totm june 2018 Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread

[Korsakovski]

On 8/8/2018 at 6:04 AM, Thor Wotansen said:

 I just have to figure out how to get it to orbit without the wings overheating.  The radiators don't seem to be doing the trick.

The FAT-455 wings have pretty worthless temperature resistance of 1200K, which is half of what most of the other stuff has. (2400K). Nice design though

[klond]

On 8/25/2018 at 4:13 AM, EvenFlow said:

EDIT: Here's the WIP Schnee Tomcat ready to shoot down some mercenary dogs.

[prgmTrouble]

I'm building a new car. Currently experimenting with Type D wings.

EDIT: Progress update!

 

 

 

Edit: Done!

Check the final product here!

Edited September 1, 2018 by prgmTrouble

[Mignear]

2 aircraft built around the limitation of only using Juno jet engines. The main issue here is their tiny thrust that makes them slow. Turning only makes them slower and risk stalling. The twin engine seem to fair pretty well, though still pretty horrible.

[prgmTrouble]

11 hours ago, Mignear said:

The main issue here is their tiny thrust that makes them slow. Turning only makes them slower and risk stalling. The twin engine seem to fair pretty well, though still pretty horrible.

I'd try to make the craft fuselage mainly out of wing parts. This would greatly decrease the thrust requirement for flight.

[Mignear]

Slight rework on the tail. Better performance at 8 tons instead of the previous 10 tons.

[Columbia]

For the past few weeks, I've been working on a bit of an experimental project on widebody airliners in KSP; Namely, a Boeing B777-300ER that's accurate to the size of the real thing.

Being of this size, the aircraft flies relatively well but the entire thing blows up when someone breathes on it.. Landing it is an exercise in concentration and rage. 

It's a 514 part behemoth powered by around 30 or so Wheesleys within the fairings of the pseudo-GE-90s. The fuselage and its stuctural nature make for a very much flyable but fragile aircraft.

This was more of a proof-of-concept to see how large I could push the boundaries with Mk3 fuselages to get it close to the real thing, but safe to say I wouldn't want to try it again. Total pain in the behind to stop the fuselage from blowing up!

 

[Servo]

6 hours ago, Columbia said:

For the past few weeks, I've been working on a bit of an experimental project on widebody airliners in KSP; Namely, a Boeing B777-300ER that's accurate to the size of the real thing.

Being of this size, the aircraft flies relatively well but the entire thing blows up when someone breathes on it.. Landing it is an exercise in concentration and rage. 

It's a 514 part behemoth powered by around 30 or so Wheesleys within the fairings of the pseudo-GE-90s. The fuselage and its stuctural nature make for a very much flyable but fragile aircraft.

This was more of a proof-of-concept to see how large I could push the boundaries with Mk3 fuselages to get it close to the real thing, but safe to say I wouldn't want to try it again. Total pain in the behind to stop the fuselage from blowing up!

 

 

That's one heck of a proof of concept! Looks really good - could use some cleaning in some places (the vertical stabilizer particularly), but it's amazing otherwise.

 

While we're on the topic of 1:1 airliners, I've had this CRJ-200 in the SPH for a while now and I'm finally done with version 1.

I had to completely redesign the engines, which was a shame. I was really happy with how they looked in the first versions, but it was basically impossible to get enough intake air to them. 

Remaking them from structural fuselages instead of fairings helped solve that issue, so now it flies just fine off six wheesleys.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

On 9/1/2018 at 3:57 AM, Mignear said:

2 aircraft built around the limitation of only using Juno jet engines. The main issue here is their tiny thrust that makes them slow. Turning only makes them slower and risk stalling. The twin engine seem to fair pretty well, though still pretty horrible.

<snip>

Having made Juno powered aircraft before, I can say that the lower the drag of your air-frame, the better the performance you can get out of your small engines. Similar with mass. Having lots of fuel of fuel may seem like it would give you more range, but there comes a point at which it lowers the performance so much that it isn't worth it. Having wide, double 1.25m intakes may look cool, but the Juno (or Junos on the latter) only use a fraction of that intake area, and the rest is adding drag.

