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SSTO/Spaceplane/Airplane Design Contest II: Akademy Awards

Wanderfound

By Wanderfound
in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas

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kcs123

kcs123

Posted
Posted
I can use FAR if that works, I just thought NEAR would make the judging go a little faster. That's really strange though, NEAR and FAR are so close to the same thing I wouldn't expect them to be that different.

I didn't know they are so different either. I have installed NEAR and all my crafts are broken, so I can confirm bug.

With FAR everything is just fine, but with NEAR I got only half of the plane, like you have described.

I think that PW and NEAR can work just fine if you build plane from strach in one of those mod combination, but craft that is build with PW+FAR is not working with PW+NEAR.

Fastest way is to use FAR for testing, that will fix my builds. I will try to reproduce same crafts from strach for NEAR users, but I need to build them from begining, probably I will not be able to put all parts to exactly same spot, but I will try to reproduce crafts as close as possible to original ones. Don't know if I will be able to remake each craft until testing phase is finished, but they will be available for NEAR users if they want to use them even after this contest is finished.

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davidparks21

davidparks21

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Posted (edited)

Going for best refueling tanker spaceplane here:

I present a sleek twin jet engine SSTO capable of delivering about a half an orange tank of fuel/oxidizer and some mono-propellant to a LKO (including docking) for a cost of only around 600\F per trip (not including cost of the fuel delivered, 2000\F total cost of fuel delivered + fuel used for delivery assuming landing back at KSC for recovery). Ejects on jet engines alone for an apoapis of 80k/periapsis 30k. Very stable and easy to fly loaded & unloaded, and easy/quick to dock when loaded.

It was used to complete the balanced refueling challenge. So a lot more details can be found in that thread (piloting timing, payload breakdown, cost breakdown).

Craft File

sUWkf1h.png

Full album from the Balanced Orbital Refueling Challenge:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Part Count: Average/Minimal (I'll update a count later, but it's generally quite average, no excess of parts as you can see)

Mods: Only flight engineer; everything else is stock

Flying instructions:

Ejecting on twin jets is tricky. Take off and landing is easy, the vessel is VERY stable both weighted and unweighted. The trick to orbiting cheaply is to eject on the jets alone. However they're not balanced at higher altitudes. The vessel will handle inevitable burnouts and misaligned thrust gracefully, but you need to pilot the ejection properly.

(1) Launch at a 45 degree angle (watch your tail end on take off, it's low) Up to about 20km. Engage SAS for the full trip.

(2) As needed flatten out to keep one engine from going into burnout. Try to hold a vertical speed of 40-80m/s through ~30km while building horizontal speed.

(3) At this point you'll loose one of your engines (burnout), the other engine is then the dominant one, cut back on the thrust limiter on the dominant engine until the second one re-engages. The plane will bobble slightly but SAS should handle it gracefully so don't sweat it (the vessel is capable of flying on a single engine, either one).

(4) Now just keep dropping your thrust limiter on the dominant engine to keep the other engaged. Around 35k you might find you're dropping into negative vertical speed. That's ok, try not to let it drop too much (10-20m/s max), once you pick up speed you'll be able to climb again, ideally don't drop into negative, but don't sweat it if you do.

(5) Around 38k you'll end up dropping your dominant engine down to 0 thrust limiter and climb the rest of the way on the other single jet. Keep climbing at around 5-20m/s or so.

(6) You'll loose the second engine to burnout somewhere over 40k, at this point you should have an apoapis of over 100,000m. If you still have a negative periapsis you climbed too fast, try again and hold your vertical speed down until you pick up speed in the 30-40k region. Don't try a high incline ejection, the goal is to fly it straight until you're going fast enough to eject (at the point that your apoapis exceeds 100k you won't be able to hold the vertical speed down and will likely be pointing the nose slightly downward to keep from climbing too quickly!)

(7) The moment you loose both jets immediately move to a 45 degree climbing glide. You'll see your vertical speed increase while you loose some apoapis height. Your apoapis shouldn't drop much more than about 80,000m, if you're a really slick pilot you can probably hold 100,000 apoapis.

