the Hermes A4 SSTO self refueling sea plane

[OgreMagi]

thought I would try something different for my Jool mission and I wanted a space plane that was

SSTO capable,

able to conduct water born landing/flight

and able to refuel itself.

Unshamming BLOG of advertismant for the ......

https://imgur.com/a/p6TtP

Presenting the Hermes A4 SSTO, Pride of the JunkWorks Space plane demolition and assembly

yard.

The Hermes basically a modded Areas A4, with Kethan parts, a single turbo jet, and 2 Kommit

Nuclenics LtBY 12k nuclear engine with a lot of capability built into the craft.

It is capable of SSTO from sea level, able to search, mine, store and process Kethan, make standard

landings, parachute landings and conduct operations on water.

YES it is capable of Floating/Landing and Take Off from sea level, the reversed radial intakes make

great floats and since they are mounted in reverse they provide air intake with zero Drag. Notice that

the landing gear is mounted low, on octaginal struts , for clearance when landing on water.

Supplementing the radial intakes are 4 Ram intakes which left off until high in the atmosphere.

Aircraft like cars are dependant on fuel to move, like the saying about old cars they can pass

anything on the road but a gas station. However the Hermes isnt dependant on a mother ship to

refuel. The Hermes can self refuel as long as there is a kethane field within its flight range.

With its kethane equipment added, the small kethane detector, standard small drill, small processor,

and 2 small kethan storage tanks the Heremes can refuel itself in a few hours.

In addition it mounts a kethan power generator which adds the supplemental power needed to run

the drill and processor without having to add a ton or more of solar panels.

In flight the Hermes is stable and resistive to roll but sensative enought to make water landings when

needed. Take off from the runway is easy and the craft lefts at 60 m/s with lift arround 75 m/s. Flight

testing of the Hermes demonstrated it can move at 70 m/s on water, making it as capable as a hover

craft over short distances. If there is not enought level ground to pit down on the Hermes carries a

parachute landing system however parachute landings on water will damage the aircraft and shoudl

only be attempted in the most dire circumstances.

Water landing do require a gentle touch as the plane is tail heavy and too fast decent will cause

damage to the engines and drilling probe.

Dont have a pilot, not a problem the Hermes carries the state of the art in electronics with hardwired

Probodobodyne OKTO2 linked to the cockpit capable or remote piloting of the craft and with the

advance communication gear, the communitron 88-88 and COMMS DTS-M1 ensure solid carrier

signals from ground, orbit and interplanetary.

Rational of design.

Yea i tried to build it all in one package, took a bit but it can do most of everything i want it too.

Took a while to get it working but I spent way too much time trying to build larger complicated planes

with little success. Had too many roll over crashes and uncontrolables until i remember an article

about military aircraft. short version the military modded many of thier best designs simple because

it was easier to work with a stable, reliable aircraft. so that got me thinking i should use a stock craft

and simply modify it .

Specs ...

Max take off weight is 24.46 t with the kethan tanks and all standard tanks full but i fly it with less

than the max fuel load ( 18.62 t take off wieght) to keep the mass down. Note that the center tanks

feed the jet engine and the outer tanks feed the LVN 14Kn.

Typical fuel load for SSTO 100km orbit arround kerbin is to load the forward center tank FL-t800

with 252 fuel and no oxidizer, the rear center jet fuel tank with 90 units of fuel, the outer 2 FL -T400

tanks half load ( 90/110) and the 2 FL-T200 tanks full (90/110). you burn 3/4 of the center tanks to

get to orbit and not much of the outer tanks and easily enough left over to fly to the mun and back

and make a powered landing.

If you need more space Delta V you can load the forward center tank with oxidizer and fill the outer

tanks this gives you 4700 Delta v over an HOUR of thrust more than enough to move between the

moons of Jool .

Handling is easy, some slight instability issues when between 12, 000 and 25, 000 Meters but x3

physics while climbing is easily done. Turning is slow but not hard but its not a aerobatic flyer stick

to basic manuvering and you wont have too many problems.

As mentioned water landings are difficult you have to desend slowly and be careful of landing at too

high of angle as it will tear off the drill assembly ( if your lucky and the engines if your not). This is

why the landing gears are mounted so low, and the radial air intake mounted to the landing gear. One

side benefit from them is mounted in reverse the do make intake air but for zero drag.

Once landed on water takeoff is easy nose up at 50m/s and air born by 70m/s. But for the simplest

landings use the chutes. Parachuts landings are the easiest way to land and the chutes are placed in

order to make level landing easier.

I also wanted a plane that wasnt tied to a mothership so i added the kethan parts to it, the kethan

generator was a nice wieght saving addition, since it would take 3 to 4 Large solar arrays to power

the processor and the drill and each XL solar array weighs 0.35 t , the Kethan power generator only

wieghs 0.3 t.

so what ya think.

[Justin Kerbice]

That's notepad style text is hard to read , but the intakes on landing gears are a great idea !

FireSpitter include dedicated parts for such purpose (I know it's not stock, but wanting "stock only" can be ridiculous sometimes especially when using issues/"hidden features" which could be fixed in a further release).

[ILikeRockets]

You probably want to change it from Stock craft to Mod craft, because i see Kethane supplies on it.

But i like it. Sort of a new type of SSTO, that'll be able to land anywhere.