Kerbal-Powered Aircraft Challenge:

[Pds314]

Kerbal-Powered Aircraft Challenge:

Welcome to the Kerbal-Powered Aircraft Challenge.

The Kerbal Space Agency has recently looked into Kerbanaut fitness decline on other worlds and the astonishingly high cost of driving rocket-powered hover tanks to and from work and has accordingly tasked you with building a plane powered completely by the pilot. This solves both the problems of Kerbals not getting enough exercise and of them having a fuel-efficient, safe, and hopefully cheap means of transportation.

How to make it go: walk up a ladder that is blocked at the top, the craft will move.

Rules:

Your aircraft MUST be powered by a Kerbal on a ladder.

You must be able to control the aircraft by switching to it.

You must be able to take off and land without damage from/on any relatively flat terrain on Kerbin, not just the runways.

You MAY NOT have ANY alternative propulsion sources. No jets, rockets, ion engines, RCS thrusters, modded-in types of engines, solid-boosters, separatrons, excessive control surfaces (as deemed by me) on a stock plane or any other means of propulsion besides a Kerbal.

SAS is allowed, but if your plane can take off or fly until it runs out of power while unmanned, it is cheating. E.G. Using SAS to swim through the air or make a helicopter is cheating (and not very effective).

You should not use any EVA fuel. and should stay on-board while powering the craft.

No debug cheat except for part clipping.

Fair mods are allowed. E.G. Ferram Aerospace Research, MechJeb, kOS, B9 Aerospace, P-wings, Firespitter, KW-rocketry, kethane pack, etc are allowed. Example123's drag-less mass-less indestructible wings and infinitely efficient SAS is not.

Please state modded or stock, and in particular F.A.R. or not F.A.R.

You may post as many entries as you want of any type.

Challenge Goals:

You needn't enter all of these, only post pictures of your craft taking off, landing, and in flight under Kerbal power to qualify for completion. Post photos of any important events on any other ones.

Completion Award: Complete the challenge by taking off and landing in a Kerbal-Powered Aircraft without damage.

Stability Award: Fly to the Island runway and land there. Leaderboard by time of flight upon stopping.

Agility Award: Land and stop on the Helipad on top of the VAB without damage and take-off again. This will require excellent teamwork between Kerbal and aircraft.

Featherweight Award: Complete the challenge with the lightest craft. Leaderboard will be by take-off weight sans Kerbal.

Swift Award: Go as fast as possible in your aircraft during level flight under 1 km to get on the Leaderboard.

NSTO Award: Reach a stable orbit around Kerbin or Kerbol (the sun) under Kerbal power. Do so as fast as possible to reach the leaderboard and land afterwards.

Dragon Award: Get the most massive Kerbal-powered-aircraft to exceed an altitude of 2 km and hold it there. Leaderboard will be by take-off weight sans Kerbal.

Payload Award: Take a detachable payload with you that weighs as much as possible and deliver it to the Island with the runway. Alternatively, put it in a stable orbit. Payload should not have any wings, engines/RCS, control surfaces or SAS.

Duckling Award: Land and take-off on water.

Look Mom! Award: Go under the bridge or through the tunnel without touching the ground.

Leaderboards:

Completed the challenge:

Pds3.14 in the Applied Phlogistics KPAC-1 [sTOCK+FAR]

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Stability:

1. ---

Agility:

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Featherweight:

1. Pds3.14 in the Applied Phlogistics KPAC-1 [sTOCK+FAR]: 0.6 tonnes.

2. ---

Swift:

1. Pds3.14 in the Applied Phlogistics KPAC-1 [sTOCK+FAR]: 48.4 m/s.

2. ---

NSTO:

1. ---

Dragon:

1. Pds3.14 in the Applied Phlogistics KPAC-1 [sTOCK+FAR]: 0.6 tonnes.

2. ---

Payload:

1. ---

My Entry!:

At Applied Phlogistics, we strive to make your lives better through questionable principles of physics. We are quite pleased to demonstrate our prototype Kerbal-Powered-AirCraft (KPAC) 1 powered completely by YOUR climbing skills.

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It weighs just 0.6 tonnes and has a FAR top level speed of 48.4 m/s below 1 km. It is not the most aerodynamic thing in the world, but it looks gorgeous.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Pds314

[jacobgong]

You mind at least telling us how this works?

[Pds314]

You mind at least telling us how this works?

Kerbals on ladders can push the thing they are holding onto, needless to say, this is nothing like how real human-powered aircraft work. In fact, it even works in a vacuum if you have the TWR to escape the ground.

[Ryu Gemini]

It is worth noting that the Kethane pack includes a part that can convert an exterior kerbal into a packet of kethane fuel.

