Ion glider collier trophy!

[kookoo_gr]

Here is my first attempt. It has no batteries. 353m/s highest altitude 18.389m

[GoSlash27]

Kookoo_gr,

Leaderboard updated. Do you have a name for this craft?

Best,

-Slashy

[GoSlash27]

I'm soooo close!!

A little tweaking and adjustments to the profile, and this one might be able to make orbit.

Voyager1.craft

Edited November 6, 2014 by GoSlash27

[The_Rocketeer]

Impressive!

However..

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I can't escape the feeling we still have a long way to go...

Edited November 7, 2014 by The_Rocketeer

[MabDeno]

All,

My cursory analysis of the new wings was confirmed by last night's flight. The best wings to use now are (in order)

1) Wing Strake M 0.025 Cd 0.2 Cl 0.75

2) Structural D M 0.012 Cd 0.08 Cl 0.25

and

3) the original swept wing M 0.05 Cd 0.6 Cl 1.6

Mathematically modeling their implementation on a previous winning design shows that an installation sufficient to lift the glider over the wall with strakes is just barely heavier than using swept wings (2% heavier), but total drag is slashed by 25% making the strake the clear winner.

The structural D wing lowers drag even more, but it comes with a significant weight penalty.

-Slashy

I had a feeling the wings strakes were performing well but I was having a hard time getting front and rear facing solar panels on them. might have that sorted now though. :-D

[GoSlash27]

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/GoSlash27/KSP/Voyager2_zpsc911c235.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/GoSlash27/KSP/Voyager3_zps69ec930b.jpg

Bumped up my marks a bit with Voyager. New orbit speed 2,152 and altitude 46,759 Still trying to squeeze that last tiny bit out of it.

Best,

-Slashy

[2001kraft]

#challengeaccepted

I had LOTS of attempts.

Still can't get it working

[kookoo_gr]

Second attempt with the Ion Wing MkIV. Made it to the North Pole Max Height 21.120 Max speed 528 m/s, no batteries

[The_Rocketeer]

Beaten manned altitude and speed records with a new craft, but no screens yet. Will try to put some up later this evening.

[MabDeno]

I must have hit a sweet spot.

http://i.imgur.com/zxSuvvv.png

16 wing strakes 2 engines with 4 fuel tanks. I ran out of sunlight before I could use the remainder of my fuel.

I'll post a full album and craft when I optimise it a little.

Edited November 7, 2014 by MabDeno
Sorry 4 fuel tanks not 5

[Yakky]

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/GoSlash27/KSP/Voyager2_zpsc911c235.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/GoSlash27/KSP/Voyager3_zps69ec930b.jpg

Bumped up my marks a bit with Voyager. New orbit speed 2,152 and altitude 46,759 Still trying to squeeze that last tiny bit out of it.

Best,

-Slashy

Holy smokes, you're close! Good luck pushing it across the line!

[The_Rocketeer]

Another manned attempt.

This design feels like it has a lot more to give, but I need to make another couple of runs to optimise the flightpath - as you can see, I ran out of sunshine, not fuel.

Speed record is legit ascent speed, but you'll have to take my word for it.

I call this one the "Shrike I".

(4x Ion engine, 16x 700 Xenon, 52x Wing Strake, 20x 1x6 array, 1x small reaction wheel, 1x OKTO2, 1 EAS1+Kerb)

Edited November 7, 2014 by The_Rocketeer

[GoSlash27]

I must have hit a sweet spot.

http://i.imgur.com/zxSuvvv.png

16 wing strakes 2 engines with 4 fuel tanks. I ran out of sunlight before I could use the remainder of my fuel.

I'll post a full album and craft when I optimise it a little.

MabDeno,

Lookit that!! We're on the verge of makin' history!

Does this craft have a name?

-Slashy

[GoSlash27]

Rocketeer,

Got it. Updating the leaderboard now. Congratulations!

You should try to find a way to replace those solar arrays with static panels since static panels are massless parts.

Best,

-Slashy

Edited November 8, 2014 by GoSlash27

[The_Rocketeer]

You should try to find a way to replace those solar arrays with static panels since static panels are massless parts.

Boy have I been missing out... did not know that. I'm tempted to do it right now, but sleep beckons.

Perhaps tomorrow I shall be the first to orbit! With a Kerb to boot!

[GoSlash27]

Records have been shattered tonight!

Preliminary testing of the Voyager II:

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/GoSlash27/KSP/Voyager4_zps7dfec63c.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/GoSlash27/KSP/Voyager5_zps2958ad70.jpg

Altitude 67,815M, orbital velocity 2,294

I'm confident that one of us will make it soon.

VoyagerII craft file

-Slashy

[bakanando]

Wow, that was very close!

Puts to shame my attempt, I reached 19,738m @344m/s. This vessel just couldn't go further as lift was not enough anymore. Still half of its fuel left so with some tweaks and better flight it might go a little further up. It was very easy to fly. I basically left it flying alone with SAS on. I think my trying to correct its AoA was what killed it.

Trying to get vert speed up again

[GoSlash27]

Voyager III: First sub-orbital hop into space.