(8) At your apoapis engage the tiny jet engines and circularize for ~40d/v (you should be pulling up a periapsis of around 35,000m to 70,000m)

Now you're free to do docking maneuvers. Note that all fuel tanks but the liquid and the last liquid/oxidizer tank are disabled, so if you need more than about 100d/v for maneuvers you'll need to unlock tanks. If you're planning on docking with something, take off when your target is exactly a 90 degrees before KSC to meet it efficiently.

Landing is smooth, without any autopilot burn retrograde on the opposite side of kerbin to KSC, bring a periapsis down to about 35,000 above KSC and glide in. Keep the nose up to keep vertical speed down to around -80m/s, this will drop you in at about 20,000m just in front of KSC. Bring along 20 units of liquid fuel for some minor correcting burns as you glide in (burn around 25,000m to keep up altitude and speed if you're short). If you overshoot KSC you should be able to flip over and pull a hard nose dive to come into KSC from the east, the craft is well enough balanced to handle this maneuver (~10g's not sure how it'll play out in Near/Far).

Action groups:

(1) Disengage/Engage Jet engines

(2) Engage/Disengage small liquid+oxidizer engines (meant only for small burns, circularization and docking)

Edited by davidparks21
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kcs123

kcs123

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Which links? The craft file? I just downloaded it in incognito mode without any problem.

Craft file and first link in spoiler section. Sorry, just rechecked, it shows preview not available, but I missed download link on same page. I get used to english pages, but that ones shows translated to my native language, apparently something is lost in process.

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kcs123

kcs123

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Even with building craft from strach I could not make PW and NEAR mod to work properly together. I just added disclaimer in my entry post that plane made with PW mod works only with FAR. I will try to add additional craft files if some kind compatibility patch pops up, but that will be out of this contest for some future usage.

Thanks to Alshain for noticing this issue and for fair review on Sporty MK1.

I wanted to have more control with this fast plane, but tradeoff is that is less agile. It doesn't have to be a bad thing, it prevents you to make stupid unsuported moves that will rip parts apart in FAR mod. I'm not so good pilot, so I often do some stupid move that can destroy aircraft.

Besides flaps plane also have spoilers that could be used if plane pitch down too much. Those are attached to brakes, so on landing aproach if you are forgot AG groups for spoilers, you can just activate brakes trough GUI controls on top, so they remain active an landing. Plane is light enough and you can land safely with locked brakes.

Most troublesome part of flight to me is also landing, not only with my crafts, but also with designs from other folks. To workaround of this you need to slow down craft and stabilaze it long before finall runway aproach. Can't give a good advice on that how to slow down plane, but it is designed to be stable on low speeds if you are able to slow it down in first place.

I would not move CoM further back, if I do that plane will not be stable with empty fuel tanks, spoilers and flaps together should help pitching problem with full fuel tanks.

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Alshain

Alshain

Posted
Posted (edited)

Slowing a plane is probably the most complicated part when coming from orbital speeds. There are several ways to do it.

  • S Curves work because your turning your wings into the wind, each time you turn, you naturally lose speed. Just don't do it while going too fast or you will tear apart.
  • If you can time it right you can dip in and out of the atmosphere to slow down, I'm not using DRE for judging here, but that helps when you are because it keeps the heat down. In that case the act of ascending again and again slows you down and you usually don't gain it all back on descending.
  • Spoilers stall part of the wing (usually the flap) and also increase drag. This affects lift and drag. Placing them seems to be where people mess up (I'm guilty too). For NEAR/FAR spoilers you don't want them on the trailing edge of the wing, you really want them in front of the flap ON the top of the wing. Check wikipedia for real life pictures/examples. With B9 air brakes you can create spoilers. Jimbimbibble did this correctly in his B9 entry.
  • Air brakes create drag without altering lift. The easiest way to do this is have them extend horizontally, often i see them placed in strange places which do not create proper symmetry and end up altering lift. I did a horizontal deployment on my B9 entry from the double tail in this thread. You can do it with NEAR/FAR by creating spoilers without symmetry and changing one side to be negative deployment. If you check the exchange thread in my sig you can see the Harrier does this. Again, Wikipedia has pictures.
  • Flaps add lift and are good for allowing some planes to fly slower without stalling. This depends on your wings, larger wings will have more lift already and may be able to fly slow without them, but it also depends on the overall mass of the plane.