I wish I could find a better picture, but the top front plane in this screenshot is a roughly 3.25 ton jet powered by a single Juno. Being lightweight and aerodynamically clean (probably the only parts I could remove without making it un-flyable are the inner wing elevons), it is able to reach just under the speed of sound in level flight. Also, while not exactly comparable to a modern fighter jet, the low mass allows decent acceleration for the size of the engine. Range isn't half bad either, in spite of having less than 2 full nosecone tanks worth of fuel.

 

Related to the topic of reducing drag, while useful on builds of all sizes, it becomes especially desirable in low-power aircraft to minimize the control surface deflection required to produce a given turn rate. Every degree a surface has to deflect causes a little more drag, and in the case of elevators, is a little less net lift on the aircraft. To minimize the required deflection of the control surfaces, one wants to put the center of lift as close behind the center of mass as possible without having stability problems. On this particular aircraft, I have the COL so close behind the COM that the reaction wheels of the cockpit and 2% authority on the v-tail is enough to produce reasonable turn rates, and at high speeds I can even turn the reaction wheels off.

Another way to reduce drag on any aircraft is to add a small, positive angle of incidence to the wings, eg: tilt them slightly leading-edge up relative to the fuselage. That way they can produce enough lift for the aircraft to fly while the nose is pointed directly prograde (or horizontal in level flight), minimizing profile drag from the fuselage. Getting the angle right might take some testing however, and it will only work perfectly at certain speed/altitude combinations, so you have to pick a throttle setting and altitude to optimize it for. Overall though, having an angle of incidence on the wings improves speed, and by the same token, range. Don't give them too much angle though, or the aircraft nose will have to point below the direction of travel, which is just as bad as having it above.

Anyways, that's enough of my babbling.

Those jets do look cool. It's a shame we don't have engines in-between 0.625m and 1.25m so they could get good performance while still having the same form. Though I guess if you're not against clipping...  

Edited September 4, 2018 by EpicSpaceTroll139
OCD

[Mignear]

12 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Having made Juno powered aircraft before, I can say that the lower the drag of your air-frame, the better the performance you can get out of your small engines. Similar with mass. Having lots of fuel of fuel may seem like it would give you more range, but there comes a point at which it lowers the performance so much that it isn't worth it. Having wide, double 1.25m intakes may look cool, but the Juno (or Junos on the latter) only use a fraction of that intake area, and the rest is adding drag.

I wish I could find a better picture, but the top front plane in this screenshot is a roughly 3.25 ton jet powered by a single Juno. Being lightweight and aerodynamically clean (probably the only parts I could remove without making it un-flyable are the inner wing elevons), it is able to reach just under the speed of sound in level flight. Also, while not exactly comparable to a modern fighter jet, the low mass allows decent acceleration for the size of the engine. Range isn't half bad either, in spite of having less than 2 full nosecone tanks worth of fuel.

Related to the topic of reducing drag, while useful on builds of all sizes, it becomes especially desirable in low-power aircraft to minimize the control surface deflection required to produce a given turn rate. Every degree a surface as to deflect causes a little more drag, and in the case of elevators, is a little less net lift on the aircraft. To minimize the required deflection of the control surfaces, one wants to put the center of lift as close behind the center of mass as possible without having stability problems. On this particular aircraft, I have the COL so close behind the COM that the reaction wheels of the cockpit and 2% authority on the v-tail is enough to produce reasonable turn rates, and at high speeds I can even turn the reaction wheels off.

Another way to reduce drag on any aircraft is to add a small, positive angle of incidence to the wings, eg: tilt them slightly leading-edge up relative to the fuselage. That way they can produce enough lift for the aircraft to fly while the nose is pointed directly prograde (or horizontal in level flight), minimizing profile drag from the fuselage. Getting the angle right might take some testing however, and it will only work perfectly at certain speed/altitude combinations, so you have to pick a throttle setting and altitude to optimize it for. Overall though, having an angle of incidence on the wings improves speed, and by the same token, range. Don't give them too much angle though, or the aircraft nose will have to point below the direction of travel, which is just as bad as having it above.

Anyways, that's enough of my babbling.

Those jets do look cool. It's a shame we don't have engines in-between 0.625m and 1.25m so they could get good performance while still having the same form. Though I guess if you're not against clipping...  

