Maximum impact velocity

[MarvinKitFox]

I never explained how it works, I just said the excessive speed causes it.

Chengong, this person is going to put who he wants on his leaderboard, with whichever snide remarks he want to, without regard for the actual merits of the entry.

Live with it, or leave it.

I chose to leave.

[Kanil]

I gave this an attempt, figured I'd just point my rocket directly at the VAB, fire, and see what happens. Turns out, if you hit the VAB at 1,500m/s, you don't actually hit it -- you just glide right through. Rocket had slowed all the way down to 200m/s by the time it actually hit the ground, and that wasn't even enough to destroy it. Guess it needs more work...

[chengong]

I never explained how it works, I just said the excessive speed causes it.

What do you mean you never explained?

the craft reached such excessive speeds in vacuum that it was able to travel through the atmosphere with significantly lower drag than it is supposed to endure, due to the way drag calculation works.

[thereaverofdarkness]

What do you mean you never explained?

I mentioned what happens. The craft get less drag because they are travelling fast. This is true.

[MarvinKitFox]

I mentioned what happens. The craft get less drag because they are travelling fast. This is true.

this is false

[thereaverofdarkness]

chengong explained how it works earlier. It's simple, the physics engine recalculates drag once per (whatever the interval is), and for the rest of that interval, your drag doesn't change. If you travel 20km during a single interval, your drag doesn't go up by a factor of around 50-100x like it should, but remains the same until the next interval begins. So yes, going fast reduces your drag when you're going down.

Chengong, this person is going to put who he wants on his leaderboard, with whichever snide remarks he want to, without regard for the actual merits of the entry.

Live with it, or leave it.

I chose to leave.

I've tried to be civil with you. I'm trying to work with you here. If you could stop jumping to the assumption that I hate you, perhaps you could see that, and we could work this out. I have all the info I need to place you on the leaderboard, all I need is your agreement. But if you don't want to be there, I'll leave that up to you. I'm not picking and choosing here.

[Rainbowtrout]

Remember to keep it civil.

[totalitor]

My entry 605,1 m/s.

On the pad.

Turning back.

Going down.

After crash.

I don't know about drag or things like that, I just use the biggest rockets...

[cantab]

In relation to another challenge I realised that wings have a very low drag-to-mass ratio. The result is this entry for this challenge, using 24 winglets (the ones without control) and a probe core lobbed on an up-and-down suborbital flight.

V-max by cantab314, on Flickr

Impact by cantab314, on Flickr

More pics: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk38mK81

Unfortunately I missed low ground. Had I hit at the correct altitude I'd probably have fallen between Laie's first entry and Jolly Roger's run.

Fun fact: the craft actually accelerates all the way through the re-entry effects, reaching Vmax about when they stop.

[metaphor]

For another low drag challenge I used the 0.08 drag cockpit covered in RCS ports which have even lower drag (

). I bet it would work great here (although I'm not sure if the RCS ports have been changed since then).

[Laie]

AFAIK, the rcs ports are physicsless -- no mass, no drag, no anything. But the 0.02 wings are an excellent find. Just make sure you're pointing in the right direction, though -- that angular drag could stop you cold if you have any angle of attack.

[BagelRabbit]

Um, I think I win.

Using a design similar to this one...

...I got an impact velocity of an impressive 35,778 m/s on Kerbin. (I hope water landings count.)

I think that I got a higher speed than every other previous attempt combined. This is not necessarily a good thing.

I could easily try several more times and get the best run of the lot. I know this thing is capable of going faster because the "highest speed recorded" was 54,933 m/s at about the same altitude, so this thing is certainly capable of more.

Ah, the joys of infinigliders. They may have to be banned from the competition, they're so effective at getting obscenely high velocities.