BSC: Albatross 3 - And the winner is...

[whistlehead]

Three! Wheeeee! :D

For those awesome people who voted for me:

Edited November 4, 2013 by whistlehead

[spaceBrezel]

hehe thanks for 2 votes and your reviews.

did test a few planes already but had no time to comment. will share my thoughts later.

KermaJet KJ200 Type F and ZB-7 are very nice planes i tested.

ZB-7 (and some others) just dont look like the original albatross file.

edit:

@OP can you add timestamps at your first post? 48h from now?

edit timestamp counts? just asking, maybe i missed it...

Edited November 4, 2013 by spaceBrezel

[vetrox]

Spent about 12 or so hours over the past few days testing.

Although i dont like the look of some of the planes Ie I feel they either dont look kerbally or are to far from what the original albatross looks like (too small or just not wacky enough), I have however flown them all and some of them are superb. I want to vote for gusturbo but I just cant bring myself to vote on something that looks like a regular air liner. However It does get a thumbs up as Its good fun flying to the poles in it.

Gonna test the 4 favourites in my short list now, then I will vote. I love atmospheric planes

[Xeldrak]

Allright, I just returned from university. The finalists are:

antbin - Ahlbetossed 4b

Ekku Zakku - Ensoku

GusTurbo - Kalkakross Keighteen

mcirish3 - Condor

Octagon - Diamond Flyer

Sirine - The Albatross

Now give me a few minutes to set stuff up. I will be playing smooth jazz in the meantime:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un94Q8e7FOA

[vetrox]

Oh **** is the voting closed already? Damn, i may have spent too much time flying planes Oh well, Only one of those finalists was in my final list anyway

[briansun1]

Oh **** is the voting closed already? Damn, i may have spent too much time flying planes Oh well, Only one of those finalists was in my final list anyway

it's still open

[Xeldrak]

yeah...you cann still vote....and not be counted...

[antbin]

give me a few minutes to set stuff up. I will be playing smooth jazz in the meantime:

"Welcome to BSC Enterprises, please hold, your call is important to us.."

Seriously though, I regret not running reviews of the full field. Will try to have a run through all of them (including the finalists) Tuesday night.

[Xeldrak]

Allright, we have our finalists!

Thanks to my amazing skills in "learning how this forum works after only half a year", you can now actually vote in here!

The vote runs for two days and don't forget to check the BSC: Challenge Guidelines!

[antbin]

The problem was that your center-of-mass starts behind the center-of-lift with full tanks. It only gets worse as the tanks drain. This makes even non-aerobatic maneuvering extremely difficult. For example, trying to yaw the plane results in heavy roll, and pitching the plane results in yaw. It's just not stable with the current mass and lift distribution.

The proper way to pitch-balance a plane is to give a control surface (canard or elevator) one degree of nose-pitch-up, then line up the plane's CoM and CoG and tune it for neutral handling on takeoff. That way the plane is self-stabilizing - the control surface's extra angle of attack is the thing holding the nose up. If you get too much angle of attack (>20 degrees) and are about to loop, the control surface will lose lift first and (hopefully) let the nose fall back to neutral.

The yaw-roll coupling comes from wings that flex up (dihedral) or from swept wings. With KSP's lift model, wings only make lift from the airflow perpendicular to them. Try it with some of the square Wing Connector boards - rotate them 90 degrees and they will not produce any lift in forward flight. So if you sweep wings back, then yawing your plane will make a lift imbalance - the wing that's now more perpendicular to the airstream will make more lift. The plane will roll opposite to the direction of yaw... very destabilizing! This means that in KSP, swept-forward wings are actually more stable than swept-back O.o!

Yaw-Roll coupling can be fixed by clever rudder placement. But it's a matter of fine tuning.

Edited November 4, 2013 by antbin

[Xeldrak]

@OP can you add timestamps at your first post? 48h from now?

edit timestamp counts? just asking, maybe i missed it...

Sorry, saw this just now. There are timestamps - on every post in this from. They are in the top left corner.

Yeah, usually I give you guys a head up frome time to time, how long the voting is still active, I just didn't have the time in the last two days.

[XolotlLoki]

Okay I didn't not test only yours... I have a life and can't spend infinite time on KSP. To me yours (and about 1/4 of the others) didn't resemble the Albatross 3 enough for me to want to put in the testing time.

So, you think it's okay for you to set arbitrary conditions on which planes you test, but that's not okay for me? Get over it dude, and if you want me to test yours don't deliberately leave mine out. Or at least don't whine about it afterwards.

I'm sorry but I state that upfront in the preface. Your singling me out is just being a jerk.

Why so serious?

I'm betting a lot of people who voted didn't test every single plane.

And if you notice, I did call out all the people who voted for Sirine. I was going to do the same for GusTurbo's voters, but at least his plane didn't crash just after takeoff for me.

Very glad Ekku Zakku made it past the primaries, so I can vote for someone with good conscience

[mhoram]

After having tested the finalists that escaped my attention during the primary elections, my vote goes to Ekku Zakku - Ensoku.

[Xeldrak]

Well, my thought are basically:

antbin: A neat piece of engineering, but VTOL ability is just to much for BSC and a far cry from the original

Ekku Zakku: A nice, balanced plane - it flies very well, it easy and a creative design. You got my vote

GusTurbo: Awesome engineering! Beautifull looks, but not entirerly sure if it fits as a replacement for the Albatross.

mcirish3: Creative design, that flies well - however it seems to be a bit too large for my taste. But still an awesome plane.

Octagon: I really love the looks of this plane! But I don't think it fits the albatross. Also: Use cannards as cannards, not fins

Sirine: How did this get 5 votes in the primaries? It can barely liftoff and is a horror to fly.

