Kerbal Airborne Division transport plane

[Redshift OTF]

This transport plane was originally used to take payloads to orbit but I'm tweaking it a bit further, (still works though). In the meantime I am using it to transport the first Kerbal Airborne Division! This plane is able to transport 36 Kerbal parachutists to anywhere on Kerbin for whatever special missions you might have planed.

Comes with Kerbal ejection systems and working cargo bay doors. It can go to space although I have drained it of oxidizer for Kerbin manoeuvres.

Obviously it is quite difficult to fill it with 36 Kerbals so I designed a Kerbal loading system to make things easier:

The quickest way to load the Kerbals is to click a Kerbal to EVA on the bottom right panel, (not the 2 pilots!), zoom in, and then make him board the seat opposite him. You cannot EVA a Kerbal from a seat so using this method you will always pick the correct Kerbal every time. Make sure that if a Kerbal is facing upright you board the seat on the top row and if he is upside down you board the seat on the bottom row. If you don't do this you'll get a hatch obstruction message. Shame there isn't an easier way to do this but it is worth the effort! Also you want to put the planes brakes on.

Once you have done this press space to release the Kerbal loader system. You might want to quick save here so you can do multiple flights without going through the loading procedure effort again. Don't forget to right click the main cockpit and select control from there or you will not be able to pitch the plane!

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Simply press space to eject all the Kerbals over their designated drop zone. The parachutes are set to semi-deploy at 0.5 atmospheres, (about 3500 meters), and fully deploy 50m from the ground. Don't eject the Kerbals below 50m from the ground or their chutes will fully deploy and bad things will happen. Try not to do any epic manoeuvres when you eject the Kerbals or some of them may end up hitting the wing or get cooked in the engines.

Hot Keys:

1) Switch engine mode, (although you will need to add your own oxidiser in the SPH to make use of this.

2) Toggle cargo doors

3) Toggle front engines. The Kerbals seem to eject fine even with the front engines firing but the option is there to turn them off.

Now, the part count is quite high. You're looking at about 900 parts although 100 of them drop off the plane when the Kerbal loader is released but it's a bit of fun more than anything. Feel free to remove the ejection system and put it in your own simpler planes if you want.

When you eject the Kerbals you have a choice to make; do you keep control of the plane or do you forget about it and switch to the Kerbals when they descend? Personally I like the latter but bear in mind that things despawn when you are more than 2.5 km from the thing you are controlling.

Craft File Download

Good luck!