Fuel Economy Circumnavigation

[Goozeman]

A challenge for the aerodynamically inclined. The rules are simple: circumnavigate the globe on a single Mk1 fuselage of fuel and land back at KSC (or the island base, if and only if traveling east). I do not know whether this is possible in vanilla KSP, as I don't play without Farram Aero. Research. Therefore the use of FAR is allowed and highly encouraged. If you can, by some miracle, do this in vanilla, you are awesome at figuring out arbitrary physics, have a cookie.

For reference, I have completed this challenge except for the landing back at KSC part; I crashed trying to land. I had 13 units of fuel remaining, so I even had some margin for error. I am in the process of retrying the attempt, but since that proves that it is indeed possible, I wanted to get some feedback from the forum.

The caveats:

1.) This is intended to be a challenge of aerodynamics, not propulsion tech. Only the stock engines and intakes are permitted. However, aerodynamics and structural parts from mods are allowed and encouraged. For example, I very much like PWings. Mods that are incompatible with FAR are not banned, but strongly discouraged.

2.) This challenge is intended for heavier-than-air craft. No balloons, dirigibles, or blimps please. Helicopters and autogiros are permitted. Lifting bodies are permitted as well.

3.) Aircraft that make sub-orbital hops are discouraged, and I reserve the right to not include any attempt that defies the spirit of the rules (aero, not orbital). Aircraft that exceed 60km will automatically not be included. Excessive intake spamming is also grounds for non-inclusion; as a general rule, at most two intakes per engine will be accepted.

4.) No dev console. Part clipping is permitted if and only if you can do it without using the dev console.

5.) Your entry MUST make a successful landing without damage. All entries must land at KSC, and eastward entries have the option of landing at the island base.

Scoring:

This is intended simply as a personal challenge, but I will keep score using fuel remaining after landing as a metric. Stock aerodynamics and FAR will be in separate leader boards.

Bonuses:

3-Point Landing: Land on and remain on the runway at KSC. +1 unit of fuel

Polar Express: Fly north or south instead of east. +0.5 units of fuel

Sun Synchronous: Fly west, never see night. +1 unit of fuel

Show-off: Land at the island base. May only be obtained with an easterly circumnavigation. +2.5 units of fuel

Pratfall: Land at the island base, but miss the runway. -2.5 units of fuel. Stacks with above.

In Stock We Trust: Do it will all stock parts. +2 units of fuel

Slow Boat: Take longer than 12 hours. +2 units of fuel

Fast Craft: Take less than 2 hours. +3 units of fuel

Low'n'Slow: Never exceed 5000m. +3 units of fuel

Cheapin' Out: Use a probe core. -0.25x fuel remaining.

Good luck!

FAR Leaders:

1. Traches with pWing Abuse : 83.54 (82.54 + 3-point landing)

2. Goozeman with World Traveller: 16.79 (15.79 + 3-Point Landing)

3.

Stock Leaders:

1. zorque: 60.34 (52.34 + In Stock We Trust + Fast Craft + Show-off)

2. koshelenkovv 43.65 (54.20 + In Stock We Trust + Fast Craft + 3-Point Landing)xCheapin' Out

2. leafty with Minimi: 30.87 (25.87 + Fast Craft + In Stock We Trust + Show-off/Pratfall)

3. Rhomphaia : 10.91 (7.91 + Fast Craft)

Edited December 8, 2013 by Goozeman
Landing Clarification

[Goozeman]

Here's my entry, the World Traveller. Mods used are FAR, pWings, and RealChutes. I had trouble landing the first time round, so I added a pair of drag chutes to the back to slow it down on the runway. As I recall Global Flier actually descended with drag chutes open. Anyways, I made it in 5:59:15 with 15.87 units of fuel remaining. The secret to doing this subsonically with FAR installed is displayed in some of the screenshots, but I'm not going to give it away. Anyways, without further ado:

Attained cruise speed and trim

screenshot3 by The Aviator 11, on Flickr

About 1/2 way around.

screenshot5 by The Aviator 11, on Flickr

Beginning Decent. I actually started descending about half way across the ocean and still was on too high a glide path.

screenshot6 by The Aviator 11, on Flickr

Passing K2

screenshot9 by The Aviator 11, on Flickr

Landed!

screenshot11 by The Aviator 11, on Flickr

Flight Report

screenshot12 by The Aviator 11

My final score was 15.79 + 3-Point Landing for a total of 16.79

Edited December 6, 2013 by Goozeman

[Kasuha]

I don't think it is possible with stock game if you stay in atmosphere, but might be possible with a suborbital hop around the planet. If that's not against rules.