The whole idea is to be able to glide to your landing, hopefully never needing the engine. The NASA Space Shuttle didn't have jets, once it de-orbited, no more engines... it had to land on the first try.

Be aware, everything I know about planes I learned here, so if a real pilot or aeronautics expert contradicts me, I'm probably wrong.

Edited by Alshain
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Wanderfound

Wanderfound

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Also updated the Vireo​ review with reentry and landing details.

BTW, folks: I have a very dodgy computer that can't handle a lot of modding. I don't normally use B9 or Procedural Wings, so I'll be focussing my reviews on the stock craft to start with. If anyone else wants to start working through the modded stuff, it'd be nice.

Edited by Wanderfound
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Rakaydos

Rakaydos

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Overall: vastly improved. What we have now is a perfectly functional spaceplane that is pleasant to fly and gets the job done.

However, there is a general theme in the design that all problems have been overcome by the strategy of "more" rather than "better". More wings, more engines, more SAS, more RCS, etc. It works, but the consequence is a spacecraft that is much bigger, heavier and more expensive than it needs to be.

Still: not bad. You're getting the functional basics down; the next step is to start working out how to get the functional effect while also invoking efficiency and elegance.

Thank you for your review- I will be fixing the newbie mistakes (foward landing gear, raipier action groups) in my own file immidiately, and aould like to fix the submission as well.

One thing I would like to add, is that the "more of everhthing" applis to mission payload as well- crew transport, rcs and fuel tanker, and light cargo- the Manticore is a true chimera, a creation that is just a bit of everything.

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Wanderfound

Wanderfound

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Thank you for your review- I will be fixing the newbie mistakes (foward landing gear, raipier action groups) in my own file immidiately, and aould like to fix the submission as well.

While you're at it, you could also use an action group to toggle the intakes; they add substantially to drag, so it's worthwhile to close them when they aren't needed.

One thing I would like to add, is that the "more of everhthing" applis to mission payload as well- crew transport, rcs and fuel tanker, and light cargo- the Manticore is a true chimera, a creation that is just a bit of everything.

:)

Incidentally, as a note to everyone: lobbying the voters and advocating for your ship's quality is encouraged (within reason). It's a contest; give your ship the best chance possible.

(and speaking of Jack-of-all-Trades ships, give the Dropbear a try...)

Edited by Wanderfound
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kcs123

kcs123

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BTW, folks: I have a very dodgy computer that can't handle a lot of modding. I don't normally use B9 or Procedural Wings, so I'll be focussing my reviews on the stock craft to start with. If anyone else wants to start working through the modded stuff, it'd be nice.

If you are already using FAR instead of NEAR, you will not have problem at all with PW. It adds only few parts to game and improves performance in game a lot, especialy with medium to large sized aircrafts. B9 is a bit more tricky, it add a lot more new parts in game, I have to remove some of them ("Structure_HX" subfolder inside "Parts" folder) to make a room for parts from other mods.

Other people that use B9 also didn't use HX parts, so it will be safe for purpose of contest.

My PC is not powerfull enough to handle crafts with large number of wing parts - SSLS4c for examle, I got only few FPS with this one and I can't make a full review for it.

Tested around 10 planes from FAR/NEAR category, prepared review and pictures offline for them, but it will take a while to upload and arrange review on forum for them. I want to test few more and then write post about it.

With lot of people envolved in contest and reviews, it will be good that each of us write reviews in one post similar to entry posts. Like entry posts, links to reviews could be added in OP or in the one of post next to OP.

Just saw your review about Manticore, it is similar to mine about Manticore V1.1, couldn't handle properly to make it fly.

