Hypersonic Aircraft Challenge

[Chrono]

Do you like to go fast?

Good, here is my challenge to you, achieve Hypersonic speeds at or under 20,000m (No exceeding 20,000m during the mission). For those who do not know (these numbers realistically change depending on altitude) Supersonic start around 410m/s, Supersonic effects on Kerbil begin to manifest around 450m/s. Hypersonic speeds begin around 1,710m/s.

All entry's will require an image of the aircraft (because pictures are fun and your aircraft are cool) The image should include your altitude and your speed (see below) and please specify if you used mods and if the aircraft is unmanned. The challenge is specific to Aircraft, so no rockets/missiles out of the VAB please.

I chose 20,000m because that's roughly the altitude most air intakes drop off at. There will be two main brackets and two classes under those brackets. The only caveat to the modded vs. un-modded is that you can use mods so long as they do not alter the performance of the aircraft. So any parts are changes to how aircraft perform are all mods. Things that just make the game pretty or engineering details are not counted under the Mods section.

Non Air Breathing includes hybrids that use both air breathing and non air breathing engines. Finally Section 3, for the superbly insane. These are the "High-hypersonic" performers with speeds in excess of 3,415m/s, modded or not, those speeds on Kerbin are just crazy.

Brownie points for crazy pilots. Have fun!

Now with a Flag Reward! Anyone who has met the Hypersonic Challenge,

this flag is for you! Sorry I'm no artiest. :3

Un-modded

-Air Breathing

1: Redshift OTF / 1,984m/s / Crew 1 / Madman Pilot

2: nli2work / 1,850m/s

3: Darkasantion / 1800.4m/s / Crew 1

4: Kokanee / 1,760m/s / Crew 1

Chrono / 1,720m/s / Crew 1 / Safe Landing

-Non Air Breathing

1: Fendleton / 2,342m/s / Crew 1 / Kudos for a safe landing!

Modded

-Air Breathing

1: nli2work / 2,501m/s / Crew 1 / FAR Mod /13 parts

2: Voculus / 1,896m/s / Crew 1

-Non Air Breathing

1: Darren9 / 1,789m/s / SR-71 Model - Cool Points

Section 3 - High Hypersonic

1: nli2work / 5599.6m/s / MW Thermal Turbojet @ ~35GW power input

This was my first aircraft attempting this feat, the one that lead to this challenge, it achieved roughly 1300m/s wobbling around 19-20,000m It is a manned aircraft, un-modded other then some navigation and world prettying. Poor Herman's face, he took it like a champ. Side note, we lost control later in flight and ended up at 80,000m Herman insisted he could hold his breath long enough to get back down to altitude with air.

After some time running bench tests on the runway, flying a few prototypes and making adjustments, this is what I came up with. May I present our first Air-Breathing Stock Hypersonic Aircraft!

On the Runway

Hypersonic

I could have gone faster, but I was concerned I would not have the fuel to land. Turns out, this thing glides like a champ, I'll do a flat out run later.

The Gauntlet is thrown, have fun Everyone!

Edited May 18, 2014 by Chrono
New Entrey!

[Bilfr3d]

NEW CHALLANGE FOR TONIGHT!! I shall put a ship under construction and test it HOPEFULLY to release it sometime tonight or tomorrow. 1710mps you say?? Also, do we get extra points for each kerbal we take, is there anything extra for that?

[Chrono]

I would say creativity counts, but if you specify how many Kerbals you take with you I'll add it into the Record tag for number of crew In the case of a tie I would say the larger crew would win. More dead weight... or live weight?

[Fendleton]

1,988m/s - Non-airbreathing

I was actually aiming for "super insane", but it turns out the atmosphere is a bit thicker at that height than I thought, so it only made it up to just shy of 2km/s. The design counts as stupid and insane anyway, and probably could have gone even faster (my jets had loads of spare fuel which weighed me down, and I ejected them too late for the rocket to really work well).........but here's my first run. I'll refine the design and try another run tomorrow. But here's how my first run went:

This thing doesn't have a name. It's evolved from a basic "what can I build that will fly with the biggest LFE in the stock game?" plane into...well....this. The last addition that made this one work where the others did not was ejectable landing-gear (take-off gear?) to stop me flipping on the runway. And yes, those are sixteen turbojets, all of which are ejected (although not soon enough on this run)

Majestic. Truly majestic. I particularly like how the whole thing sags because I decided the solution to the weight of the ejectable boosters was to give the thing ejectable wings as well. Still, it actually handles surprisingly well for something this heavy (and it is heavy). Anyway. Time to gain some altitude. Even with 16 jet engines, this takes a while.

Carefully bringing the nose down as Bob gets closer to his date with !!Science!!. Last thing I want is to tumble a craft that's this heavy and fragile.

Here we go! I accidentally level out too low because at high speed this thing stops handling like a whale. The insane thrust vectoring helps a lot as well.

I eject the booster engines and wings once I realise that they're slowing me down, but it's a bit too late to pick up speed as much as I'd wanted to.....and I'm a little low.

I run out of rocket fuel, and immediately have a crushing deceleration that stops me from reading the dials. Alas, the speed for this run will need to be taken once I've splashed down.