Thanks for the advice.

 

Personally I go for looks first and performance second. As long as the plane performs decently I'm fine with it.

[Jon144]

Working on a new stock shuttle. Has to be my best looking and most functional version of all time. More to come in a full release. 

Edit: Yes, i'm actually alive?

Edited September 7, 2018 by Jon144

[Mignear]

Cut its weight to 7.4 tons. Gotta have to experiment with adjusting the angle of the wing.

[KerbalsAreKute]

cool shuttle, jon. hope you upload it soon.

 

[klond]

 Hey, welcome to the forums @KerbalsAreKute !

[Castille7]

Working on the Speed, right now it's only getting about 20 m/s because of weight. I might include a small Bridge.

[prgmTrouble]

On 9/9/2018 at 7:10 AM, Castille7 said:

Working on the Speed, right now it's only getting about 20 m/s because of weight. I might include a small Bridge.

I think I know what the problem is.

It needs MOAR BOOSTERS!

 

Seriously though, it looks great so far!

[Castille7]

53 minutes ago, prgmTrouble said:

I think I know what the problem is.

It needs MOAR BOOSTERS!

 

Seriously though, it looks great so far!

Haha! Thank you!

[KerbalsAreKute]

On 9/8/2018 at 9:03 PM, klond said:

 Hey, welcome to the forums @KerbalsAreKute !

Thanks! cooool R/C car castille!

[Castille7]

2 hours ago, KerbalsAreKute said:

Thanks! cooool R/C car castille!

Thanks man!

Edited September 11, 2018 by Castille7

[Triop]

On 9/9/2018 at 4:10 PM, Castille7 said:

Working on the Speed, right now it's only getting about 20 m/s because of weight. I might include a small Bridge.

I'm out of likes, I love the included batteries.

[Servo]

Snuck a couple hours of KSP in this afternoon. I decided to revisit the very first replica plane I posted on KerbalX and see what I could do after 21 months of improvement.

Also, I remember the old one being an absolute bear to fly, while this one handles great. Part count is just a little bit higher, though.

[HB Stratos]

Well done @Servo,

you are once again pushing the limits of what is possible in KSP!

[panzer1b]

Well ive been making some progress in KSP despite my almost non-existent amount of free time these days (i love my job but the hours i end up working sucks bigtime).

Pretty close to finishing the internals of my newest shipyard, i think i struck the perfect balance between part count and aesthetics.  Not too crazy detailed or anything, but it gets the look right and it doesnt make my machine lag like crazy.

Along those lines ive also finished my newest interior for my smaller vessels.  Rather low on parts but it has everything you really need on a warship's bridge, command overlooking the crew, pilot up front, and a few stations to control weapons, communications, and any other aux systems that the commander and pilot cant really focus on.  Now i just need to implement this thing on a few more vessels as its currently only on my nebula class corvette.

My 1st dropship attempt in like a year or so.  Its still super early and im having trouble making it both function AND look halfway decent, but at least ive managed to make a SSTO that can accomodate a extra wide load (2 sideways MK3 bays).  More or less abusing clipping as there IS a nosecone on each cargo bay clipped so that its behind the cargo bay and doesnt block tanks that drive into this thing while still allowing me to shut the cargo bays to disable drag on said tank when flying in atmo, but given that its the ONLY way to make a 100% stock SSTO dropship that doesnt weight 500t and can carry something in a double cargo bay im pretty happy with how the concept turned out.

And my final craft ive been working on recently, a stealth starfighter that uses ion engines (its literally been 2 years since i used those for anything larger then a ultra long range probe), and i think it turned out good looking and functional.  Armed it with 4 light SRMs completely inside the hull (nothing sticks out, and they are reloadable in orbit which is a 1st for the whole internally mounted weaposn concept), as i cant call it a stealth with weapons strapped all over the sides and it also looks amazing this way.

Anyone know what this thing is based on (it should be obvious if you watch any sci-fi), not a 100% replica, but i got all the details as close as i could with what i had to work with.

[Triop]

[prgmTrouble]

@Triop Kerbal Kosmonauts en route to ocean. T+ 0y, 0d, 00:00:07; colorized.