Firestorm mk4: SSTO spaceplane (refined and rebuilt for 0.24)

[1greywind]

Last winter I have build the family of space planes sharing common architecture. Now I proudly present the next generation of this design, refined and rebuild for KSP 0.24.2:

Description

The Firestorm mk4 is SSTO spaceplane with VTOL landing ability. The space plane centers of mass is not moving during flight. All engines (air, orbital and landing) and RCS thrusters are carefuly placed in such way, so no parasitic torque is present. The plane has full set of scientific instruments (excluding Sensor Array Computing Nose Cone) and dV for LV-N orbital engines is >4000 m/s then you reach low Kerbin orbit. With such amount of dV you can reach almost any place in Kerbol System: you can go from KSC to Mun, Duna, Lythe and back.

The orbital engines (two LV-N) provide TWR starting from ~0.34 (at full tanks) to ~0.44 (at half empty tanks). Typical LKO-Mun burn duration is ~4 minutes, LKO-Jool burn duration is ~6-7 minutes. You can use x4 physics time warp with no fear.

Tech info

Parts count: 129

Launch mass: 39,896 kg

Dry mass: 21, 036 kg

Atmospheric engines: 6 x TurboJet

Atmospheric TWR: 1.73 - 1.85

Orbital engines: 2 x LV-N

Orbital TWR: 0.33 - 0.5

Landing engines: 10 x 48-7S

Landing TWR: 0.82 - 1.44

Action groups

1 - toggle air intakes

2 - toggle turbo jet engines

3 - toggle LV-N engines (orbital)

4 - toggle 48-7S engines (landing)

Typical flight profile

- Press 2 to active turbojets, set throttle to 100%, takeoff then you reach ~130 m/s on runway.

- Climb to 17-18 km altitude maintaining ~45 degree pitch, then reduce pitch to ~20 degree at 21-22 km, then to ~10 at 27-28 km.

- Slowly climb to 30 km while plane speed up to ~2000 m/s while altitude reaches 30-31 km. Reduce throttle in case of engines flameout.

- At 31-32 km press 3 to activate LV-Ns (at low throttle).

- At 40 km shutdown turbojets (press 2) and close intakes (press 1). Rise throttle until your periapsis is ~100 km.

- At periapsis burn until you are on circular orbit.

Images

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DOWNLOAD (dropbox link)

WARNING: This crafts is not FAR compatible. Sorry.

Feel free to ask any questions. Thank you.

Edited August 27, 2014 by 1greywind

[Roflcopterkklol]

Neato ill have a go of it soon and let you know what i think

Edit:

i had a go, nice job man flies really well +rep for you.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Roflcopterkklol

[The14th]

Nice! I'm glad you made a MkIV

I feel very conflicted about your Firestorm series. On the one hand it feels a bit too large for a single-seater spaceplane, but on the other hand I can't help love the way it looks because it really reminds me of Gerry Anderson's Zero-X.

Either way, rep to you!

Edited August 29, 2014 by The14th
Added link to wikipedia

[1greywind]

@The14th - Yeah, I'm have same conflicting sense that this plane is too large for it's payload, but every time I try to make it smaller it starts to look "wrong". Actually, in attempt to make smaller Firestorm I ended up with this design: The White Swan.

@Roflcopterkklol - Thank you for reply and rep! I've seen your thread about spaceplane fleet show up and thinking about juming in