SSTO/Spaceplane/Airplane Design Contest II: Akademy Awards

[Hodo]

The mass settings in FAR also increase the wings attachment strength. Which is handy.

I generally dont use it much, I adjust the mass down to .6 and then use my hidden strut method of strengthening a wing. It increases the parts count but it isnt that bad, I think I use on average 6 struts per wing.

[Wanderfound]

Flight-wise it's very much the same, but there are apparently options in FAR like Wing Mass/Strength that do not exist in NEAR. It's likely a NEAR plane will fly in FAR, but not the other way 'round. I was testing Wanderfound's planes especially and thought it was very odd they were incapable of landing. Now I know why. Though I'm not entirely sure what the mass is for.

Stock wings in FAR used to be modelled on glider wings; very light, very fragile. Now, by default, they're modelled on fighter wings; very tough, very heavy. But they can be adjusted back down to what they were, or up even higher for ridiculousness value. NEAR wings have the weight of old stock wings.

Although your ship flew fine in FAR, it would have been carrying a fair bit more weight than it was designed for. This likely explains the thrust/AoA/pitchup issues I had. Most of my stuff is set with the wings halfway between FAR and NEAR, with the tailfins a bit lighter still.

[Alshain]

Makes sense. I just flew the Scapa around and it did much better this time. I'll start posting new reviews soon.

[Wanderfound]

Makes sense. I just flew the Scapa around and it did much better this time. I'll start posting new reviews soon.

Yeah, the weight balance is particularly key on that one, because I used the weight tuning to counteract the thrust asymmetries of the stacked-engine design. And it's designed to make use of its extra-strength wings for low-altitude supersonic nonsense.

[Rakaydos]

I know that when I "weighted" the large deltas of the Manticore v2, I gave the foward delta wing far more weight than it needed aerodynamically, to pull the center of mass foreward- then I used it as a structural piece to strut the more flimsy rear wings to.

[Alshain]

Hodo, I was unable to load your part due to a missing mumech.MJ2.AR202. I don't know what that is but I have all the mods you listed.

[INTERKOSMOS]

- Not sure how to use the landing struts as there doesn't seem to be a matching pair at the top of the aircraft.

I'm not sure if my English is good enough to explain it, but i'll try.

Struts are there only to assist in vertical landing (or rather: vertical-to-horizontal landing). Right after touchdown (with nose at about 80 deg up), you should slowly pitch down and go from vertical to horizontal position, and then place main landing gear on the ground. Of course, you should do that only on low gravity bodies.

Edited November 23, 2014 by INTERKOSMOS

[Hodo]

Hodo, I was unable to load your part due to a missing mumech.MJ2.AR202. I don't know what that is but I have all the mods you listed.

You have Mechjeb?

If not I can take the MJ module off, I think that is what is causing the issue. It has no affect on the crafts performance.

[Alshain]

You have Mechjeb?

If not I can take the MJ module off, I think that is what is causing the issue. It has no affect on the crafts performance.

No, but i can get it. It just needs the part, I did the same thing with RemoteTech and TAC LS for other planes, installed the parts, not the plugins.

EDIT: yep, that's what was missing.

Edited November 22, 2014 by Alshain

[INTERKOSMOS]

My vote in category Stock Aero - Best Light Cargo Spaceplane

Fenya - Wasp - I don't think this plane belong to this category, since it can't carry any cargo....

Batz_10K - Serpens-C - Solid SSTO, it can easly reach LKO, deploy cargo and return. In atmosphere, it's nose tends to go down, so SAS should be turned on all the time. It's also a bit clumsy and generally unpleasant to fly. But other than that, it's a good design.

Roflcopterkklol - Titan Hunter Mk5 SSTO - Big and laggy plane. Ugly too, but suprisingly easy to control. It requires long runway to takeoff, but landing is easy, even in "less than optimal" conditions (honestly I trided to crash it at low angle with landing gear deployed, to see hundreds exploding parts, but plane took it like a boss). Reaching LKO takes some time, but I made it on 1st attempt.

CocoDaPuf - The Space Goose VTOL - Oh, I wanted to give my vote on that plane so much! But not in this category... It's hard not to admire that great amount of work and attention to details, versatility, and beauty. But this is not the most efficiet cargo plane out there. It also have some balance issues (nose pitching down without SAS), and reaching orbit is... well, hard.

