Kerbodyne SSTO Division: Omnibus Thread

Dump the cockpit for a shock cone and it'll make it to Mun I'd bet Dunno if the basic pod is a tad lighter perhaps?
...now it's a hungry hamster. Why is everything hamsters with me today? :S

eddiew · February 12, 2015

Well it would fly into Mun... just not into orbit around Mun Mixed-mode drones are funny, you get so much out of so little; great for polar orbits of Kerbin to snap up the science you forgot earlier on in your career ^^

Wanderfound · February 12, 2015

Well it would fly into Mun... just not into orbit around Mun Mixed-mode drones are funny, you get so much out of so little; great for polar orbits of Kerbin to snap up the science you forgot earlier on in your career ^^

The docking port's there for a reason; give it an LKO refuel and she's Muna bound.

eddiew · February 12, 2015

Ahh... One orange tanker would fill an awful lot of those little worker bees. All of the graviolis are yours!

eddiew · February 12, 2015

You might appreciate this Wander... to orbit - without using rockets. Getting B9's evil nerf out of my system by doing silly things

Careful economy with the turbojet left a final apoapsis of 60km. Plenty of RCS fuel left to raise and round.
Utterly useless, but entertaining

Wanderfound · February 14, 2015

An all-terrain lander...

Kerbodyne Spacehopper

Flight test at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne%20Showroom/Spacehopper/story

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

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/q4u8wpb75kqfjlu/Kerbodyne%20Spacehopper.craft?dl=0

eddiew · February 14, 2015

Kerbodyne Spacehopper

Heh, getting a 60's sci-fi vibe off this one. Got to love a little retro! Looks likely more sensible for Munlandings too

Wanderfound · February 15, 2015

Kerbodyne Javelin. The newest in hybrid SSTO design.

Flight test at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne%20Showroom/Javelin/story

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

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4dt6ee4ohpxly1/Kerbodyne%20Javelin.craft?dl=0

Wanderfound · February 16, 2015

More on the SRB powered reentry glider theme: Kerbodyne Trident.

Flight demo at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne%20Showroom/Trident/story

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

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/4pra9q3wl7wzppk/KerbodyneTrident.craft?dl=0

Flixxbeatz · February 16, 2015

From the "I can't believe this worked" division...
Kerbodyne Gunbalanya Micro.
-snip-

What the hell, I've been trying to create a small crewed ssto spaceplane these past days, yet always fails due to numerous reasons (underpowered, too heavy, not enough fuel, etc).

And then there's you who can manage to create a really small one but still managed to fly it to orbit.

*cries in the corner due to inferior ssto spaceplane building skills*

eddiew · February 16, 2015

Those SRB + gliders are oddly awesome... they look so dangerous, yet so much fun!

Wanderfound, you're a master of aerodynamics, you might be able to shed some light on this... I've been working towards making a reliable, all-purpose heavy lifter SSTO to get orange tanks (and MKS modules) to LKO. I have

and

Both of them work, and both are a similar shape (by intent). The B9 drone works a lot better though - it's got half the parts count and doesn't lag during ascent, so you can get to orbit in about a few minutes of real-time, where the stock one chugs along and takes longer than the in-game time, which hurts my mind :/

But anyway, my problem is - they both look like catfish x( I can't come up with an MK3 (or B9's compatible equivalent) fuselage that doesn't have at least two pairs of canards on the front. Without the nose-tip surfaces, they simply won't get off the ground until ~200m/s, which is infeasible. Real cargo planes don't have these... but I can't work out where I'm going wrong.

What does a lad have to do to get enough leverage to get the nose of these things off the ground without resorting to this array of tentacles? :blush:

WhiteKnuckle · February 17, 2015

What does a lad have to do to get enough leverage to get the nose of these things off the ground without resorting to this array of tentacles?

Proper landing gear placement!

I mean, you might have actual aerodynamic problems, but a lot of the time just getting the landing gear as far forward as possible and the tail as far back as possible will give you the leverage you need to pull up.

