How not to build an Eve glider

[nhnifong]

I've been trying to make an ion plane that can gain altitude on Eve at a reasonable rate (to lift small rockets to ~20). Eve poses an interesting challenge to ascend this way. There is ample power (165% more than kerbin), but you can't use large solar panels in the atmosphere without being very careful too keep them pointed parallel to the wind. If you stick to static panels, You need 7.27375 times the number of ion engines you have. You can't go crazy on the panels or you will kill your framerate, and you can't skimp on the ion engines if you want to be able to gain altitude. more wings lets you use more weight, but too many wings in that thick atmosphere and your craft will spontaneously explode due to runaway oscillations.

Here are a few of my failed designs I'm giving up on it now, but if anyone wants to pick up the legacy, you can have all 11 craft files here.

[Tw1]

There are some impressive looking vessels there, a pity the concept didn't work.

I notice you've stacked the ion engines in one of them. Did that give extra thrust? I would've thought they'd block each other, like regular engines do.

[SunJumper]

I'm curious, how high do these crafts get, on eve?

[nhnifong]

There are some impressive looking vessels there, a pity the concept didn't work.

I notice you've stacked the ion engines in one of them. Did that give extra thrust? I would've thought they'd block each other, like regular engines do.

It did. Ion engines don't appear to follow this rule.

I'm curious, how high do these crafts get, on eve?

For some, I launched them as space-planes with drop tanks, then docked them to interplanetary-transfer stages. But that proved to be pretty time consuming so I just started strapping a pile of rockets to them and burned straight to Eve.

EDIT: lol whoops, I thought you asked "how do these crafts get on eve". Anyways, None of them ever got higher than 1km when starting from the surface. The rate of climb was too slow to get very high before the xenon ran out. However I did have opportunities to test them at higher altitudes by pulling up after aerobraking, and I found that at least my final design was capable of stable self-powered flight at 22km.

Edited December 5, 2013 by nhnifong