how the hell i pilot an SSTO spaceplane?

[ratchet freak]

A thing not mentioned so far:

If you have an airspeed over 1800 m/s on your turbojets, the airintakes are most effective and the jets keep on running. Even when in the recource tab for the airintake the readout is zero. Two RAM-intakes per engine are enough to attain an altitude of 45-54k with running jets. Your airspeed should be arround 2300-2400 m/s at that time you will have to shut down your engines, having an AP already in space and an PE arround 25-33k.

If you can't build up this speed early enough, give with your rocket engine(s) a short burst until this speed is reached (preferably before 34k).

the air intake in the resource tab is what is left after going over all engines and intakes in order of placement (in the SPH) while removing and adding intake air as needed,

if it reads 0 and you are still running then an engine is placed last and is semi starved, however it can read 0.5 and you can still flame-out if you placed all your engines first

best placement for engine intake order is interleaved (engine-intake-intake-engine-intake-intake) so they get starved of intake air at the same time

[capi3101]

Can you even get to orbit on the basic jets?

I think some of the other folks have answered that question adequately at this point. I'd go with them; I've never tried my own self.

but what is the mass you can lift to orbit by that way?

...I managed to finally get this ugly monstrosity design to the point where I could get it into orbit, dock with an orbiting transfer stage, transfer out most of its fuel and land it safely on the runway. Took me forever to get the proper fuel balance for landing back down though...with the orange tank fully emptied, she was flip-happy, even with the RCS tank ballast system I'd set up (the rear one's full at launch, the forward one's empty; in orbit I pump from rear to front to move the center of mass forward).

Flying spaceplanes? I have that down. Building spaceplanes? I still have some issues...

[JtPB]

Without going for huge Whackjobbian sillyness? About 100 ton.

Doing it in a few launches and assembling in orbit is usually simpler, though.

See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90337-Economic-Fuel-to-Oribit/page5?p=1361984#post1361984 for an example.

wow, that awesome! but the cargo bay is quite small for that, isnt it?

also, that's a mod. i seek for stock things(fortunately this will be in the next update )

A thing not mentioned so far:

If you have an airspeed over 1800 m/s on your turbojets, the airintakes are most effective and the jets keep on running. Even when in the recource tab for the airintake the readout is zero. Two RAM-intakes per engine are enough to attain an altitude of 45-54k with running jets. Your airspeed should be arround 2300-2400 m/s at that time you will have to shut down your engines, having an AP already in space and an PE arround 25-33k.

If you can't build up this speed early enough, give with your rocket engine(s) a short burst until this speed is reached (preferably before 34k).

ok, thx for the note

the air intake in the resource tab is what is left after going over all engines and intakes in order of placement (in the SPH) while removing and adding intake air as needed,

if it reads 0 and you are still running then an engine is placed last and is semi starved, however it can read 0.5 and you can still flame-out if you placed all your engines first

best placement for engine intake order is interleaved (engine-intake-intake-engine-intake-intake) so they get starved of intake air at the same time

i didnt really get what you are talking about. can i have an example in a pic?

[Wanderfound]

wow, that awesome! but the cargo bay is quite small for that, isnt it?

The Wedgetail is a specialist fuel tanker: the fuel is the cargo. The "cargo bay" is just the service compartment, used for hiding unaerodynamic bits from the airflow. For bulk solid cargo, you want something like Brutus:

...or Albatross:

If it's too chunky to fit in an SP+ bay, then you'd go the open-bay option like this (the orange Rockomax is the payload in this case):

also, that's a mod. i seek for stock things(fortunately this will be in the next update )

I use the soon-to-be-stock SP+ bits because they're prettier and allow me to reduce part counts, but the performance is comparable to stock. You can hoick just as much without SP+. For example, the all-retro-stock equivalent of the Wedgetail, the Pteranodon:

Edited October 2, 2014 by Wanderfound

[Hodo]

Wanderfound you really should get B9. I think it would help fill in the gaps where some of the stock parts and SP+ parts are missing.

And that is one of my smaller designs. When I go big...

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I go big.

Those were all done with the old B9 pack parts, I haven't messed to much with the new stuff.