Which is a somewhat grimmer way of interpretting this challenge. Hey, technically, if the ladder was right next to the waitnonostop converter part, the craft would become powered (that is, fueled) by kerbals on a ladder.

In fact, that could be an interesting challenge. What can you accomplish with a plane using one kerbal's worth of kethane?

.

[Pds314]

It is worth noting that the Kethane pack includes a part that can convert an exterior kerbal into a packet of kethane fuel.

Which is a somewhat grimmer way of interpretting this challenge. Hey, technically, if the ladder was right next to the waitnonostop converter part, the craft would become powered (that is, fueled) by kerbals on a ladder.

In fact, that could be an interesting challenge. What can you accomplish with a plane using one kerbal's worth of kethane?

.

That is allowed. Of course engines aren't, so it does you virtually no good, but you can do it if you want to.

[jacobgong]

Kerbals on ladders can push the thing they are holding onto, needless to say, this is nothing like how real human-powered aircraft work. In fact, it even works in a vacuum if you have the TWR to escape the ground.

ok how do you push?

[Pds314]

ok how do you push?

Walk the Kerbal up the ladder continuously into something that the ladder is directly or indirectly connect to.

[Pds314]

Added a line at the top explaining how the physics works.

[Pds314]

Hmm... doesn't seem like this thread is going anywhere... Shame, I was wanting a no-stage-to-orbit bicycle plane.

Well, at least in the mean time, we have the Kraken to do this for us.

[Tw1]

This is intriguing. Will have to try this eventually.

[bs1110101]

I've done it with FAR, RSS, TV Aerospace, and so many other things.

Will edit it more pics once the other bits are done.

This is all i can do, mostly because of how buggy this is, i think the aerodynamics of non controlled items and controlled ones might not be quite the same....

Edited February 8, 2014 by bs1110101

[SirJoab]

Success!

Name: Backscratcher

Manufacturer: JAT Research Labs and Toilet Paper Co.

Flying Weight: 0.9t

Cruise Speed: 36m/s

Mods used: FAR, B9 Aerospace, NovaPunch2. (The antenna on top is because of RemoteTech2)

Bob considered it 'undignified' to walk out to the runway to board this craft, so the engineers built a detachable cabin for him to ride in.

The cabin was then decoupled and takeoff run commenced.

At the proper speed (and after accidentally departing from the runway) the undercarriage was dropped and Bob was airborne! ...It was at this moment that Bob realized that landing was going to be uncomfortable...

And he enjoyed the flight.

Edited February 9, 2014 by SirJoab

[Tw1]

Here is my entry. It is stock parts, and stock aerodynamics, so there was some small infiniglide effect, however it was negligible compared to the kerbals' power.

I modified the craft throughout the challenge, adding a part here and there.

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Let's see: I got the completion award, stability, and agility.

The smallest version weighed 0.48t, I'm claiming 120m/s as top speed (remember this is stock), I got the duckling award, and the Look Mum! award.

They're pretty fit, my kerbalnauts.

Edited February 9, 2014 by Tw1

[SSSPutnik]

So we can't use the Waitnonostop Kethane generator? Awwww.

[Claw]

Holy wow. It took me a while to complete this.

Here is my entry, the Stingray. My goal was to complete as many of the challenges as possible with one glider, so it took me about five iterations to settle on this. I ended up getting rid of any aerodynamic control surfaces since I grew tired of dealing with infiniglide craziness. It is all stock parts and aero, except for using MechJeb to show stats (it was unused for navigation or flight).

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Completion Challenge: I hope I made it!

Stability Challenge: Completed trip to the island in 5:22. (Could probably go faster, but it took me long enough to make this thing as it was!)

Agility Challenge: About ripped my hair out trying to land on the helo pad as my first challenge to tackle.

Featherweight Challenge: Basic Weight - 0.225t

Swift Challenge: Max speed was 158m/s. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in a dive as I tried to stay between 900m and 1000m while doing the speed run.

Dragon Challenge: I managed to load it up and carry 1.455tons of craft above 2km. It still wanted to climb, so it could probably do better.

Payload Challenge: 1.855t max weight, 1.63t of cargo if you want to count the decouplers (1.58 if you don't). I think that was about the maximum weight I could carry. Any more and it would stall out. I think I lost count on the number of tries, and it took me about 20 minutes to get there.

Duckling Challenge: Crazy physics. That's all I can say.

Look Ma: That was harder than I expected. It doesn't turn very quickly...

I must say, I've done a few of these forum challenges but this is the first one I ever posted. I thought the idea was awesome. Thanks for the challenge!

Edited February 10, 2014 by Claw
Fixed Album