UnusualAttitude · February 17, 2015

Both of them work, and both are a similar shape (by intent). The B9 drone works a lot better though - it's got half the parts count and doesn't lag during ascent, so you can get to orbit in about a few minutes of real-time, where the stock one chugs along and takes longer than the in-game time, which hurts my mind :/
But anyway, my problem is - they both look like catfish x( I can't come up with an MK3 (or B9's compatible equivalent) fuselage that doesn't have at least two pairs of canards on the front. Without the nose-tip surfaces, they simply won't get off the ground until ~200m/s, which is infeasible. Real cargo planes don't have these... but I can't work out where I'm going wrong.
What does a lad have to do to get enough leverage to get the nose of these things off the ground without resorting to this array of tentacles?

Pardon me for answering on Wanderfound's thread, as I've just posted my own attempt at a Mk3 orange-tank-to-orbit on my thread:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/110763-UA-Industries-UnusuAl-Payload-Solutions-%28FAR-SSTOs-and-other-ships%29

From a first glance at your pictures, I would say the issue is lift (also judging from your high take off speeds). My Totale can get off the ground at about 150m/s (with help from a KR-2L:)) for a weight of 230 tonnes, and, according to FAR, 242 square meters of wing. I'd be interested to know how this compares with your designs? Building this kind of monstrosity is certainly a pain due to part count issues and lack of large wings, landing gear, and other details...

If you're talking about real cargo aircraft, to give an example, a C-17 has a similar max weight to Totale with 350 square meters of wing. But it won't fly to orbit at Mach 4. Our designs are all completely impossible by any real-world aerodynamic and structural standards, it's just a question of what FAR and KSP physics allow you to do.

Wanderfound · February 17, 2015

What does a lad have to do to get enough leverage to get the nose of these things off the ground without resorting to this array of tentacles?

Take a look at what I did with the Constellation and Titan 8. It's all about having enough wing that you can get a <10Ã‚Â° AoA for level flight at runway speeds, and enough tail clearance that you can hit that AoA on the ground. If you've got your rear gear just behind CoM as you should, it doesn't take a lot of control authority to lift the nose.

The soon-to-arrive larger landing gear will make it easier.

Edited February 17, 2015 by Wanderfound

blowfish · February 17, 2015

But anyway, my problem is - they both look like catfish x( I can't come up with an MK3 (or B9's compatible equivalent) fuselage that doesn't have at least two pairs of canards on the front. Without the nose-tip surfaces, they simply won't get off the ground until ~200m/s, which is infeasible. Real cargo planes don't have these... but I can't work out where I'm going wrong.
What does a lad have to do to get enough leverage to get the nose of these things off the ground without resorting to this array of tentacles?

Check out a couple of my designs: here and here. You don't need a huge amount of control surface to get off the runway at ~150m/s (which is fast but manageable) - as Wanderfound said having good tail clearance and the ability to pivot easily on the rear gear is important. I would add a couple of things - your CoL should be just behind your CoM, this will make it a lot easier to pitch up, and the farther your pitch control surfaces are from the CoM the more effective they will be. The two SSTOs in my first link are only using the canards for pitch control (and thrust vectoring but I often turn that off anyway because it's too much).

eddiew · February 17, 2015

Ooo, cheers guys, more answers than I bargained for - thank you

Proper landing gear placement!

Maybe it is that simple... I bet I've placed it relative to an empty plane, then the CoM moved when I stuck a heavy load in there :blush:

Pardon me for answering on Wanderfound's thread, as I've just posted my own attempt at a Mk3 orange-tank-to-orbit on my thread:

Not at all, all advice is useful. I'll check my wing area when I get chance later. But wow, that's a heavy looking cargo plane xD I tried an MK3 with just one orange on either wing, and it was ample. Unless you want to take your refueller tank to Duna

Take a look at what I did with the Constellation and Titan 8. It's all about having enough wing that you can get a <10Ã‚Â° AoA for level flight at runway speeds, and enough tail clearance that you can hit that AoA on the ground.