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Spatzimaus

Spatzimaus

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Incidentally, as a note to everyone: lobbying the voters and advocating for your ship's quality is encouraged (within reason). It's a contest; give your ship the best chance possible.

I'd love for people to try out the Sleazy Weasel, my 33-ton spaceplane (formerly entered in the Interplanetary Science Explorer category, the role for which it was designed, but now only in the Best-Looking Craft category thanks to the 3-entry rule), but given that it uses a somewhat defunct mod for some key parts, I'm not expecting too many people to flight-test it. (Although really, that Ion Hybrid Electric mod is still a great thing to have. Good part stats, nice custom models, and fills a necessary niche in the base game.) Still, I love that plane; I just took it to Laythe and back yesterday, using only a single refueling stop at Pol (including a vertical landing on Pol itself) on the way there. I've spent WAY too much time in the editor just tweaking its design to make it look better while still being fully mission-capable, so I'd like to think it has a good chance at Best-Looking, but I'm obviously biased.

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davidparks21

davidparks21

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VOTING:

Question/comment on voting for the best refueling tanker spaceplane, most of the entries in this category don't seem to meet the basic qualifications of a refueling tanker (e.g. it can take fuel to orbit!). A number of the entries can't even make orbit.

Notably:

- SP 40 B: this one was withdrawn as it won't fly in 0.25

- Orzel-4DSR H1HO-V3M: This is more of a general purpose spaceplane, its carrying capacity is pretty limited for refueling purposes

- Matador: This isn't a refueling tanker, miscategorized

- NAFA-7 Mamba Multi-role fighter: This is a sporty fighter, not a tanker

- Spurce Moose: Won't even make orbit, not a refueling tanker

- B-2 Spirit Bomber Mk2: Also doesn't orbit, thus not a refueling tanker.

- Sleazy Weasel 7E - Great looking thing, but not really designed for fuel delivery (nor docking capability); Post doesn't seem to suggest it's a fuel delivery entry; lacking any discussion of delivery capacity/capability

That leaves just 3 entries that meet the qualifications as I see it:

- Erinyes (pretty good overall, if a bit crazy looking)

- White lightening Mk2 (impressive, though maybe a bit overengineered, lacking good docking makes this one hard to vote for as a refueling tanker, though it pulls the largest load of any entry)

- Mysteriously Nameless Tanker - My own (which I don't vote on)

Thus my vote has to go to Erinyes as the defacto winner over White lightening Mk2 due to at least having docking capabilities. Irrespective of all else it's the only entry on the list, beside my own, that I see as capable of delivering a reasonable amount of fuel to an orbital dock, the fundamental requirement of the category.

On a side note, I encourage all refueling enthusiasts to participate in the relatively new Balanced Orbital Refueling Challenge which forces entrants to balancing between cost, efficiency of ascent, orbital docking, payload delivery, and recovery procedures.

Edited by davidparks21
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Spatzimaus

Spatzimaus

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- Sleazy Weasel 7E - Great looking thing, but not really designed for fuel delivery (nor docking capability); Post doesn't seem to suggest it's a fuel delivery entry; lacking any discussion of delivery capacity/capability

It wasn't entered in that category. Presumably a mistake on Wanderfound's part when the Interplanetary Science Explorer category was removed.

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kcs123

kcs123

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We figured out the problem was I built it using an older version of FAR. Manticore V2 fixes the problems.

That explains things, Iwill give this a second chance, got similar trouble with PW bugs that I didn't know that exist, but it will have to wait until I finish some other crafts in category.

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INTERKOSMOS

INTERKOSMOS

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Posted (edited)
VOTING:

Question/comment on voting for the best refueling tanker spaceplane, most of the entries in this category don't seem to meet the basic qualifications of a refueling tanker (e.g. it can take fuel to orbit!). A number of the entries can't even make orbit.

Notably:

- Orzel-4DSR H1HO-V3M: This is more of a general purpose spaceplane, its carrying capacity is pretty limited for refueling purposes

My SSTO wasn't entered in that category. :) I belive it was placed there by mistake.

Edited by INTERKOSMOS
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