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Totally passive airplane

Kasuha

By Kasuha
in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas

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Kasuha

Kasuha

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Posted (edited)

*** Challenge Closed ***

The matter of this challenge is creating an airplane which will be able to take off, fly, and eventually land with no control at all.

General restrictions:

Stock only, no mods allowed. FAR might be eventually an exception.

No cheats using Debug menu, including but not limited to hack gravity, infinite fuel, or part clipping.

Part restrictions:

- The only allowed fuel source is one (1) ROUND-8 Toroidal Fuel Tank, i.e. 10 units of liquid fuel. Oxidizer may be left in or tweaked out. No other fuel tank allowed, even if tweaked to 10 units.

- No monopropellant allowed

- No solid fuel allowed

- No command pods allowed

- No reaction wheels allowed

- No aircraft control surfaces allowed (no canards, no steerable winglets, or Standard Control Surface parts)

- No launch clamps allowed

- One (1) probe core allowed, preferably OCTO-2. On a decoupler. This is supposed to be dropped from the craft before it starts moving

Design restrictions:

All craft engines must point horizontally +/- 20 degrees

The craft must initially stand on wheels

Launch sequence:

1/ engage permanent brakes by clicking on the Brake marker next to the altimeter

2/ start up engines

3/ if using jet engines, wait till they spin up

4/ press B to disengage brakes and at the same time decouple the probe core from the craft

Evidence:

Screenshot of the craft on runway before start with Resources tab open

Screenshot of the probe core decoupled while the craft is still in its initial position

Screenshot of the craft in flight

Screenshot of Flight Results after crash/landing

Scoring:

Your score is Ground Distrance Covered in final flight statistics

+10,000 points (meters) if the craft lands or splashes without damage

Leaderboard

1. Mic_n ... 324,748

2. dinosaurJR ... 109,170

3. 1greywind ... 88,094

4. obi_juan ... 86,763

5. sal_vager ... 41,062

Special

DocSnuggles ... 33,572 m on 0.26 unit of fuel

My proof of concept flight (36,516 m):

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Edited by Kasuha
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Kasuha

Kasuha

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Question > why is the throttle off in pic 6 and on in pic 5?

To my experiance i cant adjust the throttle after i disconnect the octo 2.??

Because I accidentally pressed X. The throttle pointer went down, but engines remained running.

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obi_juan

obi_juan

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If I'm going to use only 10 units of fuel the plane need to be light... So I made a Mehve, based in my model planes of free flight.

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The final distance over the land was 86,763m.

I try to make other fly with 100% of power, the plane fly higher and a little more speed but the final distance flow was lower.

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Kasuha

Kasuha

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Will do, are ion engines and rocket assisted take offs allowed?:sticktongue:
- The only allowed fuel source is one (1) ROUND-8 Toroidal Fuel Tank, i.e. 10 units of liquid fuel. Oxidizer may be left in or tweaked out. No other fuel tank allowed, even if tweaked to 10 units.

Rocket assisted yes, as long as they only use fuel from that one fuel tank.

ION engines are allowed, Xenon containers are not allowed.

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1greywind

1greywind

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Here is my entry:

Yf9noYKl.jpg

Ground distance covered: 85,916 m. Just a tiny bit less than obi_juan's score :) I'll try to beat him, but not today.

Here is the video of flight:

My approach was to design the plane, precisely balanced so it will initially fly in series of "nose up/stall/recover". As fuel is consumed, CoM shifts and plane becomes balanced and fly stright until fuel will be gone.

Edited by 1greywind
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Dispatcher

Dispatcher

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You mean self flying planes, such as these? http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/dispatcherplanesv1-2/

I don't have the time right now to make something from scratch (and some of the flights can take a long time), but check them out. Some of them might prove to be interesting to you. So while I'll abstain from this challenge, I wish you all well!

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Kasuha

Kasuha

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Looks like youtube have changed their upload defaults. Video is now public. Please check it:

Very nice, list updated. The fact that it does such a steep climb after takeoff and then levels up so cleanly kinda surprises me but I have no reasons to think you cheated. I also didn't know that intake on the nacelle actually works, I still have many things to learn... :)

Edited by Kasuha
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1greywind

1greywind

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The fact that it does such a steep climb after takeoff and then levels up so cleanly kinda surprises me but I have no reasons to think you cheated.

The climb/stall behavior is actualy very natural. Any plane with TWR < 1 and CoL in front of CoM will behave like this. Engine thrust was tweaked down to make it weak enough not to send plane into complete loop. We simple get used to insanely powerful jet engines in KSP.

This is url to spaceport page where you can download .craft file: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/totaly-passive-plane/ Flight distance is very strong function of starting engine thrust. I've just achived 88,094 m ground distance covered (no video for this flight but full set of screenshots):

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Seems that the flight distance is direct function of initial engine thrust: my record flight was made on 22.5 kN of thrust.

Edited by 1greywind
small corrections
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Kasuha

Kasuha

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I've just achived 88,094 m ground distance covered (no video for this flight but full set of screenshots)

Good job. I also like how it almost lands. If it ended above land and had a bit wider gear, it might have survived. Maybe I'll increase the bonus for landing to be more attractive ;)

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whistlehead

whistlehead

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Not an entry.

I actually did this accidentally in 0.21 (while building for the Albatross BSC) - the cockpit blew off before I launched - and she flew for more than an hour and a half before she finally ran out of fuel.

One and a half million metres.

Landed nearly flawlessly, too!

screenshot93.png

(Note: Reaction wheels are off. I was building a plane which would take off on its own anyway).

I might dig her out and see if I can make her go in 0.23.

EDIT: For illustrative purposes, here's an earlier version (bad fuel lines, balance is off) with cockpit still attached (after a slightly shorter trip):

screenshot88.png

FUTHER EDIT: Just read the rules fully (d'oh). One toroidal tank? That's a little harsh. I'll leave this here anyway.

Edited by whistlehead
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