Kethane Bee SSTO

[TAL]

Download craft: http://www./download/9pv42tie1mry1kq/Fly4.craft

Edited December 20, 2013 by TAL

[9t3ndo]

I love these bug designs and the take off idea is very funny xD nicely done sir.

[Hodo]

Outstanding design, I love it. You sir a far better than I, I could never build anything that imaginative.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Nice! Air intake spam much? In all seriousness though, I have nothing against air intake spam.

[Fellow314]

I think that's brilliant. It's practically art. I love the way the form and function work together.

[idoneous]

Wow. So much to love about this craft. Aesthetically astounding and yet functionally brilliant. I downloaded and tried this with the new 0.23 version. Granted, the launch from Kerbin took a bit of effort to get working. Careful study of the video gave some good insight. I've only taken it from Kerbin to an 85 km orbit and back twice, but I am in love with this ship! Wonderful job, sir! This should be getting a lot more attention.

I thought I would be clever and use the new tweaking to set the front legs to deployed on launch. I've yet to get it to launch this way, so I'd recommend not doing that. In case anyone's curious and having troubles, ere's the mission profile that works for me:

Launch:

1. Extend the front most landing legs with action group 4 as soon as the light goes green.

2. Toggle ASAS on with the T key

3. Throttle up

4. Press space to activate the jets

5. As soon as the engines start to go red, press 6 to retract the wheeled landing gear.

6. Wait till the engine is red hot.

7. Press 5 and 6 quickly together.

8. Pull back on the stick ( S on keyboard ) and try to point straight up.

9. Retract all gear with 4, 5, and 6

10. Adjust prograde marker to rest right over the straight up mark.

Orbit:

1. Fly straight up till 20 km on jets only at full throttle

2. At 20 km, heel over to 20 degrees.

3. Try to stay full throttle on jets only to 30 km

4. At 30 km, start to back off the throttle as needed.

5. Kick in the LVN when your speed, altitude, or time to AP get too low, slow, etc.

6. Somewhere just before or at 40 km, kill the jets and intakes with action group 1, throttle up to 100%, and pull up to 45 degrees

7. Coast to your desired AP. You've done it!

Landing:

1. Pick your landing spot and set a nice, gentle slope for landing. Set manuever node accordingly.

2. Make your burn

3. Turn to face prograde. Coast for awhile. Oh, and deactivate the nuclear engine.

4. Before you start to feel the atmospheric effects, pull up to 45 degrees.

5. When the atmospheric breaking kicks in, you're in for a ride. Do your best to hold a 45 as long as you can. You will lose.

6. Keep pulling up, even when it looks like you've overtaken the forces acting against you ( unless you get over 50 degees, then release for a second and pull up again )

7. Once you get below 500 m/s, pop the chutes with action group zero (0).

8. Deploy all landing gear with 4,5,6,7.

9. Activate the air intakes and jet engines with action group one (1). *Don't do this until the parachute is deployed. The drag will kill your chances of staying above the horizon*

10. Once you are more or less vertical, fire up the jets and use them to slow your descent. ( I hit at about 4.8 m/s and did a "hand stand" on the front legs. It was close. Lower your speed more ).

Good luck!

TAL - Thank you so much for this ship! I've only been playing for about a month. I'd just downloaded the Kethane mod, and now, I've got a ship to rove the system with. This is perfect!

[TAL]

Kethane Dragonfly

Craft: http://www./download/8imjck2sbfea4o0/Strekoza+Mk7j.craft

Edited March 19, 2014 by TAL