Help with a space plane design: how much air do i need? How to read the Air Intake

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

Okay it works, here’s what I did:

Per you guys’s instructions I put two shock cones on each of the 2 RAPIER nacelles, and each of the 4 turbojets has one shock cone and 4 structurals. I tried to put them on the sequence suggested that that’s very difficult especially given that the structurals require symmetry, add then need to be adjusted a little. So no, they didn’t go on to ship in the correct order.

Flight profile is as follows: (is there anything I can improve on?)

VTO (takes a while on turbojets), steep angle (45 degree) assent to 7 kilometers, leveling off to 20 degrees above the horizon, in order to do this the ship’s nose is 35° above the horizon (she’s very heavy in the rear). And then maintain this course.

By 10 km we’re at 350 m/s. At 15 km we’re at 500 m/s. (That seems to be the sweet spot, if you hit 15 km slower than 500 m/s, you can’t make orbit – in this ship - with the amount of fuel I’m carrying.)

We continue to keep this track, at 23 km (1 km/s) she gets a little wobbly, we kill the turbojets, the RAPIERs continue on air burning, at 30 km RAPIERs get wobbly, and we close the intakes and switch over to LOX.

From there it’s a pretty shallow but normal orbital insertion.

yay Space!

[GusTurbo]

I hope Squad addresses intake air behavior, because it doesn't make sense either intuitively or from a realistic perspective. There are rules you can follow to allow spaceplanes to be successful, but they aren't rules that make sense.

[Geschosskopf]

I tried to put them on the sequence suggested that that’s very difficult especially given that the structurals require symmetry, add then need to be adjusted a little. So no, they didn’t go on to ship in the correct order.

You can put SOME intakes on with symmetry without screwing things up. Like with the new structural intakes, it's fairly common to make rows of them on the wings. Suppose you've got 2 jets and you want each to have 1 shock and 4 structurals (so 8 of these total) with the structurals arranged in groups of 4 on each wing. What you do is put on a single shock without symmetry, then 4 structurals with symmetry, to make say the inboard 2 of each group of 4 on both wings. Then off with symmetry and attach the 1st engine and the 2nd shock. Symmetry back on to place the last 4 structurals (the outer 2 of each group of 4), then off again for the last engine.

Anyway, glad you got it to space.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

. Then off with symmetry and attach the 1st engine and the 2nd shock. Symmetry back on to place the last 4 structurals (the outer 2 of each group of 4), then off again for the last engine.

yeah ... until "oops oh &%$!" so you start over

and then you notice they're not straight, to you adjust one and then its "oops oh &%$!"

but they need to fix it. fuel flow doesn't make sense either.

But there are limits to simulation. and its a fun game! I think we keep forgetting the "version 0.25" part.

Thanks

[Fenris]

Still plenty of room for more:

http://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah120/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Challenges/Laythe%20Capitalism/screenshot230_zps0ab42b9e.jpg

Nice! Reminds me of an SR-71 ... only bigger and red