The Hopper training rig.

[sal_vager]

Kigwig was almost bouncing down the stairs to the factory floor, trying hard to suppress his excitement.

'Boy\'s, drop everything and come up to the office, there\'s something I want to show you!'

Kodger, eyebrow raised, set down his mug of tea and biscuit carefully, he was never one to rush. Kanley though, being young and keen, was already halfway up the stairs by now.

'Oh, oh is it a new pipe boss?'

'Even better Kanley, even better!'

'Two pipes?'

Even Kigwig didn\'t know what to say to that 'Just head up and wait for us oldies will you lad?'

Kigwig turned to Kodger as the young Kerbal disappeared into the office 'Young Kanley, he\'s alright is he? Gets out in the air enough if you know what I mean?'

'He\'s just excitable boss, his hearts in the right place, this place is like a home to him'

'Yeah, he\'s a good kid, anyway come on or Kanley will find my surprise!'

They found Kanley sitting on his hands and swinging his legs on one of the offices chairs, as Kodger took a seat Kigwig stood next to the flip chart normally used to display pipe designs, whatever Kigwig wanted to show them was hidden under an old sheet.

'Boy\'s, you have done me proud with the rockets you have made for Ker-Flow-Full sewerage and pipeworks, but I couldn\'t let you have all the fun, so I have been reading up on rocket design' said Kidwig, waving to a thick tome on his desk, Kodger and Kanley could make out the upside down title \'Rocket design for dummies\'

'Okay are you ready for this? Ta dah!, I call it, The Kolvo!'

Kanley started clapping the moment the sheet was pulled away, slowed, then just sat looking with his hands mid clap, Kodger raised his other eyebrow and peered over his half moons at the chart.

'It\'s a little heavy isn\'t it boss?'

'Well, a little, but it has to have all the mod cons, air conditioning, cup holders, sat nav, and look here, a wardrobe for your executive suit'

'Sorry to break it to you boss but it\'s too heavy to fly, all that stuff\'ll have to come off'

'It\'ll still be too heavy even after that guv, it\'ll still be too heavy boss, you\'d need to take the chutes off, an the RCS, an even that decoupler \'less you want to just sit on the pad for ages burnin fuel!'

'Kanleys right boss, if you cut all those bits out you might just lift off, an that\'d be with full power on that little engine you got on there'

Kigwig, crestfallen, sat heavily in his big chair 'So it\'s no good then? I worked really hard on it'

'Sorry boss'

Kanley, busily crossing things out and scrawling numbers on the chart, piped up 'Actually boss, you could have a lot of fun jus\' floating around, hovering even, you could sorta hop from place to place, you could call it the Hopper!'

'What good is that?'

'Kanleys right, that\'d make a really good ship for training I reckon, could be useful for anyone wantin to land on the Mun, they could get their hand in so to speak'

'It\'s not useless? we can sell it?'

Kodger smiled 'Yeah boss, it\'s a good\'un'

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Practice your throttle control and hovering skills before you reach the Mun. (Stock)

I built this because I wanted something like the flying bedstead, or like those vtol rocket powered craft they play with in the Mojave desert, it started out with add-on parts but a stock version is better as anyone can try it out.

It\'s deliberately heavy and underpowered, the idea is you\'d fly this with ASAS on, manage your thrust, tilt slightly with WASD, and practice hovering and landing.

It\'ll get lighter as it\'s fuel is burned away, so you will have to keep an eye on that, and if you build up too much speed it\'ll get away from you, just take it easy and the skills you learn flying this can be taken to the Mun.

In fact, if you fly your lander like the Hopper, you can easily travel around the Mun, and with the lower gravity your fuel will last ages.

The version pictured has a slightly different strut arrangement to the final craft, as I thought it might be stronger, but weighs exactly the same, also it doesn\'t have RCS, party because the gimballed engine is more than enough both on Kerbin and on the Mun, and secondly because RCS is very ineffective on Kerbin, it\'s better on the Mun but is still far weaker than the vectoring main engine.

Flying Bedstead at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Bedstead

GENIE vtol rocket:

An Imgur gallery of the Hopper, click here to save KSP bandwidth: https://imgur.com/a/uBtPg#0

Edit:

Added an RCS version for RCS practice, it\'s slightly heavier so either wait for some of the fuel to burn off or use the RCS to help get off the pad, as I said though, RCS is not really suitable, it may be due to a combination of atmospheric pressure and drag acting on the rig.

RCS controls: Use H and N for vertical thrust, and I J K L for lateral thrust.

Also, I have reinforced it a bit as in 0.14x4 it had a tendency to collapse.

The Hopper on the pad

Climbing slowly, you need almost full thrust just to lift off

First stop, on the the launch tower

I overshot the VAB and had to double back

Stop number two, landed on the VAB roof

Powering back to the launchpad, lighter now I have less fuel

Stop number three, back on the tower as dawn breaks

Just about to touchdown

Stop number four, back where I started

[Exovian]

Nice ship. I like the story you came up with.