[ratchet freak]

wow, that awesome! but the cargo bay is quite small for that, isnt it?

also, that's a mod. i seek for stock things(fortunately this will be in the next update )

ok, thx for the note

i didnt really get what you are talking about. can i have an example in a pic?

check out the fuel flow rules thread the last post has a setups where the intakes were placed before the last row of engines and the resource tab still has 0.64 left and yet half the engines were flamed out

[Wanderfound]

Wanderfound you really should get B9. I think it would help fill in the gaps where some of the stock parts and SP+ parts are missing.

My laptop is already struggling as is, unfortunately.

[Hodo]

My laptop is already struggling as is, unfortunately.

That is unfortunate, I like a lot of your designs and think with the added parts you could create some amazing things.

[JtPB]

check out the fuel flow rules thread the last post has a setups where the intakes were placed before the last row of engines and the resource tab still has 0.64 left and yet half the engines were flamed out

can you show some graphical explanation please?

[Red Iron Crown]

can you show some graphical explanation please?

The resource display shows what's in the intake pool at the end of a frame. The display will be different depending on order of placement because the intake air calculation goes from top to bottom of the craft description.

Example: We have an engine that requires 5 units of IntakeAir and an intake that supplies 5 units.

If you place the intake first and the engine second, the IntakeAir calculation looks like this:

Intake (adds to IntakeAir pool) +5

Engine (subtracts from IntakeAir pool) -5

Display IntakeAir pool value "0"

So at the end of each frame, the IntakeAir readout shows how much air is left over after the engine takes its requirements.

If you place the engine first and the intake second, the intake air calculation looks like this:

Engine (subtracts from pool) -5 (Taken from air carried over from the previous frame)

Intake (adds to pool) +5

Display IntakeAir pool value "5"

So at the end of the frame, the readout will show a full intake's worth of air.

Note that both designs will perform identically, but the IntakeAir readouts will show different readings.

[JtPB]

The resource display shows what's in the intake pool at the end of a frame. The display will be different depending on order of placement because the intake air calculation goes from top to bottom of the craft description.

Example: We have an engine that requires 5 units of IntakeAir and an intake that supplies 5 units.

If you place the intake first and the engine second, the IntakeAir calculation looks like this:

Intake (adds to IntakeAir pool) +5

Engine (subtracts from IntakeAir pool) -5

Display IntakeAir pool value "0"

So at the end of each frame, the IntakeAir readout shows how much air is left over after the engine takes its requirements.

If you place the engine first and the intake second, the intake air calculation looks like this:

Engine (subtracts from pool) -5 (Taken from air carried over from the previous frame)

Intake (adds to pool) +5

Display IntakeAir pool value "5"

So at the end of the frame, the readout will show a full intake's worth of air.

Note that both designs will perform identically, but the IntakeAir readouts will show different readings.

ok so what you are saying in conclusion is that i need to build intakes first to make the performance of the design better?

[Red Iron Crown]

ok so what you are saying in conclusion is that i need to build intakes first to make the performance of the design better?

Not exactly, as I mentioned in that post both designs will perform the same, but the second will give you more useful information in the IntakeAir readout in the resource panel.

For advice on how to build it for maximum performance, check out this post that clarifies some of the advice already given in this thread. There's some more info regarding building jets with symmetry on page 2 of that thread.

[franciscoexmachina]

Hi

In "Hangar to Landing" (http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Tutorials/Hangar%20to%20Landing/story), it is mentioned the following about SAS:

"Stock SAS is horrid; there are assorted ways to fix it, but I use this PID tuner (unfortunately no longer available). My Kerbodyne piloting guide details some other solutions."

Does anyone know there those assorted ways are, or if the only way is to install a PID tuner mod?

Thanks

[Hodo]

Hi

In "Hangar to Landing" (http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Tutorials/Hangar%20to%20Landing/story), it is mentioned the following about SAS:

"Stock SAS is horrid; there are assorted ways to fix it, but I use this PID tuner (unfortunately no longer available). My Kerbodyne piloting guide details some other solutions."

Does anyone know there those assorted ways are, or if the only way is to install a PID tuner mod?

Thanks

There is this....

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100073-0-25-Pilot-Assistant-0-8-Nov-24-Atmospheric-piloting-aids

[Wanderfound]

Other SAS solutions:

* Wind your control authority down to the bare minimum required.

* Turn off SAS and rely on the FAR flight assistance toggles alone.

Either of these solutions can work, but neither is ideal. Go the PID tuner if you can.

Edit to add: I just realised that the SAS correction stuff wasn't actually in the piloting guide. Sorry about that; fixed now.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Wanderfound