Part clipping is also ok, I assume...

[Goozeman]

I don't think it is possible with stock game if you stay in atmosphere, but might be possible with a suborbital hop around the planet. If that's not against rules.

Part clipping is also ok, I assume...

I'm trying not to limit what people do beyond stock jets/intakes and 2 intakes max per engine. Part clipping is tolerated within what the game will allow without the Dev console, but remember the intake/engine max. Also, it is explicitly stated that hops above 60km are prohibited. I may lower that later if it becomes a problem.

[WafflesToo]

I don't think it is possible with stock game if you stay in atmosphere, but might be possible with a suborbital hop around the planet. If that's not against rules.

Part clipping is also ok, I assume...

I'm pretty sure it can be done. I did it carrying two cans of fuel, but barely touched the second one. If I hadn't been carrying the extra mass I probably wouldn't have even needed that much.

[Kasuha]

... 2 intakes max per engine ... hops above 60km are prohibited

Apparently I didn't read rules carefully enough.

[leafty]

In stock parts, we trust. The Minimi did it with 25 fuel left.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Sorry, I forgot to take a screenshot at take-off and I missed the island runway ><.

[Goozeman]

In stock parts, we trust. The Minimi did it with 25 fuel left.

Sorry, I forgot to take a screenshot at take-off and I missed the island runway ><.

Color me impressed. I guess I need to do separate StockAero/FAR categories.

[minerman30]

I could walk...

[Pds314]

Ideas:

Use an infiniglider

Use slightly botched canard physics in FAR to make an infiniglider.(talking to you B9 HW21 heavy wings).

Use SAS to make a plane swim through the sky.

Go by car

SAS WHEEL... WHEEL.

Orbit with a 59.9 km apoapsis, constantly make up for drag using jets.

Use a train powered by infiniglide or SAS.

Use an SAS-powered helicopter.

Use a craft powered entirely by the assymetric fuel transfer mass teleportation bug.

Use the FTL EGG.

Swim/walk and push the darned thing.

Use a bicycle powered by wobbling the SAS side-to-side.

Use a solar glider with a SAS propeller.

Use a really big launch clamp to boost a glider up to 59 km. Make sure the glide ratio is like. 100:1

Use hundreds or thousands of decouplers to throw it around the world.

Launch to 59 km using decouplers, orbit there, occasionally using a decoupler to compensate for drag.

If the moon exerted force on objects on Kerbin, use a tidal assymetric frictional device. Unfortunately there are no tides on Kerbin.

Mega-huge SAS corkscrew.

A giant ball (e.g. tens or hundreds of kilotonnes) that uses gravity to accelerate, upon slowing, it drops something from the back and then rebalances to accelerate.

The largest amphhibious rover in history, so large that it can cross oceans purely off momentum. (about 1 km in length and streamlined with an average density that of water should be enough.)

A giant ball powered by decouplers.

[numerobis]

Orbit with a 59.9 km apoapsis, constantly make up for drag using jets.

I'm not sure you can make it; if you can, it's very tight with just 2 intakes. I calculate that you can make 2336 m/s orbit speed at that altitude, whereas orbital velocity is 2322 m/s. However, that's only 14 m/s of slack, and I know that I overestimate jets' thrust.

Edited December 5, 2013 by numerobis

[Goozeman]

Ideas:

Use an infiniglider

<snip>

A giant ball powered by decouplers.

Alright, let's see it then. If you have the patience to infiniglide all the way around the planet, I will have the distinct honor of not including you in the leader boards. Congrats.

Also gliding to KSC from KSC + 60km up would take a constant 63:1 glide ratio. Either you need absolutely massive wings or you need to pull 63:1 supersonically, which is, quite literally, impossible.

Quite frankly, I clearly stated that this is an aerodynamics challenge. If you don't have anything constructive to do, go bother someone else.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Goozeman

[Pds314]

Alright, let's see it then. If you have the patience to infiniglide all the way around the planet, I will have the distinct honor of not including you in the leader boards.

Patience? My most recent infiniglider travels at over mach 10. I would get around the world in like 20 minutes or less.

Hmm... Maybe the FTL egg or pushing it would still work.

[WafflesToo]

Go away troll, nobody wants you here. The Minecraft forums are over there.