I ran out of daylight and was unable to complete my circularization burn though I still had enough fuel to do it.

http://s52.photobucket.com/user/GoSlash27/slideshow/KSP/Voyager%203

New unmanned record 2,300 M/sec, 70,084 M/sec

Edited November 8, 2014 by GoSlash27

[The_Rocketeer]

Trying to get vert speed up again

You've hit what others have referred to as 'the wall' - the point where lift ebbs away while drag clings on so that your poor little ion drive can't keep up with mounting demand for thrust.

As i'm slowly learning (with a nod to Slashy), vertical speed is much less important at that point than horizontal speed, as long as you're not actually losing altitude. I've found that keeping a shallow AoA at that point means you go faster, which ultimately means you can still climb quite quickly in short bursts and hold on to your small gains.

In ur screen ur pitching up at 30*. Try keeping your AoA between about 15 and 25 and experiment to see what keeps the momentum going onward and upward (my last few flights have done best at about 10* up to 12k, and about 18* thereafter). Steep angles might look like they're paying off because you go up fast for a little while, but very quickly you run out of oomph because your speed isn't high enough for the altitude.

[MabDeno]

Voyager III: First sub-orbital hop into space.

I ran out of daylight and was unable to complete my circularization burn though I still had enough fuel to do it.

http://s52.photobucket.com/user/GoSlash27/slideshow/KSP/Voyager%203

New unmanned record 2,300 M/sec, 70,084 M/sec

Thats fantastic! I'd be tempted to put batteries on it and only activate them when your ready to circularise.

[GoSlash27]

Thats fantastic! I'd be tempted to put batteries on it and only activate them when your ready to circularise.

I'm *very* tempted to do just that, but first I'm going to try to push my apoapsis further around so I can do a circularization burn in daylight.

Not tonight, tho'. I've had enough of this fun for one night!

Best,

-Slashy

[bakanando]

You've hit what others have referred to as 'the wall' - the point where lift ebbs away while drag clings on so that your poor little ion drive can't keep up with mounting demand for thrust.

As i'm slowly learning (with a nod to Slashy), vertical speed is much less important at that point than horizontal speed, as long as you're not actually losing altitude. I've found that keeping a shallow AoA at that point means you go faster, which ultimately means you can still climb quite quickly in short bursts and hold on to your small gains.

In ur screen ur pitching up at 30*. Try keeping your AoA between about 15 and 25 and experiment to see what keeps the momentum going onward and upward (my last few flights have done best at about 10* up to 12k, and about 18* thereafter). Steep angles might look like they're paying off because you go up fast for a little while, but very quickly you run out of oomph because your speed isn't high enough for the altitude.

Yeah, I hit the limit way lower than I expected. That pic is just the last struggle to not lose altitude in vain. Some minutes later I landed on the peninsula in the pic. It's a really nice craft, lifts off with 20m/s and is as hard to get it to land with more than 10m/s surface speed. I'll try to tweak it to get further up, but I wonder if I can get it higher as it's weight at that height is 0.6 ton. Still too high to fight gravity by itself.

[GoSlash27]

Yeah, I hit the limit way lower than I expected. That pic is just the last struggle to not lose altitude in vain. Some minutes later I landed on the peninsula in the pic. It's a really nice craft, lifts off with 20m/s and is as hard to get it to land with more than 10m/s surface speed. I'll try to tweak it to get further up, but I wonder if I can get it higher as it's weight at that height is 0.6 ton. Still too high to fight gravity by itself.

Bakanando,

Tsevion and I were lucky (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) to have been obsessed with ion gliders back in .24.

What we learned back then is that you live or die by the proportions of the parts. Tanks are heavy and draggy, but they give you time. Engines are *really* heavy and draggy, but they make you go faster. Wings are light and a little draggy, but without them you're never going to get high enough to accelerate.

Any other part with mass really has no business being on your aircraft.

All of these parts provide needed benefits and unwanted disadvantages and they're all opposed to each other.

The real trick to this is finding the balance; the correct proportion of wings/ tanks/engines for maximum efficiency.

We have a lot of time invested (for no return) in finding the best proportions, so we've got a head- start.

.25 introduced the Pork-jet parts, which made orbit actually possible. I'm where I'm at now because I used the old conventional wisdom as a baseline for my designs, but where I'm at now is not ideal. The pork- jet wings are much less draggy than the old stuff and it changes everything.

My advice is to seek the balance. Feel free to use my craft files as a baseline.

Best,

-Slashy

[MabDeno]

OK latest attempt, the Ion Dart

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Im finding a nice reference point for speed is 1000/s at 30km. I cant seem to break the 30k barrier without that much velocity

[MabDeno]

Sorry for spamming the thread but here it is!

What would be better than one Ion Dart? Two bolted together of course.

The Double Dart: 2.8 T, 4 engines, 8 fuel tanks and 32 wing strakes

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I was quite happy to see it go above 100k apoapsis but then I noticed that I'd get sunlight back before I dropped below 90k and managed to use the remaining fuel to circularise.

Craft file http://www.filedropper.com/doubledart

Edited November 8, 2014 by MabDeno