Kerbodyne SSTO Division: Omnibus Thread

[Wanderfound]

Interplanetary spaceplanery part 2:

[Wanderfound]

Hey there

I built something pretty similar just an hour ago in order to accomplish a 'science data from space around Kerbin' contract. I've started a new spaceplane-only career save, and this thread is helping me out a lot! Thank you Wanderfound

By the way, look what I just found, it's pretty old but I think it's worth sharing.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87950-Testing-times

That was a while ago, and I guess this post is where this thread came from 'I bet it's gonna be popular!'

That was on 15th August 2014, that is some time ago

Keep it up!

I can't believe that I was ever proud of the D7...

And I never did find out how Google defined "shucks" in German.

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Quick little VTOL demo:

[Volcanix]

I can't believe that I was ever proud of the D7...

And I never did find out how Google defined "shucks" in German.

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Quick little VTOL demo: http://youtu.be/qK2lzJhDWm0

Google Translator translated it into something like 'no that's not right' or similar back then, but seems like they changed the translation to, when I translate the german word back to english, 'Darn'. So my answer was probably pretty wrong

[eddiew]

Wanderfound! It's totally your fault that I can't just launch a normal probe like a normal person any more

Sabre engine from B9. About 10% better than a Rapier, but harder to get (modded tech tree) so it felt fair. Managed to hit 36km on air, had enough fuel to come home from Mun (just), and carried 10 gravioli detectors

...should have had more detectors

[WhiteKnuckle]

Mmm... Graviolis...

Wanderfound, I'm going to be very impressed when you put the Gull down on Duna, all of my attempts at landing horizontally have ended in slamming into a dune at 100m/s... Although the Gull has a ton more wing than any of mine, I'm sure that makes all the difference.

About your VTOL demonstrator vid, the crash at the end is why I gave up on using Vernors to control vertical speed, if you're using them to control sink rate it's hard to use them to control attitude at the same time. My solution is engine clusters saved as sub assemblies like so:

Key the little Rockomax engines to a action group and just tap them on and off to control sink rate while using RCS to control attitude.

[Wanderfound]

It was more piloting incompetence than engineering failure; I could control attitude just fine, I just didn't do so.

(partly for video comedy value, partly because I suck at flying VTOLs)

[Wanderfound]

Interplanetary spaceplanery part III: landing time.

[Jovus]

So what's the purpose to putting canaards at -100 AoA like you do? Does it improve stability? How does it change your lift characteristics? Why do you do it, and in what cases should I?

[CrisK]

I'm enjoying the videos, Wanderfound! It's great to see how an experienced designer builds and flies SSTO spaceplanes. Please keep making these instructional videos.

[Wanderfound]

So what's the purpose to putting canaards at -100 AoA like you do? Does it improve stability? How does it change your lift characteristics? Why do you do it, and in what cases should I?

Done right, it massively enhances stability at high angles of attack, which comes in particularly handy during the rocketry phase of a spaceplane ascent. It helps the plane resist the tendency to flip out of control when steeply pitched up. You'll notice a few occasions in the Labrys test flight video where I mention that I'm flying hands-off despite having the nose pitched up very steeply (look about the 7:30 mark, as well as around 17:50).

It is a bit tricky to tune however, and seems to work best on rearset winged craft (Labrys, Stratos, Aero R). Get it wrong and you'll just have something that violently rebounds from pitch inputs, but get it right and it works very well. IIRC, the Labrys canards are set with -100% AoA, Max Deflection 40 and Pitch influence 50%. So, when they're acting as elevators, you effectively get a max deflection of 20 (40 would be too much for this ship), but they're able to rotate all the way to 40 in response to AoA.

I'm fairly new to it myself, so I'm no expert on the AoA settings. I'd suggest just building some test ships (a basic delta wing design with some canards and a turbojet will do) and experimenting.

[Wanderfound]

Gah; just recorded part IV of the Duna trip, only to have the OBS software crash and corrupt the video file as I reentered Kerbin. Slight delay...

[Captain Sierra]

Gah; just recorded part IV of the Duna trip, only to have the OBS software crash and corrupt the video file as I reentered Kerbin. Slight delay...

Hmmm, sounds familiar. I've lost a few vid files like that.

[Jovus]

Wanderfound, I just wanted to say thanks. Because of all your enthusiasm, you got me interested not only in spaceplanes but also planes. And you helped make it make sense.

As proof, here's a spaceplane I put together (just unlocked the turbojet, which is my highest unlock in this save).

It's remarkably stable across the entire reasonable envelope all the way up to 30km. And like I said, first try. (There was some fiddling with landing gear, but none with the wings.) A bit of a pig when it's full of cargo, but that's because I don't have the tech to make a truly powerful beast. And there's enough delta-V in the tank to do a Munar flyby.

And all that's basically exclusively inspired by what you've done here. So thanks.

[Wanderfound]

Orbital delivery at high speed for trivial cost: Kerbodyne Econoboost.