[GROOV3ST3R]

It's been done before ^^ I flew around kerbin 3 times on 2 of those tanks in a single flight, within the atmosphere - no suborbital hops. It's a question not of how much but how little do you need - less parts, less drag, less to slow you down. Speed is your friend if your wings are small. I used 4 Tailfins as my main source of lift. They are surprisingly effective. However I did stack ram intakes so that doesn't really work with these rules.

Don't know,if I remade it with a single jet instead of 2 maybe 2 intakes wouldn't be too far off ^^

[Rhomphaia]

My attempt if it counts, all stock.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Unfortunately KSP crashed just after that last screenshot so I can't confirm my max altitude (somewhere around 35.5km) or guarantee that I would have stayed on the runway (I have had swervy problems with landing gear on tail connectors before)

[Goozeman]

My attempt if it counts, all stock.

Unfortunately KSP crashed just after that last screenshot so I can't confirm my max altitude (somewhere around 35.5km) or guarantee that I would have stayed on the runway (I have had swervy problems with landing gear on tail connectors before)

I'll give it to you. The angle of attack of your wings just goes to prove how messed up stock aero is. Congrats! The flight report is usually a must, but your screen caps seem to indicate that you did it in good faith. Can't give you the runway landing though, sorry. It's only a unit of fuel anyways. Give it another shot sometime!

[zorque]

Built a super lightweight plane for this, made it in 41 minutes with 52 fuel left, landing at the island.

Made it with 60+ on my first try but flubbed the landing, then overshot the KSP and had to weave to get to the island.

52.34 Fuel + 3 ShowOff + 2 Stock + 3 FastCraft = 60.34 pts

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited December 6, 2013 by zorque

[Traches]

I'll give this one a shot! Should have an entry in a couple days.

[SunJumper]

Can we accidentally/purposefully eject parts? I can imagine launching with giant SRBs for the hell of it

[rpayne88]

Does it have to be a conventional runway landing with landing gear? Or can it be a "kirrus ballistic parachute" landing? Also, what defines a successful landing? What are the survivability requirements for the craft and can parts be dropped?

[Traches]

Can we accidentally/purposefully eject parts? I can imagine launching with giant SRBs for the hell of it

The whole point of the challenge is to make it using only the fuel in a mk 1 fuel tank.

[Goozeman]

Can we accidentally/purposefully eject parts? I can imagine launching with giant SRBs for the hell of it

Does it have to be a conventional runway landing with landing gear? Or can it be a "kirrus ballistic parachute" landing? Also, what defines a successful landing? What are the survivability requirements for the craft and can parts be dropped?

You may purposefully eject parts, but whatever comes back to KSC must make a successful horizontal landing. Successful in the sense that you may not lose any remaining pieces of your aircraft.

You may not, of course, eject any fuel tanks, and the whole point of the challenge is to use ONLY a Mk1 Fuselage worth of any type of fuel. That is, you are limited to only 150 units of LiquidFuel. Monoprop, Oxidizer, Xenon, SolidFuel, etc will disqualify your attempt.

Also, no one else try it with FAR installed? I feel lonely.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Goozeman

[Traches]

Made it! 82.5 units of fuel, plus the point for making it back. I have several mods installed, but the only applicable ones are FAR and Pwings. I guess I'll call the aircraft... Pwing abuse?

It's slow and ugly, but holy bejesus is it slippery. The thing will glide across continents, and the hardest part of flying it is getting it to stop.

Cut the gas about 400 km out; Wasn't sure we'd make it over K2 but Jeb was cool with it. (He remembered something he learned somewhere about terrain only filling 1/3 of the windscreen.)

Not my best approach or landing; even with the speedbrakes out for the last 20km I still came in hot and off centerline. Good news is I can log 2 or 3 of them.

And the proof. Max G force was only 1.7 before the landing... (Take THAT runway 9!)

[Goozeman]

Made it! 82.5 units of fuel, plus the point for making it back. I have several mods installed, but the only applicable ones are FAR and Pwings. I guess I'll call the aircraft... Pwing abuse?

Cut the gas about 400 km out; Wasn't sure we'd make it over K2 but Jeb was cool with it. (He remembered something he learned somewhere about terrain only filling 1/3 of the windscreen.)

Not my best approach or landing; even with the speedbrakes out for the last 20km I still came in hot and off centerline. Good news is I can log 2 or 3 of them.

And the proof. Max G force was only 1.7 before the landing... (Take THAT runway 9!)

PWing abuse for sure. What was your max L/D? Also, how do you bring up the flight speed options?

Anyways 82.54 + 3-point landing

EDIT: Derp. Found the airspeed settings right in front of my face.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Goozeman