Totally passive airplane

[dinosaurJR]

My entry, if I may?

The Infinifleiger XIX (yes, the 19th version...)

109,970m ground distance, completely stock (no FAR)

Here is the craft file, too;

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50677547/Infinifleiger%20XIX.craft

This was fun!

01 - Initial Position (note the probe core perched on top of the radial decoupler and the prerequisite toroidal fuel tank stuffed between the nacelle and structural fuselage)

02 - Ejecting the probe core (I hope this is an acceptable method of "leaving the probe core behind"? It didn't survive the drop back to the runway, however... Note that the Infinifleiger is still in it's initial position. Also note Jeb standing by his fetching sports car.)

03 - We are airborne

04 - Half full or half empty? (Just dipping below bingo fuel)

05 - 88,708m with fuel to spare

06 - Flameout

07 - Splashdown

08 - The Final Score (109,170m - Not bad...)

09 - How she looks in the SPH

I really enjoy building aeroplanes in KSP; not what it was made for, I know, but for me all the fun happens within the confines of Kerbin's atmosphere... I hope my entry is accepted? Please let me know if I have made any mistakes or errors in my interperatation of the rules?

Edited January 3, 2014 by dinosaurJR
Cant upload Photobucket Slideshows... Also I double posted an image... Silly me!

[Wallace]

If you install the nagging nadia mod, you can have a passive aggressive aeroplane.

[Kasuha]

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

Initially I planned to do the challenge with one liquid fuel tank, but when I realized the plane is already flying for 5 minutes and there's no visible dent on the fuel I decided to put a more strict limit on that. Your flight took almost two hours, too. I think it wouldn't be much fun to watch the plane fly without control for two hours just for some challenge.

Here is my entry!

I'm sorry but your entry does not qualify.

- you used more than allowed amount of fuel. I understand you only took off with 10 units but those Jumbos on the ground count, too.

- you did not provide screenshot with flight stats to see the ground distance traveled

- your screenshots are downscaled and resource information is unreadable

[Kasuha]

I really enjoy building aeroplanes in KSP; not what it was made for, I know, but for me all the fun happens within the confines of Kerbin's atmosphere... I hope my entry is accepted? Please let me know if I have made any mistakes or errors in my interperatation of the rules?

Very nice, wow! You're the new leader

[dinosaurJR]

Then today has not been wasted

It really was a joy to try this challenge - thanks for thinking it up. It took me a while to come up with the optimal (so far, anyway) wing setup. After I got the wing AOA and COM sorted all I had to do was to test, and then move the wings forward or back according to whether she hopped along the runway (COL too far back) or did a great big back flip (COL too far forward). She hops and skips down the runway a little then settles into an approximately 1 - 2 degree positive pitch after a bit and then just climbs and accelerates from there. Watching her go was... mesmirising...

I think if I turned on infinite fuel she would quite happily carry out infinite circumnavigation of Kerbin. There was a fair bit of rapid key bashing at the start, though, to get the ejected probe core and the Infinifleiger in shot together - the radial decoupler really decouples with a vengence.

[Mic_n]

yeah, I got this. Uploading files now

[Mic_n]

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Hope the imgur album works... anyhoo, the important bit:

324,728m

(no FAR)

Going on the basis that you have a limited amount of fuel, making the most of it means using it sparingly. That means low thrust. That in turn means low weight. I started with something similar to the proof of concept, but threw that one out pretty quickly.

The idea was.. well, it needs to be light. Very light. Ultralight. *ding*. Ultralights don't have any control surfaces, anyway.. it's just a matter of weight shift. So yeah, CG is kept underneath the CL in order for it to work like a powered hang glider, which is effectively what it is. It has enough thrust to keep its nose up in a stall climb, but not enough to tip it over.. As it climbs, the air thins out and the drag on the wing gets less, meaning the nose doesn't get pulled up so much, and it eventually evens out at an altitude basically determined by your thrust. This one developed some decidedly disturbing dutch roll.. maybe a little dihedral might help that out.. though maybe running it at 4x for most of the flight didn't help that much, either.

So yeah, I think I can do better there.. might even be able to make landfall..

PS yes, there is 'intakeatm' there in the resource meter due to my having interstellar installed. Shouldn't impact the flight dynamics in any way whatsoever, though.