So my vote in this category goes to Roflcopterkklol and his Titan Hunter Mk5 SSTO. Congratulations.

Edited November 23, 2014 by INTERKOSMOS

[Anthraxes]

Greetings everyone!

Going to present You my universal Ion Wing MK IV - SSTO

Categories applying for:

- Best light cargo spaceplane

- Best all stock parts spaceplane

Mod's required: None, but I'd suggest You to use Mechjeb2 & TimeControl for this.

Crew Capacity: 1

It's a fully capable SSTO-Aircraft giving you the possibility to visit every Planet/Moon and land/take off from every Planet except Eve / Tylo. (TWR too low)

It's Aerodynamics are well designed, making it easy to ascent from Kerbin in no time, landing on Laythe / Duna and return.

Link to Craftfile: http://uploaded.net/file/wv8hn8kj

Going into Details now:

- Several High-Res Screenshots

http://imgur.com/a/ymHGF#0

- Starting Mass is 5,743t cotaining maximum Jetfuel & Xeon Gas

- Cost: 121183

- Max possible d/V for traveling is 11631 if You decouple the Jet engine & 2 Wings @ Orbit (Just launch Stage 1 for that -WARNING: Jet Engine is neccessary to take off from Laythe!)

- Part Count: 198

- Battery Capacity (attached to the bottom) is around 10,7k giving You around 3minutes20 acceleration without any Solarpower

- 1 Jet Engine, 5 Ion Engines is a devastating combination for both atmospheric & non atmospheric planets/moons

- Additional Science Modules can easily be attached to the front without sacrificing any Aerodynamic abilities.

If you wish to visit Laythe, keep your Jetfuel at maximum (90), approx. 35-55 is needed to get into Orbit from Kerbin depending on Your skills.

Every other Planet/Moon can be visited and landed with Ion engines only! So just hit Stage 1 to decouple the Jet engine & 2 Wings, giving You additional d/V (11,6k instead of 8~) when You reach Orbit and fire the Ion Engines.

Aerodynamics are still 100% fuctioning to glide and easily land on Kerbin / Laythe, although You won't be able to get into Orbit anymore.

My suggestion for any trip is using Time Control when you accelerate with the Ion engines, landing can easily be done (even with TWR 1<) when You carefully descent (Orbit Info & Surface Info from Mechjeb2 work wonders here)

3 or 4 Planets/Moons are 1< TWR at full Xeon Gas, you probably have to calculate before you descent. (Or use Mechjeb2)

Hotkeys: 1. Toggle Jet Engine 2. Toggle Ion Engines 3. Brakes 4. Raise/Lower Gear 5. Toggle left/right Intakes (some +d/V although not much when used right)

How-to Start: Just hit SAS, toggle the Jet Engine, full throttle and aim straight up vertically when you reach 25+ m/s - At 12-14k height, start aiming horizontally slowly and keep Your Vertical ascent at 100 m/s for high fuel efficency - If you closed the 2 sideintakes at the start, hit 5 now and open them for additional Oxygen - try to achieve at least 2200-2300 m/s Orbital before you turn off the Jet engine - Check Your Apoapsis, it should be around 120-130k~ when you turn off the Jet Engine, fire your Ions and keep a small constant acceleration to keep your Apoapsis at desired 100k (less or more Your choice)

Edited November 23, 2014 by Anthraxes

[Wanderfound]

Greetings everyone!

Going to present You my universal Ion Wing MK IV - SSTO

You're a bit late on the submission deadlines, but if the other entrants want to test-fly (and possibly vote for) your ship that's fine by me.

You could probably encourage them to do so by posting testflight reviews here of your competitor's submissions (hint, hint).

[kcs123]

I have updated my review post. I just wrote reviews from my notes taken on test flights. Still have to look what was entry for each craft before I vote for any of them. I hope that I will be able to make test with Hodo's plane that require additional mods and also those plane with KAX mod. Last week was demanding in real life, so I didn't updated galery until today.

I hope that I will be able to test them by the end of next week, but I doubt that I will be able to test much more planes. Still early to say, but maybe we could extend testing/voting period if other people are also short on time to perform testing ? Also, folks that didn't managed to prepare planes for entry could give some opinions/reviews about planes, even bad critics is better then non existing ones.