[briansun1]

so wil the next one be SPH of VAB ?

[Ekku Zakku]

Wow, so many votes, I'm flattered xAx I'll hopefully be able to test the remaining craft soon, I don't want to vote now without doing some test flights. I'm also not going to vote for myself, since I don't really see the point.

@brian, I really hope it's VAB, since planes are in such a different league from rockets and landers, and are also quite exhausting work to build and test XD but we'll find out soon enough =3

[Blaster]

Ever since the RS1M KermaJet engineers have concluded that Canards are for cavemen. The standard canard is, however, the only available stock part that can provide supersonic control surface control, other than the winglet, so is used as a tail wing instead.

For supersonic control, the entire rudder and tail wing needs to pivot, not just the control surface at the end of it. When this becomes a necessity in future Kerbal aerodynamics, it will be more standard practice.

[mcirish3]

SO I tested Ensoku, the only finalist I had not flown. I wish I had flown it earlier since it is definitely on par with mine and the only finalist besides my own that fits with the spirit of the albatross and is flyable. (I know I am biased)

So here is my compare with my own craft. I Know I am biased so take with a grain of salt. I will try to be unbiased.

Ensoku is better looking than the Condor In many ways though it does not have the unique but stable curved wings of the Condor

Ensoku has better yaw control than the Condor.

Ensoku is smaller than the Condor.

The Condor has much greater range than the Ensoku.

The Condor utilizes the shuttle command pod. ( I know that is personal preference on my part.)

The Condor Looks more like the original Albatross.

The Ensoku has a way better description than the Condor.

The Condor has 21km ceiling the Ensoku has about 18km (estimate did not have time to fly the Ensoku all the way up, could be hidden air intakes)

The Condor looks like a bird

Since I will not be voting for myself the Ensoku by Ekku Kakku will get my vote.

[mcirish3]

I also want to compliment Antbin, Gusturbo, and Octagon on their designs super cool craft but either did not fit well with this challenge or were to advance for a stock craft, of course that is my opinion.

Sirine your craft is good looking and flies but has almost no maneuverability and ignores the some of the rules so can not recommend this as a stock craft at all.

[Ekku Zakku]

SO I tested Ensoku, the only finalist I had not flown. I wish I had flown it earlier since it is definitely on par with mine and the only finalist besides my own that fits with the spirit of the albatross and is flyable. (I know I am biased)

So here is my compare with my own craft. I Know I am biased so take with a grain of salt. I will try to be unbiased.

Ensoku is better looking than the Condor In many ways though it does not have the unique but stable curved wings of the Condor

Ensoku has better yaw control than the Condor.

Ensoku is smaller than the Condor.

The Condor has much greater range than the Ensoku.

The Condor utilizes the shuttle command pod. ( I know that is personal preference on my part.)

The Condor Looks more like the original Albatross.

The Ensoku has a way better description than the Condor.

The Condor has 21km ceiling the Ensoku has about 18km (estimate did not have time to fly the Ensoku all the way up, could be hidden air intakes)

The Condor looks like a bird

Since I will not be voting for myself the Ensoku by Ekku Kakku will get my vote.

18 km is easily doable on low thrust, but 16 km is much safer and I consider it the maximum rated flight ceiling (probably should have added that to my original post lol). I know if I vote for anybody else's plane, it would probably be yours mcirish3 =3 I love how it's larger but still holds true to the looks of the Albatross 3 pretty well. I was also originally going to utilize the shuttle command pod, but I realized it would have been butt-ugly with the science equipment strapped to the front XD (I honestly can't wait for that part to be redone lol). Of course, I'm biased towards yours as well, but I do need to fly it first! Very detailed comparisons between our planes, thanks for the vote and for giving my plane a go ^w^

EDIT: I did go and add a little bit more to my entry post on the flight ceiling, just 'cause XD

Edited November 5, 2013 by Ekku Zakku

[I_Killed_Jeb]

so a question for you master plane builders, how do you get long wings to stay stiff? i can build ssto's pretty quickly and easily but they as a rule can't have more than 2-3 rectangular structural wings because of mega flex issues, and struts dont' seem to help me much

[briansun1]

struts... lots of them... betewen where the 2 wing pices conect

[FallingIntoBlack]

In my opinion, the Albatross 18 should be disqualified. It was voted for mostly on looks alone, and therefore should not be in the Final Vote. It may look good, but that's not what you should vote on. The entire point of the challenge is to make a plane that is better than the Albatross, and can do everything the Albatross can do and more. If it looks good, but doesn't fulfill the purpose it was intended to do, it probably shouldn't be voted on.

P.S. GusTurbo, even if your plane can fulfill its intended purpose, you and I both know it only made it this far because most (possibly all) of the people who voted for it did because it looks good.

Edited November 5, 2013 by FallingIntoBlack

[Sirine]

Thanks for those who voted me, And thanks for those who tested my craft, and thanks for those who critic my craft.

The one and only. Like what it said : "Once you go Frak, you'll never go back!"

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50790-BSC-Ravenspear-Mk-1-This-time-for-real!?p=668836&viewfull=1#post668836

I've fly the best craft. And never able to replicate it. (for its stabilities and performance).

I've done SSTO (Send a Orange Tank to orbit without using it), SSTM (Mun), SSTD (Duna)...And I can build stable, not the best but efficient air-craft/space-craft.

For "The Albatross":- my aim for this competition, as I said many times before.

It fly like a bird, it design to be fly like a bird. It IS a bird, The Albatross.

[GusTurbo]

This thread has really inflamed some passions. All I can say is may the best plane win.