PPS yes, the plane is not in the same location after the OCTO2 is detached. I don't think it's actually possible any other way. The fact that the brakes are off and it has thrust (plus the decoupler force) means that it goes as soon as those brakes drop. You'll note that the pod has dropped right where it started.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Mic_n

[Mic_n]

current one I've got here I'm extrapolating out.. I think it'll clear 500km.. problem is it'll likely take something like 15 hours to do it. Fortunately it's fine with the 4x physics warp, but I'm still thinking I'm not sitting here with it for that long...

at 0.5 fuel used right now.. 47 min 31 seconds flight time, it's travelled 24.6km

I'm pretty sure it could go further, too.. just.. yeah, it'd take even longer.

[Kasuha]

http://imgur.com/a/EmCRg

Hope the imgur album works... anyhoo, the important bit:

324,728m

(no FAR)

You guys continue to amaze me.

The location of the plane after probe detach is acceptable, it's not anywhere far in the runway and the probe is pretty much where it should be so you were not driving the plane around.

I see 324,748 in the log, actually. Either way, it's a new first place.

[Kasuha]

at 0.5 fuel used right now.. 47 min 31 seconds flight time, it's travelled 24.6km

I'm pretty sure it could go further, too.. just.. yeah, it'd take even longer.

And here I thought 10 fuel units was low enough amount to prevent hour long flights...

[Mic_n]

2hours (+46 seconds) flight time.. covered 63.779km using 1.26 units.

And come to think of it.. it'll have travelled 500km when it runs out of fuel, and this thing glides like a mofo.

Maybe I'll use this flight profile again another time (or an even more insane one).. but for now, I'm gonna try a different one.

Though for academic interest.. I've just cut my fuel supply, let's see how much further I'll get at a glide (with extra fuel weight)...

Ya know what?? to hell with that, It's looking like it's gonna take just as long.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Mic_n

[1greywind]

Wow. I'm also playing with ultra-light design, but don't think it can beat 500+ km record.

[Mic_n]

**not an official attempt**

New spin on it, I've dropped my fuel load to 1 unit (as low as you can get with the toroidal tank).

It's just run out of fuel at 3:30:31 MET, with 92,403 ground distance covered, at a top peed of 8m/s and max height of 314m.

Now for the glide back down...

[Mic_n]

missed the actual landing (it comes down in water without a problem, really.. moves both forward and downward so slow I'm sure it'd come down even on land and without the gear without any real dramas)..

but when I came back to it, it was splashed down with 6+hrs total time (dunno how long in the water) and a total distance of 157,255m

that's with 1/10th the standard fuel weight

I'm curious whether higher thrust (which gives more lift) and therefore a higher altitude to work in and glide down from will be worth the faster fuel burn.... experiment #2 required

[Mic_n]

more thrust, ran out of fuel at 0:32:15, having gone 14,280m and reached 694m.. going off past results that'll give me ~140km of gliding back down and I ought to wind up at a pretty similar distance to the original..

Edit: 152,478 in total, so.. not quite as good. Prob with a full tank and the ability to get high, it might make a difference.. but the engine also gets less efficient up there as well. Interesting one.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Mic_n

[JiWint]

http://imgur.com/a/EmCRg

Hope the imgur album works... anyhoo, the important bit:

324,728m

(no FAR)

Going on the basis that you have a limited amount of fuel, making the most of it means using it sparingly. That means low thrust. That in turn means low weight. I started with something similar to the proof of concept, but threw that one out pretty quickly.

The idea was.. well, it needs to be light. Very light. Ultralight. *ding*. Ultralights don't have any control surfaces, anyway.. it's just a matter of weight shift. So yeah, CG is kept underneath the CL in order for it to work like a powered hang glider, which is effectively what it is. It has enough thrust to keep its nose up in a stall climb, but not enough to tip it over.. As it climbs, the air thins out and the drag on the wing gets less, meaning the nose doesn't get pulled up so much, and it eventually evens out at an altitude basically determined by your thrust. This one developed some decidedly disturbing dutch roll.. maybe a little dihedral might help that out.. though maybe running it at 4x for most of the flight didn't help that much, either.

So yeah, I think I can do better there.. might even be able to make landfall..

PS yes, there is 'intakeatm' there in the resource meter due to my having interstellar installed. Shouldn't impact the flight dynamics in any way whatsoever, though.

PPS yes, the plane is not in the same location after the OCTO2 is detached. I don't think it's actually possible any other way. The fact that the brakes are off and it has thrust (plus the decoupler force) means that it goes as soon as those brakes drop. You'll note that the pod has dropped right where it started.

that design..is AMAZING! You just gave me a lot ideas for ultra light trike

[Mic_n]

well..

