Lift Over Thrust (Best Glider Challenge)

[SoldierHair]

For this challenge you must build the plane with the lowest stall speed.As an example, the Polikarpov Po-2 had an average speed of 100 km/h (30-35m/s), way lower than most of the planes' stall speed of that era.

Rules:

This is a mod friendly challenge, personally i recommend Pwings for it.One exception: no Lazor lasers.

You must have your Alt+F12 panel open to prove that you are not using Hack Gravity.

You are free to use any type of propulsion you want.(Jet, Rocket, Propeller, Ion, etc.)

NO VTOL engines.

NO helicopter propellers.

NO going straight up.

You must specify if you have FAR or not.

Example:

Stalled a few seconds after that at 21m/s

Leaderboards:

FAR

Example: SoldierHair - 22.1m/s (79km/h)

1.dudester28 - 18.5m/s (66km/h)

2.fluffysnowcap - 31.5m/s

3.---------

Non FAR

1.Clockwork_werewolf 2.8m/s

2.Neotician - 3.4m/s (12,24 km/h)

3.Nero_Cor - 6.9m/s

Edited January 30, 2014 by SoldierHair

[panzerknoef]

Wait, how do i know i'm stalling without using FAR?

[zaky133]

Define stall. Is it when your prograde marker dips below the horizon line (0 degrees) on the nav-ball?

[SoldierHair]

As in you no longer have control over surfaces.You enter in a flat spin, you dive nose/tail first into the ground.The craft above enters in a flat spin at 20-21m/s.

[kola2DONO]

Stall - when your plane no longer gets enough lift to proceed flying forwards.

[Bean]

Couldn't one just pull up until 0m/s and call that their entry?

I think you should change it so you have to maintain the lowest speed possible, so in your case it would be 22.1m/s only if you could keep the plane flying (Prograde at or above horizon) for say, 10 seconds.

[SoldierHair]

Couldn't one just pull up until 0m/s and call that their entry?

I think you should change it so you have to maintain the lowest speed possible, so in your case it would be 22.1m/s only if you could keep the plane flying (Prograde at or above horizon) for say, 10 seconds.

You would stall long before you even get close to 0m/s.Going up is not smart, since you get way less lift and lose speed over surface way faster because of the gravity.Your stall speed would be even higher if you went straight up, as i said before, because you have less lift.

[Bean]

Here's my entry, the first two images are my "Spirit of the challenge" screenshots, with a 17.4m/s sustained flight.

The third is my "Abuse the wording in the first post" entry, with 1.4m/s recorded before stalling (The jet was off in this one too, so it's not abusing a VTOL style jet)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Aghanim]

I think it gets better with FAR installed, as it provide stall warning

[SoldierHair]

Alright, alright, i see the flaw now.New rule: no going straight up.

[fluffysnowcap]

now this looks like a good Challenge and never seen a Glider one before

[dudester28]

This is my entry.

Mods used: Ferram, B9, KW Rocketry (for the nose cone on the back)

This plane is powered by a single radially attached ant engine on the underside connected to a toroidal tank.

The slowest it managed to fly before stalling was 18.5 m/s.

The plane only has two landing gears to reduce weight. SAS keeps the plane balanced while on the ground.

[ihtoit]

my solar-ion plane would be a contender, though I've never tried stalling it. 30.5m/s minimum takeoff, 30.5m/s at ~10 degree AoA and no sign of stalling - in fact, it's still going up.

Entry for the No-FAR list.

Mods:

Firespitter

MechJeb

It'd be even lighter if I didn't have batteries on it, but that ruins the lift/CoM balance and the thing flips the second you turn the ions on...

[numerobis]

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I believe that makes 0.9 m/s: the second frame shows that I am not coming in at the top of a steep climb -- I'm still speeding up! But after that I lose thrust due to lack of solar panels. It's enough to stay at 70m, but not higher (maybe I should have added more panels).

Forgot to mention: this is all stock.

Edited January 27, 2014 by numerobis

[fluffysnowcap]

0.9M/s that is insane i dont think it is posabal to go slower alless you use holagen labs

Edited January 27, 2014 by fluffysnowcap

[Darth Lazarus]

~snip~

I believe that makes 0.9 m/s: the second frame shows that I am not coming in at the top of a steep climb -- I'm still speeding up! But after that I lose thrust due to lack of solar panels. It's enough to stay at 70m, but not higher (maybe I should have added more panels).

Forgot to mention: this is all stock.

that is not a plane, thats a glitch using vehicle

[Neotician]

3.4m/s (12,24 km/h)

Fully stock (so, no FAR)

[Nero_Cor]

6.9 m/s

only Stock Parts (no FAR)

[fluffysnowcap]

slowest stable speed of 48.8M/s so far i am unable to make a slower plain and veseel info window is open so you can see the stats it falls out of the air at about 40M/s

Tri Wing (48.8M/s)

H-1 ugly (40.0M/s)

H-2 ugly (31.5M/s)

MODS:

B9 and Far (v12.5.2)

MechJeb (just for info as it sucks in atmosphere)

Ferram Aerospace Research makes it very hard to go slow and stay airborn

time to go small

small works

Edited January 27, 2014 by fluffysnowcap
forgot,Updates

[DaveofDefeat]

Im guessing modding the cfg to give the delta wing 1000000000000 lift is against the spirit of the challenge?

[fluffysnowcap]

Im guessing modding the cfg to give the delta wing 1000000000000 lift is against the spirit of the challenge?

well DaveofDefeat wile being affective it is also so against the spirit of the challenge it will be disquieted and land you under observation on future posts on this challenge as you man mod .Cfg agane

[numerobis]

0.9M/s that is insane i dont think it is posabal to go slower alless you use holagen labs

With 7745 small control surfaces (rather than the mere 35 I have on there) you can get down to 0.2 m/s. That's getting very close to the best possible.

that is not a plane, thats a glitch using vehicle

I wouldn't say it's a glitch exactly: it's not violating conservation laws (unlike infiniglide). Control surfaces at 90 degrees look funny, so you might feel better with swept wings at 25.7 degrees. With enough of those you can get arbitrarily close to 1.39 m/s.

Using KSP-scripts:

from __future__ import division
import lift
import math

def number(surface, v = 1, payload = 1.5):
    angle = 90 if isinstance(surface, lift.controlSurface) else 25.7
    liftPer = surface.liftForce(angle, v)
    if liftPer < minSpeed(surface):
        return float("inf")
    n = 2
    nnew = 4
    while nnew != n:
        n = nnew
        mass = payload + n * surface.mass
        liftNeeded = mass * 9.81
        nnew = int(math.ceil(liftNeeded / liftPer))
    return n


def minSpeed(surface):
    angle = 90 if isinstance(surface, lift.controlSurface) else 25.7
    liftNeeded = surface.mass * 9.81
    return surface.speedForLift(angle, liftNeeded)

Then you can ask:

>>> minSpeed(lift.smallControlSurface)
0.1962
>>> number(lift.smallControlSurface, 0.2)
7745
>>> minSpeed(lift.sweptWing)
1.38525819208191
>>> number(lift.sweptWing, 1.5)
363

[Neotician]

Soo, is this dead? I see that the OP hasn't modified the leader board for days now.

[fluffysnowcap]

Soo, is this dead? I see that the OP hasn't modified the leader board for days now.

that woud apear to be the case and it is devolving in to toy plains and infinity gliders

[SoldierHair]

My internet was out because of the winter storms.Leaderboard updated, can't put numerobis in because he didn't show a picture of the cheat menu.