Hypersonic Aircraft Challenge

[Darkasantion]

Got an aircraft that can do ~1710+ m/s but staying below 20Km will be hard. Will give it a try later today .

[Chrono]

ihtoit... I would LOVE to see your X-Wing go fast!

nli2work, congratulations on the first Section 3 entry! I feel like I should have a prize for you or something... Maybe I'll make up a small graphic or something. Also, I love your aircraft, they are so simple in their design. True they lack massive explosions and things flying off, but single phase aircraft at this speed are just as cool.

Kokanee, well you went faster then my first try, and with a simpler design.

Stock Air-breathing Hypersonic, can be done! I was just successful! I'll be posting soon with some pics that are a little more photogenic.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Chrono
Success!

[Darren9]

I have a non-air breathing mod craft that can just about break 1700m/s. PorkJet wings/structural parts with B9 sabre's (no FAR). Goes to 1650m/s at 19500m in air-breathing mode and the small amount of oxidizer will boost it to 1780m/s before it runs out.

[Chrono]

SR-71 Model, I'm a fan You've been logged into the Modded Non-Air breathing bracket. What mod parts are those anyway? They look spiffy.

My pictures are up in the first post, stock air-breathing craft can hit the 1,710m/s mark and then some! Now to develop something obnoxiously fast!

[Darkasantion]

Second attempt at the barrier, just made it, will tinker with it again later tonight to see if I can gain more speed

Edited May 17, 2014 by Darkasantion

[nli2work]

Stock parts air breather, 3 Turbojets Will do ~1850m/s few meters under 20km in stock aerodynamics. rocket fuel tanks without OX carries more fuel than same size LF tank, and lighter too... KSP is odd sometimes. The tiny bit of OX in the front tank is just to keep the CoM in front of the lift when the LF are empty.

[Kokanee]

@chrono: I will be cracking away at this challenge this weekend, will post again when I am successful.

Good news is this design was extremely stable/controllable even at top speed. I'm going to try refining it for "moar speed" instead of starting from scratch.

perhaps get it to altitude with a carrier craft like chuck Yeager's plane and then launch mid air.....

[Darkasantion]

Another attempt at it, keep trying to lower drag and mass while keeping the current engine lay-out.

Resulted in an 1800.4 m/s flight with an stock unmodded craft. 3 Turbojets and altough take off is rather difficult, once it reaches hight it is a rather nice plane to fly really.

Rocket versions is even faster I think, but burns fuel very fast...

So I'll need a carrier for that plane, let's build that now then

Edited May 17, 2014 by Darkasantion

[Kokanee]

Okay here is a good entry,

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[Darkasantion]

http://imgur.com/a/fnMeD

Last attempt and 2 pics of me testing a non air breathing plane using VAB as a launch platform to test various lay-outs before I start building another carrier plane. Yesterday resulted in massive crashes..

[Redshift OTF]

Cool challenge!

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Managed to get 1984 m/s with an airbreathing stock plane, (MechJeb was used for information purposes).

[Darkasantion]

How do you use that external seat thing? I always attach it but never can get a pilot in that thing somehow...

[Bilfr3d]

Cool challenge!

http://imgur.com/a/mLvte

Managed to get 1984 m/s with an airbreathing stock plane, (MechJeb was used for information purposes).

Holy mother of.... how in the name did u get that thing to fly?? Is that a tiny fuel tank I see behind that seat?? I salute your engineering sir!!

[Redshift OTF]

How do you use that external seat thing? I always attach it but never can get a pilot in that thing somehow...

You basically add a capsule to the craft, EVA the Kerbal out and board the seat and then eject the capsule.

Holy mother of.... how in the name did u get that thing to fly?? Is that a tiny fuel tank I see behind that seat?? I salute your engineering sir!!

It flies really well. Yes that is a fuel tank behind the seat drained of oxidizer. I just wanted to get the weight down as much as possible so the TWR of the Jet engines was as high as possible.

Here's the craft file if you want to fly it

Edited May 18, 2014 by Redshift OTF

[Voculus]

OK, I'm back for more! Not going to win first prize, but I wanted to challenge myself, if nothing else.

Mod Craft

Air-Breathing

12+ TWR

I jettisoned the gear after takeoff to keep the craft light, and intentionally loaded very little fuel, and ran out at altitude, to maximize the TWR.

[BadSpecs]

Hi everyone, this is my first attempt at participating in a challenge, and my first post on this forum.

The entry is an air-breathing twin jet using stock parts and no mods. I used copious octagonal struts to get a set of control surfaces well behind the COM due to the bizarre placement of the turbojet's mass. It's fast, twitchy, unpleasant to fly, highly unstable, and very fun.

Edited May 18, 2014 by BadSpecs
trying to imbed imgur album

[Kokanee]

New entry, "TAYFUN III" (Typhoon 3).

1960m/s all stock airbreathing (no mods) on three engines (and looking good while doing it i think). An improvement of 200m/s over the original TAYFUN.

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Edited May 18, 2014 by Kokanee

[Warpedone]

Mission complete. The Flea v0.46 achieved 1,853 m/s @ 19,178ASL (verified) - I went faster but also slipped above the operational ceiling. Safely landed it too. I tried twin engine, quad and eventually settled on 3. Wings went from single small (which looked just like a Viper!) to one large for lift and a smaller forward wing for control.

All stock parts used but also running MechJeb - she flies OK on manual, certainly well enough to land, but I was going for speed without distraction.

Some early models and the final challenger...

Edited May 19, 2014 by Warpedone

[Megalodon 720]

This is not a plane, its a bullet. It's unmanned and i had drop tanks to get get me to a high speed, but then the heavy tanks dropped off and the SRB kicked in rocketing the craft to a personal speed record of 3.621m/s. (the picture shows the craft coming back down and slowing due to the thick atmosphere)

[Redshift OTF]

Ah I love the way this game encourages people to push the limits of what is possible. I'll have to see if I can come up with a better design now.

[panzerknoef]

What category will i get put in if I use a plane without engines??

[Ghastendee]

Barely made it with this one, one-manned, 6 jet engines and no mods whatsoever

Edited May 19, 2014 by Ghastendee

[Fendleton]

I've started work on an airbreathing microjet. Made it up to speed on the first attempt, but I want to improve my design a bit before posting images....right now I can get to 1,830 but I'm optimising it now.....I've got a few too many intakes and my control setup is a bit unstable. And I can make it lighter.

I also tried going faster than my only-entry-in-the-category rocket-powered monster by adding even more large engines. It didn't end at all well.

[NavalLacrosse]

Decided the non-air breathing category needed more entries. Naturally I just take a Huge rocket engine to altitude and ride it like a motorcycle.

I give you, the "Krotch Rocket" .... there is a letter 'k' in the name, so it's funny!

2,315 m/s not beating the record, but almost beating it. (Even so, the current leader's aircraft is just too cool to look at to be beaten by this thing)

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[Fendleton]

Decided the non-air breathing category needed more entries. Naturally I just take a Huge rocket engine to altitude and ride it like a motorcycle.

I give you, the "Krotch Rocket" .... there is a letter 'k' in the name, so it's funny!

2,315 m/s not beating the record, but almost beating it. (Even so, the current leader's aircraft is just too cool to look at to be beaten by this thing)

[snipped images]

Nice job. How's the handling on yours? Mine was an absolute beast until I added reaction wheels.