Easy and fast climber, fully stable at maximum acceleration.

Get up to speed and altitude on the jets.

Then kick in the boosters.

Make use of the ram-air effect, but shut down the RAPIERs as soon as they switch modes.

Don't climb too shallow if you want to avoid large drag losses.

Circularise on the RAPIERs.

Plenty of room for a satellite or probe.

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/py728btexwbsj2w/Kerbodyne%20Econoboost.craft?dl=0

[eddiew]

Hey Wanderfound, just wanted to suggest the B9 Procedural Parts mod for something worth exploring as part of your youtube series. Nothing overpowered, just wings and elevons; really nice way to get the wing shape you want with minimum parts, and with a few textures to choose from to make them look more stock-alike. Behaves better under FAR than the pre-shaped wings, too. Really nice for putting together heavy lifters or working with the MK3 fuselage. Working on a something myself that's got a double MK3 cargo bay, 0.8-1.0 TWR depending on load, and under 75 parts; handles like a fighter jet

[eddiew]

You gotta be tempted by those procedural wings, Wander... we know you love a pair of big canards

I can't help but speculate on the point of using two orange tanks to lift one orange tank to orbit... But the plane did have enough delta-v to go orbit the Mun, once it had dropped the tank off, which was amusing. Probably saved 20 parts by having procedural wings on, which turned out to be quite important after all the internal strutting that was required to keep the thing together during take off!

Edited January 30, 2015 by eddiew

[Wanderfound]

Interplanetary spaceplanery part IV:

[Einarr]

I assume you have some sort of RPM capable camera mounted just ahead of the fore landing gear on the Demo Gull and Labrys. What mod is that camera from?

[Wanderfound]

I assume you have some sort of RPM capable camera mounted just ahead of the fore landing gear on the Demo Gull and Labrys. What mod is that camera from?

Retro Future.

The default camera that comes with RPM works fine, but the Retro Future ones look a lot nicer. Nice streamlined housing.

[Einarr]

Bah, not gonna get Retro Future just for the camera, and I don't have enough of a RAM budget left to have the whole thing in...plus I probably wouldn't use most of the parts...

Edit: Figures, I go to actually look for it and can't seem to find it...

Edit 2: Found it, the thread does not have RetroFuture in the title, making it more difficult to find. Idid end up getting it, and ditching all but two of the cameras.

Edited January 30, 2015 by Einarr

[Nowater]

Huhu,

i have trouble to get any spaceplane into Orbit, its nearly impossible.

I can get up easy to 20000. Then starts t6he trouble. My speed is around mach 3.35 and i start raising the height slowly. But at around 22000 things getting messed up and the the plane gets out of control. ( FAR / Deadkly Reentry) It statrts to sheer left right til is messed up. I use the Alkahest or Initiale. U have any idea? If i watch teh Spaceplane Vids on Youtube, they get easy to 30k without this much trouble. Sorry for bad english

[Wanderfound]

Do you have a bizarre attachment to retro-80's space tech? Would you like to get to orbit in the most overcomplicated and inefficient way possible?

Then the Kerbodyne Titan Shuttle is just what you're looking for...

Annotated test flight at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne%20Showroom/Titan%20Shuttle/story

Alternate format at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/slideshow/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne%20Showroom/Titan%20Shuttle

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/jnpfrcb5rdeqn6l/Kerbodyne%20Titan%20Shuttle.craft?dl=0

(note: this does require some piloting skill to fly. Not recommended for serious use; built it just to prove I can)

Edited January 30, 2015 by Wanderfound

[blowfish]

The throttle-controlled avionics mod might help with maintaining stability and pitch control over the ascent.

[Wanderfound]

The throttle-controlled avionics mod might help with maintaining stability and pitch control over the ascent.

It's controllable enough as is, so long as you make sure to keep it below 30,000m until the SRBs burn out.

Toggling the radials on and off works surprisingly well. I was expecting to have to mess about with the thrust limiters, but that isn't required. And if it gets out of hand, flicking one of the KR-2Ls off for a second or two rapidly brings it back on line, unless the SRBs are overpowering things at an altitude where the control surfaces don't work well.

But a Shuttle-style orbiter is never going to be a sensible way to get to orbit. It was a daft thing in reality, and it's a daft thing in KSP.

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I can get up easy to 20000. Then starts t6he trouble. My speed is around mach 3.35 and i start raising the height slowly. But at around 22000 things getting messed up and the the plane gets out of control. ( FAR / Deadkly Reentry) It statrts to sheer left right til is messed up.

1) Are you using the PID tuner from Kerbal Pilot Assistant? Stock SAS does not work well with FAR unless you tune its sensitivity down a fair way.

2) If you could post some screenshots from immediately before/during/after the plane goes out of control, it would help in figuring out what's going on.

[Nowater]

I will do some screenies tomorrow.

What is ur setting with Deadly and Far? original or changed something?

Edited January 30, 2015 by Nowater