[Wanderfound]

I'm fine with extending the testflight deadline a bit if needed. No rush.

[CocoDaPuf]

Greetings everyone!

Going to present You my universal Ion Wing MK IV - SSTO

...

Link to Craftfile: http://uploaded.net/file/wv8hn8kj

Sorry to go off topic for a moment, but just fyi, that file hosting site uploaded.net was a real pain to deal with, opening new browser windows with dialogue boxes, lots of fake download links, etc. Might be a good idea to just make a free dropbox account or something. Just a thought, not a big deal.

[kcs123]

@Hodo,

Can you add links to used mods ? I could not find some of them, search function on forum did not give result either. There is also different threads for similar mods, so I still can't load your craft properly. This one is missing or I have wrong version of it:

Procedural parts, BD Armoury, DRE, TAC Fuel Balancer.

[Hodo]

Here you go.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/70676-0-25WIP-Procedural-Parts-Parts-the-way-you-want-em-0-9-20-Nov-22

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/25823

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/85209-0-25-BDArmory-v0-6-1-2-Dev-Thread-%28phys-range-fixes-%29-Oct-27

I wouldn't worry about DRE, there are no parts in that craft from DRE, but if you wanted to update yours it should work without it.

[kcs123]

Thanks, and it was worth to chase down those mods to test your plane. I have updated my review post with FA-106A Thundergod.

[Hodo]

Thanks, and it was worth to chase down those mods to test your plane. I have updated my review post with FA-106A Thundergod.

I noticed one thing in your review, its minor.

You didn't have the craft drain fuel from the MK2 Fuselage first. But I think that is my fault for not putting that in the description. This is why I use TAC fuel balancer. Set the procedural tanks to balance, and the Mk2 Fuselage to Out. Then the craft flies fine in space.

EDIT- and I see you landed without using the drag chute. I use it and often don't use the brakes on that craft because its landing speed is so low.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Hodo

[Rakaydos]

Presenting the Manticore: Never worry about asymmetric flameouts again!

...I think I can, I think I can...

Edited November 27, 2014 by Rakaydos

[kcs123]

Unbalanced fuel tanks could be main reason for problems in space, I have never used TAC fuel balancer, never have need for that. When I need to transfer fuel to maintain fuel balance, I use simple fuel pipes from tanks that need to be empty first to tanks closer to CoM or closer to engines. I could also use some of real chutes to help slow down my heavier designs. Still testing good mod combo that will not couse too much mod dependencies for my planes and that works stable with each other.

@Rakaydos, I have tested your plane, it performs much better this time, but you should work more to improve it. It could be that I'm just too trashy pilot that need realy good planes to stop destroying planes and enviroment.

[Hodo]

TAC Fuel Balancer is one of those mods that I find to be a must now. Only because real aircraft have a way to shift fuel quickly and easily from tank to tank without needing to run a million giant yellow fuel hoses. Like the F-15C Eagle for example, it automatically shifts its fuel load to maintain the optimum balance for the aircraft during flight. TAC Fuel Balancer is just one of those things that if you use FAR you should use something like it to maintain the realistic balance of the aircraft.

And Real Chutes is just awesome. It is like TACFB, if you run FAR, you will want a realistic parachute system that doesn't rip apart a craft when you deploy them.

[Rakaydos]

@Rakaydos, I have tested your plane, it performs much better this time, but you should work more to improve it. It could be that I'm just too trashy pilot that need realy good planes to stop destroying planes and enviroment.

What's failing? Are you nosing up too hard off the runway? or trying to nose up on reentry below 10km? Those are the problem areas I've noticed so far, do you have any to add?

[kcs123]

Well, it's not too bad, part of the problem is that I didn't uninstalled B9 mod, so engines are nerfed and plane doesn't show same performance as without it. Sumed up everything trough galery and notes taken on test flight. I don't want to spam whole thread, so check spoiler section in my review post.

[Rakaydos]

...Not sure why everyone seems to be able to kill my plane. :/

I mean, the brake problem was ideentified, but not updated before the v3 update, which I havnt posted yet. But other than trying to operate the plane under 150m/s, which it wasnt designed for, I'm not sure why people are having problems with aerodynamic failures.

Which stability derivitive is the "neutral pitch moment"