on version 3.5.

Se if I can get her above 25k with the extra air.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Darkeldar