The Mighty Kurlitzer

[Athos]

Hello again, fellow Kerbonauts! Digging the new spaceplane parts.

So, any of you who saw my .24 craft probably already know what's coming; you know that I like building large-ish SSTOs, and I have, ahem, a certain aesthetic sense. Which is to say, not much of one. I was more than happy to ram-spam the heck out of my previous attempts in the name of getting them into space without needing a complex or painfully slow ascent. Besides, I *like* seeing all that exposed machinery doing its work. But, by the time I managed to get an SSTO with two Jumbo-64s into LKO with a reasonable portion of their fuel left with .24, .25 was on its way. I tabled further efforts until release, expecting better things out of .25's intakes, particularly the shock cones.

Unfortunately, they didn't seem to deliver so much on that front. Or maybe I'm a worse pilot than I thought, that's entirely possible.. I had a very difficult time building a craft that could pick up enough speed before flaming out without bursting into uncomfortably bright flame along the way, so I ended up mounting shock cones where they made sense and spamming structural intakes, since that's at least marginally less ugly than quad-couplers full of intakes mounted all over the wings. I also went a little nuts with struts and canards to stiffen her up and still allow her to lift off the runway.

Anyway, Rudolph Kurlitzer Pipe Organs and Spaceplanes is proud to present to you: the Mighty Kurlitzer! Oh yeah, she's got one hell of a set of pipes:

With my bad piloting, she'll deliver ~4100 fuel, ~4400 ox, 1500 monoprop, and 4 kerbals into 100km LKO, with the Long Adapter's worth of fuel for deorbiting and ~600 fuel for flying home. As always, better results can be had by better pilots. 329 parts, and as a bonus, marginally cheaper in-game than my previous offerings of this size.

Download

Ascent: Before takeoff, activate SAS and resource display, throttle up to max, close two intake groups with action groups 1 (shock cones) and 2 (rear rank of structural intakes). Spacebar to get the party started. Only hit it once, or you'll punch off your nose gear! She isn't safe to take off or land without it. Rotate at the last set of marks adjacent to the VAB. Careful--it takes a short bit to get her nose up, but once it is, it's easy to over-rotate and start tumbling. After liftoff, gear up and 50 degrees AOA. It's a slow ascent, so YMMV, but 2x time compression is safe as far as I can tell. Open intake group 1 at 10km, and group 2 at 17km. Stop using time compression here, if applicable.

Start pitching forward at 18km so you hit zero AOA at 19km. The ship will continue to rise while you accelerate. As your rate of climb approaches zero, pitch up to 10 degrees to maintain altitude until she starts to flame a little bit, then pitch up to 13 degrees to start a slightly faster climb. You're shooting for 1800+ m/s at 28km, before the RAPIER engines switch modes automatically, so adjust your rate of climb as necessary as you approach these figures.

When one of the center turbojets flames out, shut them both down with group 3. Following that, when your yaw starts to get dangerous due to further flameouts, activate RCS; the Vernor thrusters should add enough yaw control authority to prevent spins at full throttle. If you hold your altitude at about 28km, you might be able to eke out a bit more speed, but 1800 m/s is enough for orbit with a reasonable amount of fuel left for delivery.

Eventually, the RAPIER engines will switch modes, and some of the turbojets will spring back to life. Pitch up to 45 degrees to get your apoapsis rising. SAS and RCS should still keep you stable, though you might have a persistent yaw to one side. Once you've reached the desired apoapsis (with a small cushion to account for remaining atmospheric drag), kill your thrust. Group 4 will shut down all jets and toggle all intakes closed. Disable RCS. Above 72k would be a good time to deploy the Gigantors with group 0. Finally, circularize.

Descent: If you consider the Jumbo-64s your payload and empty them entirely, transfer the fuel from the Mk1 fuselages into the Mk2 fuselages, filling them relatively evenly, and time your deorbit so you return to powered flight nearish KSP, you should have enough fuel in the nose cone (don't forget to enable its fuel and ox flow) to deorbit from 100km, and fly home.

Use your deorbit burn to lower your periapsis to about 40km. (I try to place the periapsis over the nearest part of the desert to KSP.) Once you've done that, hit 4 again to reopen all intakes, then 5 to shut down the RAPIER engines and reactivate the turbojets. You may also want to close the shock cones again with group 1; during a test reentry with them open, she flipped and tried to fly backwards. Don't forget to close the docking port and solar panels above 35km.

Let your speed bleed off to the point you're comfortable flying, apply thrust, and bring it home. Use groups 1 and 2 to toggle your intakes, using them as airbrakes as necessary. Use group 6 to reactivate the RAPIER engines and toggle them back to air-breathing if you want more thrust.

It really was a lot tougher to make this one work. I was hoping to *not* have to airhog the crap out of larger spaceplanes with .25. Structural intakes just don't provide a lot of air; their only saving grace is being able to pack 'em in. Having done so, I think perhaps the best part of this craft is her name. It amused me, anyway.

Back to the drawing board for something smaller!

Edited October 23, 2014 by Athos
Replaced download with fixed Mighty Kurlitzer

[nicky4096]

nice plane!

but i was wondering - can you still spam the shock cones by putting them on cubic struts? that would be awesome.

[soulreaver1981]

nice plane!

but i was wondering - can you still spam the shock cones by putting them on cubic struts? that would be awesome.

Yes you can and there easy to select for toggle buttons.

[nicky4096]

Yes you can and there easy to select for toggle buttons.

nice. i gotta try that!

[Athos]

nice plane!

but i was wondering - can you still spam the shock cones by putting them on cubic struts? that would be awesome.

I know your question was already answered, but, I decided not to try this with .25; I wanted better looking craft, and studding them with intakes on struts wasn't doing it. If you're interested, I've got a few other, more practical craft in this post.

[nicky4096]

thanks man.

nice planes!