The AoA that FAR reckons I'll need at mach 0.4 is about 8 degrees... I think maybe I'm just being a tard and not realising that a heavy load has moved my CoM forward. With the drone in particular, it's hard to get weight to the front, so there's a fair bit of shift during flight.

Check out a couple of my designs: here and here. You don't need a huge amount of control surface to get off the runway at ~150m/s (which is fast but manageable) - as Wanderfound said having good tail clearance and the ability to pivot easily on the rear gear is important.

I'll check the CoL, cheers - it's definitely behind the CoM, I'm just not sure how far. The drone has issues with lack of weight at the front, so I also have to account for losing the tank in LKO moving the CoM back. Which unfortunately does mean the gear may have to stay further back than I'd like. Might see if I can drag the engines even further forward...

blowfish · February 17, 2015

I'll check the CoL, cheers - it's definitely behind the CoM, I'm just not sure how far. The drone has issues with lack of weight at the front, so I also have to account for losing the tank in LKO moving the CoM back. Which unfortunately does mean the gear may have to stay further back than I'd like. Might see if I can drag the engines even further forward...

It helps to line up the CoM with the center of the cargo bay, at least approximately. You might notice that I put a lot of structural padding (empty fuselages and cargo bays) near the front of my SSTOs to balance out engines and wings which are toward the rear

EDIT: As a somewhat cruder alternative, you could retract the rearmost landing gear for take off and deploy them for landing.

Edited February 17, 2015 by blowfish

eddiew · February 17, 2015

It helps to line up the CoM with the center of the cargo bay, at least approximately. You might notice that I put a lot of structural padding (empty fuselages and cargo bays) near the front of my SSTOs to balance out engines and wings which are toward the rear
EDIT: As a somewhat cruder alternative, you could retract the rearmost landing gear for take off and deploy them for landing.

I've been trying to do this, but with 1.5 bays it was starting to look ridiculously long. Right now, the CoM is inside the bay, but much nearer the back than the front. Problem with a drone is there's just nothing heavy to put up front as counterbalance. Tempted to wang a cockpit on it; the extra mass on a 120t plane won't actually make much difference to the speed/range I suspect, but it'll help shift the CoM. I can drag the engines forward a bit more, too.

Not a bad idea with the double set of landing gear though...

And I like how minimal your MK3 lifter looks. Does the really pointy nose-tail help, or is it just aesthetics?

Edited February 17, 2015 by eddiew

blowfish · February 17, 2015

And I like how minimal your MK3 lifter looks. Does the really pointy nose-tail help, or is it just aesthetics?

It makes a difference, but probably not all that much if you're not using AJE (which I am - the idea is that ascents with AJE require relatively high dynamic pressure through the whole flight so hypersonic drag actually matters). You could probably replace it with a NCS + adapter and maybe even get a better aesthetic. It also increases the effectiveness of the canards by placing them out farther.

Wanderfound · February 17, 2015

Can't be bothered waiting around for jets, but hate wasting hardware? Got some bulky stuff to lift? Sick of waiting for Squad to get around to releasing circular cargo bays?

Kerbodyne Napoleon. Whoosh.

Flight test at http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne%20Showroom/Napoleon/story

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

Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/95zm18ev9jby76c/Kerbodyne%20Napoleon.craft?dl=0

Edited February 17, 2015 by Wanderfound

eddiew · February 17, 2015

Lol, Wander, I can't believe that thing works! xD Who knew you could get any kind of MK3 into orbit with so little?

- - - Updated - - -

It makes a difference, but probably not all that much if you're not using AJE (which I am - the idea is that ascents with AJE require relatively high dynamic pressure through the whole flight so hypersonic drag actually matters). You could probably replace it with a NCS + adapter and maybe even get a better aesthetic. It also increases the effectiveness of the canards by placing them out farther.

Although alas it does cost you the nosecone intake slot... though I guess it's less of an issue with stock shock cones than it is when losing a big B9 intake.

And I don't think I could cope with a mod that makes spaceplanes any harder than they already are

Kerbodyne SSTO Division: Omnibus Thread

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Join the conversation