Craft file:

https://mega.co.nz/#!8gtCnYLT!ZNil6i6oO0mIO7T9ePmOBVIwvI1_XJK8j0s0ZQxO2Ho

biplane 'flying wing'... this one's still in the process of gliding down from ~5.6km up. it's at 3364m at the moment, 3:15:21 into the flight, having covered 216,929m ground, 236,595m total. I think it could probably use a bit of a tailfin on it, it doesn't really hold a heading too well and has kinda been doing enormous circles around the ocean.

Remarkably stable, though. I'm thinking the knack is to have your CG underneath and just slightly behind your CL, so it 'sits' tilting slightly up. Centre of thrust wants to be between the two so it's pushing the CG forward and tilting up towards a bit of a stall - it'll pretty much find its own balance point from that. Thrust then mostly controls your rate of ascent, with that balancing nature essentially controlling your speed.

Edit: down to 3163m now, 04:02 in... covered just under 250km. Think it might slow down a bit as it gets lower, but I'd say it still has at least another 600km and probably 13 odd hours worth of glide in it.

Oooh, I have a sneaky idea. spin the whole thing 180 degrees before launch, take off west and use Kerbin's rotation to get some extra distance. Of course, it's got next to no runway and the highlands to get over, but I think it'd make it OK with a good bit of throttle..

Edited January 4, 2014 by Mic_n

[DocSnuggles]

The Challenge provides way too much fuel. Reducing the thrust to the absolut minimum results in more than 52 hours of flight time. In addition you have another long descent time.

So... i present the most boring vid in kerbal history... i´m joking... i stopped the capture at 1h20m because i can´t wait 2 and a half day to finish the recording without being able to use my pc.

At the end of the vid you see some data.

The approximatly flight data would be: (if my math is right)

-Flight time: 52 hours + x

-Distance: 1300000 + x

-max altitude: 350m + x

As you see in the vid. the crappy design tends to not fly straight and ends up with an circle at the ksc ( i had some other tries with an nice circle around the ksc in close distance). The good thing is that it would probably land save.

I will not finish the challenge and try to get an entry at the ladderboard but i am amazed to see where this challenge will go to.

The secret will be to create a plane that can lift off with the minimum thrust the engine can be adjusted. The plane has also to climb up permanently in order to get more altitude and speed (i´m lagging at that point). The normal landing gears are extremly heavy but when i tried to remove them with lighter rover wheels these rover wheels seem to work a bit like an aero brake (but i can be wrong).

I oracle that someone here will build a plane that can fly around kerbal

Just my 2 cents

Edited January 4, 2014 by DocSnuggles

[Mic_n]

well.. it's cleared 700km now.. still 1343m up. 17h43m MET I think the biggest hurdle to that circumnavigation challenge is keeping it pointed in a straight line.. even the tiniest bit of drift one way or the other and you're doing circles. Granted, this thing is doing very large circles right around the ocean, but still circles nonetheless.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Mic_n

[Mic_n]

"To Be Continued..."

19 hours MET and I'm gonna have to pause the laptop here and get some sleep

At this point it's still at 1213M up, and has covered a total ground distance of 738,615M. It is slowing down in the thicker atmosphere, but I think it's also dropping at a slower rate, dunno.

At any rate, it's a really long one. Mucking about with it though has given me a thought for another one.. the "paper plane" challenge.. no engine allowed, no control components.. Just use docking clamps or some sort of constructed tower to start at a given height above the runway (eg 100M readout on the altimiter at launch). No 'push' from decouplers allowed.. it's either the clamps or a docking port releasing...

ie: "how far can you glide"?

[Kasuha]

I think this challenge lost its purpose, even non-control flying surfaces are clearly too unrealistic when used in sufficient concentration.

Mic_n's flight in progress is the last entry that I am willing to add to the leaderboard, otherwise please consider the challenge closed.

[Mic_n]

Don't worry about adding it, I don't think I could be bothered with all the screenies and whatnot anyway. I'm just doing this bit out of curiosity, really.

[Mic_n]

cleared the 1000km mark and still 200m of glide to go.

[Mic_n]

and there we go, splashdown after 1 day, 9 hours 30 minutes and 43 seconds. Highest altitude of 5,638m, ground distance covered 1,088,533m - total of 1,108,219m

[obi_juan]

and there we go, splashdown after 1 day, 9 hours 30 minutes and 43 seconds. Highest altitude of 5,638m, ground distance covered 1,088,533m - total of 1,108,219m

Exceptional work, and I have the same ideas than Kasuha, in the actual version the un realistic behavior of the wings and planes have lost the meaning of this challenge. I think that we will can take another time when Squad improve the physic behavior of the object in an atmosphere.

Somebody tried this challenge with FAR?

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ferram-aerospace-research/

I was thinking in make an isolate installation of that mod to see if is more realistic.