700

[technus]

The goal is to make an airplane that can reach 700 m/s within 1 minute of the launch. Easy mode would let you use srbs and rockets. Hard mode is only jet engines. Super hard mode is plane that (jet engines only) can reach orbital velocity in 3 minutes.

Good luck, and have fun.

[tutrakan4e]

Some questions come to my mind:

1. What classifies as an airplane? Can you put 20 SRBs and 2 flaps and call it a plane?

2. Is infinite fuel allowed?

3. Are mods allowed?

4. Can you do that in Stock? Have you done it before?

[technus]

Some questions come to my mind:

1. What classifies as an airplane? Can you put 20 SRBs and 2 flaps and call it a plane?

2. Is infinite fuel allowed?

3. Are mods allowed?

4. Can you do that in Stock? Have you done it before?

good point.

And airplane needs to be able to glide with wings. so 2 flaps and an srb won't count.

It has to be stock and I have done easy and hard mode before. Not so sure about super hard mode though.

you can not use infinite fuel on anything except super hard mode

[Starwhip]

"Except on super hard mode"???

That makes it easier. One might need to refine this challenge a little.

Unless intakes do not function with infinite fuel, all you would need is one intake, some wings, and X jet engines.

[MarvinKitFox]

"Except on super hard mode"???

That makes it easier. One might need to refine this challenge a little.

Unless intakes do not function with infinite fuel, all you would need is one intake, some wings, and X jet engines.

With this recipe, I can fly a jet to the Mun in 18 minutes.

Yes, infinite fuel prevents air starvation.

The jets still lose power by altitude, but still deliver about 1g of effective thrust at 3000 km alt

superhard mode:

700m/s in 4 seconds, orbital velocity (i.e. 2250m/s) in 23 sec.

actually applying this velocity in any direction than straight up..... is left as an exercise to the student.

No, this is not an entry.

It is merely a critique on the challenge criteria.

Edited September 8, 2014 by MarvinKitFox

[Pds314]

Well, nobody said anything about staging, so I hereby say that if you strap a tiny glider on to a massive SRB or array of massive SRBs, that should count.

[Alooohaaa]

I see a lot of exploitation oriented questions up here. Airplane in my book means a plane with a cockpit, yaw, pitch and roll control able of horizontal take-off and landing without a help of a 2nd craft and do it repeatable without the need of replacing HW just refueling.

For the above mentioned I am going to assume thats how it works and start to make my entry

Cheers

[Alooohaaa]

After a bit of playing Around I proudly present you the mighty Rapid 2 Plane which reached 700 m/s at approx 54sec however it wasnt documented (slow fingers ) therefore here you go 715m/s at 55 sec...

I will get back to work now but will try to make a new one tomorrow maybe even tonight...

[Alooohaaa]

AAAAND After even more messing around the mighty TOWER OF POWER:

731m/s at 38sec....

And a proof it is a real plane...

Please note that the RCS tanks are there as ballast weight in order to keep the planes balance...

Edited September 8, 2014 by Alooohaaa

[SpaceOddity]

Super hard mode is plane that (jet engines only) can reach orbital velocity in 3 minutes.

Could you elaborate? What do you mean by reaching orbital velocity?

IMO, you should add a requirement that the plane should be able to fly some distance (for example 100km) under no more than 60kN of thrust. This would eliminate all the rockets with winglets.

Anyway this is my entry:

700m/s @40s

Edit - I figured out why I've been running out of disk space, so full flight now.

Edited September 9, 2014 by SpaceOddity