I eject the cockpit (safety first! Although next time I'm not going to bother with this bit so I can save on drag/mass and go even faster) and make a safe landing via parachute.

And here we are. A speed of 1,988m/s, with the entire flight under 20km. Not bad for a first go, I must say. I think I can speed it up a bit though, and I'm certain other people can do better.

[Chrono]

Oh I love your Aircraft design! It looks like a crane, such a pretty bird

[Bilfr3d]

Nevermind I figured it out

Edited May 16, 2014 by ToTheMun
I figured it out

[Pecan]

What difference does it make if a vehicle is built in the VAB instead of the SPH?

[Othuyeg]

I took the liberty of using the space as my runway.

here is the video

http://www.twitch.tv/othuyeg/b/529262121

[Fendleton]

I'm not quite sure the word "aircraft" means what you think it means........

Regardless, I've optimised my own effort for faster level flight, and my old speed can probably be taken off and replaced by this one. I could probably go a bit faster, but that's getting into dangerous territory with adding drop-tanks, then adding drop-tanks to the drop tanks, then adding boosters to said drop-tanks......and the like. And I nearly went past the limit on this run anyway.

Non-Airbreathing: 2,342m/s

(It's supposed to do that, BTW)

[Chrono]

I apologize if this part of the Challenge was unclear. Its not that you have to be going that speed at that altitude, but rather that's your mission ceiling, no going above it.

Othuyeg while your reentry speed is quite impressive, that is kinda to be expected from reentry, here on Earth Mach 25+ is simply categorized as reentry. What you have there is not an Aircraft, rather a space shuttle on reentry. I do thank you for on ensuring my challenge requirements are more specific.

As for why no VAB? To discourage anyone from simply creating a rocket that goes 5,000 m/s before 20,000m.Not as much of a challenge there I think we can all agree. Now if you have a creative idea that uses the VAB as your launch site while still being an Aircraft please surprise me.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Chrono

[Pecan]

No, I don't think I need to use the VAB - I'll just vertical-launch from the runway, there's no difference in the parts or build so it doesn't matter. Mind you, what I have in mind isn't as good-looking as Fendleton's anyway. You've inspired me to see what I can do though.

[Othuyeg]

I'd like to add to the discussion that my submission was in no way serious. I just wanted to see how fast I can shoot through the atmosphere. Appears, quite fast.

[Voculus]

Mod Craft

Air-Breathing

Ten Turbojets!

Top Speed:1593 m/s

Highest Altitude: 19,757m

[Chrono]

A valiant effort Voculus, but Hypersonic speeds begin around 1,710m/s. Your not far from the mark, keep at it!

[Voculus]

Oh man. I'm not sure it's possible to hit 1700 at under 20k with pure air-breathing. That beast had an 8+ TWR. I'll have to go smaller, and see if I can get that up to over 10.

[Pecan]

Hehe, that's what I was trying too - mine didn't work, needless to say ^^.

[ihtoit]

There's a video of this on the forum somewhere: my T-65 XWing from .18 slicing through the atmosphere like a very sharp thing through a very soft thing:

It gets to something like 2600m/s before it clears 20k.

If ya want I'll do a build in .23 and see if'n I can repeat the feat.

[nli2work]

Modded version with FAR... simple single engine air breather, 13 parts; b9 LF fuselage, everything else are stock parts. just have to milk the atmosphere around 20km for a long time.

Edited May 17, 2014 by nli2work

[ihtoit]

that thing'll just keep going faster and faster until it runs out of fuel - or the thrust vector overcomes your planes ability to compensate for the curvature of the planet!

[nli2work]

nah... 2500 was about the fastest I can get it to go for under 20km for that plane. had to milk the atmosphere for probably 1/2 way around the planet.

[nli2work]

stock aerodynamics. 1 B9 fuel tank (380 LF); 4 ram intakes; 3 turbojets. barely breaks 1800m/s. I think that's mostly due to lowered mass from fuel consumption. Nominally I'd guess barely breaking 1700m/s... took the same craft into another game with FAR... 4km/s before I lost control and pancaked. good thing it's FAR 13.1 plus hahaha.

Edited May 17, 2014 by nli2work

[Kokanee]

My entry;

The X-01 "Tayfun" (Typhoon)

6 intakes, two turbojet engines.

[Kokanee]

Oops, disregard my last post, misread the required speed.

[nli2work]

This is mod non-air breathing

Interstellar mod... probably an exploit; but fun nonetheless. MW Thermal turbojet @ ~35GW power input, airbreathing mode up to 15km, then switch to liquid fuel mode. you can see the maximum acceleration in engineer readout. I think maximum speed is only limited by the fuel you can carry.

[Fendleton]

Hmm. From what I've seen with the Great Big Hybrid Thingie, jets rapidly lose power at the higher end of their speed envelope. My plane couldn't fly faster than about 1,400m/s without ditching the engines, indicating that they were actually producing less thrust than they needed to keep up with the rest of the craft.

If this is the case, it's possible that getting closer and closer to the target speed will require exponentially more engines, and possibly more wings to keep the thrust vector nice and horizontal. It should be possible to do it with brute force alone unless the drop-off is really vicious, though.