Katheed SR-71 Blackbird SSTO

[katateochi]

Katheed SR-71 Blackbird

A 100% stock build of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (SSTO capable)

Optional Mod

If you see a white plane and you want to paint it black, then just install the KerbPaint mod and presto, a Black Blackbird;

All you need to do is install the KerbPaint mod and this craft file will take on its black and red colours.

It has 8 Jet engines (with 1 intake per engine) and 2 LV-30s. The LV-30's are set in between the jet engines so it looks like the craft has afterburners.

(see notes about engines later)

Download Craft from Dropbox

Flight and action groups

General Flight

Action group 1 toggles the jet engines and action group 2 toggles the LV-30's.

It will take off before reaching the end of the runway, wait till you get up to 110ms before trying to pull up or it doesn't work.

You can use the after burners to take of quicker but then you might not have enough fuel to SSTO.

Climbing at a steady rate of 100ms you should be able to reach 1500ms at around 30km and then switch to the rocket engines to continue to orbit. You should have around 500l of oxidizer and over 1000l of liquid fuel once you've reached orbit. Plenty of rocket fuel to deorbit and then fly to the runway.

It also has a braking parachute to aid landing. Action group 3 to deploy and group 4 to cut it if need be.

Its not essential to use it but the real SR-71 has one so why not. It does help if you come in very fast, but unfortunately it cuts as soon as the wheels touch the ground.

Action group 5 will extend the antenna on the nose cone if you want.

Eject system

The SR-71's two-seater cockpit can be ejected with the abort key (backspace). The wings and panels around the cockpit are decoupled and blasted off with septrons and the cockpit is blasted upwards.

If the afterburners are on then abort will shut them down before ejecting otherwise things go a bit wrong!

Once the cockpit is clear of the craft hit the 0 action group to deploy parachutes;

If things work as planned the main craft should look like it's had a hole punched out of it;

The nose section is not actually attached after abort, it stays together because some wings panels are wedged together so sometimes it does come apart too.

Very occasionally abort will result in complete self destruct;

If you want to self destruct on demand then deploy the parachutes (action group 0) during low alt flight.

About the engines

The engines are a bit odd and you need to be careful when modifying them as there is a strange symmetry issue. They are made of 4 sets of tanks attached to a central girder, but each tank is rotated 180 degrees along its central axis so they overlap into each other as do the 4 jets and intakes.

An LV-30 is connected to the central girder so it sits between the 4 jets and it mostly hidden from view.

Inside the engine is a load of fuel lines to ensure the fuel is used evenly.

The engine was built as a single engine using symmetry and then the engine was placed on the plane using symmetry and this is what causes the strange symmetry glitch. If you attach anything to the tanks on the engines using symmetry it will be placed twice on the other engine and you'll see the mirrored part shimmer as two instances of the same part try to occupy the same space. Basically don't attach anything to the engines using symmetry.

The engines should be cleaned and inspected for tribbles before each launch.

[1greywind]

Beatiful looking design But amount of parts clipping is terrific.

[Eldar158]

Very nice craft, locking great and SSTO are sometimes very hard together and yours do both

About that thing that if you abort and don't shut down the rocket engines I have a solution for you,

go to action groups and add on the abort action group the "shut down" command of the jets and the rockets.

eldar158

[Woopert]

Yeah, awesome design here! Great replica!

[katateochi]

Beatiful looking design But amount of parts clipping is terrific.

Thanks. re the part clipping, it was done without turning part clipping on in the editor. I don't have a problem with clipping parts if the editor allows it and it allows for more interesting designs and aesthetics.

Very nice craft, locking great and SSTO are sometimes very hard together and yours do both

About that thing that if you abort and don't shut down the rocket engines I have a solution for you,

go to action groups and add on the abort action group the "shut down" command of the jets and the rockets.

eldar158

Cheers. Yeah that's what happens, abort shuts down the rocket engines automatically. Leaving the jets on full doesn't prevent the eject from working and I like to keep the jets running cos sometimes when you eject the plane carries on, does a complete loop and comes back down in a blaze of exploding parts behind you.

[Mareczex333]

Good job! ;d