π The Kerbal Thread - Share Your Kerbal Creations
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The Gnat 2: Now With Safetytm!
Cockpits are heavy. I had to go back to the 45 degree wing arrangement to get this thing off the ground. Which is fine because it looks more "sporty!" The good news is significantly reduced stall-speed. The bad news is, it's still too fast to land the fucker.
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Parachute testing:
Well, it saves the pilot's life, if not the rest of the aircraft:
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Flight testing shows, she's gotta have more wing!
Damn, this ship's getting big for a Gnat. Hey, here's an idea! Why don't we delete the cockpit and just have the pilot ride the fuselag-- oh right.
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The first Gnat I can actually land without destroying! Victory.
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Turns out it needs very little horizontal control surfaces, so let's make it an X-Wing:
Advantages:
- More wing providing lift
- Slower stall speeds
- Docking port can be moved to top of craft where it's easier to use and more free from obstruction
- Biplanes are kewl
Disadvantages:
- Greater risk of ground strikes while landing
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Greater risk of ground strikes while landing
Wheels at the wingtips?
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wouldn't that cause ballance issues?
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Tiny rover wheels or something should be pretty physics-insignificant.
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Some of those parts are massless and dragless.
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riiight... stock physics i've been working with FAR lately... aqll parts have physics significance there
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wouldn't that cause ballance issues?
Balance[1] is a barrier to humo[spoiler]u[/spoiler]r.
[1] Just pointing it out.
ETA: It turns out there was a video game called Ballance.
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me spell gud. ;-)
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Meh, I'll wait until I've failed a non-runway landing first before I "fix" it. I'm just happy I can get its horizontal speed down to 75 or so without it dropping like a brick.
The real issue is actually braking too hard, which causes the thing to tilt for some reason. And brakes in Kerbal are binary, because it's a shitty flight sim, haha.
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Considering I'm playing as Winter Owl, it's weird that I never flagged the north or south pole in previous playthroughs! Well, now I have a capable plane, let's do that:
Take-off and initial northward turn:
This thing cruises fast enough, I think I'll forget about the "space" part of spaceplane-- it'll save fuel to just jet there at 1600+ m/s.
Ok that "north" has gotta be around here somewhere... (ooo nice Mun!)
Passed it! Taxiing back to the pole...
Thank God they put heaters in these spacesuits!
And flagged:
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South pole trip. Flying there's pretty uneventful, it's all ocean from the Space Center. Look how badly this beast wants to get into orbit, it finally flamed-out around 2170 m/s:
BTW, that's a new Gnat, the Super Gnat, using a airplane fuselage instead of a rocket tank in the central tank to provide more flying time. Which is fine, since I usually just ended up with tons of excess oxygen to throw away. Seems to perform about the exact same.
Oops, we're flying TOO fast, passing the pole at 2141:
Wow, passed the entire continent, yikes:
Returning to the scene of the crime at a more reasonable speed:
Taxiing back to the pole:
And flagged:
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Gnat-carrier rocket:
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Did a much better job of Laythe aerobraking than last time with the Spectre. For example, I still have a ship left.
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BTW, that's a new Gnat, the Super Gnat, using a airplane fuselage instead of a rocket tank in the central tank to provide more flying time. Which is fine, since I usually just ended up with tons of excess oxygen to throw away. Seems to perform about the exact same.
Should be a lot lighter, too. I typically add about 150 extra liquid fuel per jet engine so that there's a roughly appropriate fuel/oxidizer ratio once in space.
Did a much better job of Laythe aerobraking than last time with the Spectre. For example, I still have a ship left.
It's hard to get right. Usually, periapsis around 20-22km will do the trick, but it depends heavily on your periapsis velocity, and there's not much of a gray area between missing orbital capture and a suborbital trajectory.
I might have to give this a try for the next mission I send out.
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Should be a lot lighter, too. I typically add about 150 extra liquid fuel per jet engine so that there's a roughly appropriate fuel/oxidizer ratio once in space.
I replaced a FL-T200, so that's 1.125 tons down to 0.9, a slight savings. Stupidly, the Mark I fuselage despite being lighter and carrying less total liquid (150 compared to 90 + 110), is significantly longer. The Super Gnat is getting long enough to look like an actual normal aircraft.
It's hard to get right. Usually, periapsis around 20-22km will do the trick, but it depends heavily on your periapsis velocity, and there's not much of a gray area between missing orbital capture and a suborbital trajectory.
Yeah well, I didn't screenshot it but that back Rockomax Jumbo-64 tank had about 700 units of fuel left in it, all of which was used to slow down after insufficient aerobraking. But considering last time I destroyed the ship, that still counts as a huge improvement.
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Got around to doing a landing:
Learned the hard way that a reasonable landing speed of 70 m/s on Kerbin equates to about 100 m/s on Laythe-- the absolute limit of the small landing gear bay's tolerance on uneven ground. Took me a couple tries to get this thing down without smashing to bits.
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So since I'm working off a new save, I haven't yet flagged Duna. I think to myself: why not just flag Duna and Ike in a single launch?!
So I built this:
I built this rather stupidly-complex "dock a large mass atop a medium docking port" arrangement before stopping to think that I should just turn the whole lander section upside-down and launch that way. Oh well, it works:
Love me some sepatrons!
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I ain't done nothing with it yet, it's sitting in a 125km orbit around Kerbin while I got distracted and did other stuffs.
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Stop browsing around Costco and use that thing!!
We are waiting.
patiently...
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Look action:
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Oooooh.
Thanks.
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Ok. Let's go to Duna. Especially since the Star Trek episode next on my list is Spock's Brain, the legendarily worst episode of original Star Trek by far.
First, let's use the last of my "achieve orbit" fuel to start my escape burn. Burning at about 1/3rd throttle here because this ship vibrates like crazy if I burn full-throttle in space, for some reason. It won't when I drop off the Kerbodynes.
And... reach escape with Kerbodyne fuel left-over. Damn, I'm almost TOO good at building rockets. Although quickly finding out that it has woefully insufficient solar cells, but oh well. Almost 5,000 battery.
"Jim! Where are you going to look, in this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock's brain! How are you going to find it!"
(Due to a bad launch window, I gotta accelerate time for like 10 solid minutes, so.)
"You are not Morg or Eymorg! I know nothing about a brain!"
Finally a burn solution:
BRAIN & BRAIN...WHAT IS BRAIN – 00:09
— Salvor Seldon
Crappy intercept:
Try to reasonableize this orbit a bit. That's Duna as the dark-on-dark background:
Ah well the episode's over, and I'm in stable Duna orbit. Here's a terrible remix to celebrate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLJihpQc9Y
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We need another set of screen caps of a Gnat flying sans cockpit. I like the Kerbal faces in that one. Also, it reminds me of Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.
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I have considered doing a cockpit-less Mun landing. Probably would be less funny than it sounds, though.
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Ok, the next episode is "The Enterprise Incident". Which is actually ok, I think. Let's land on Duna.
Not sure about this lander for a few reasons:
- It's untested on any easier planets, I haven't even done a Mun landing with it.
- It's using a single Rockomax Poodle. Which has a great 220 thrust and 390 efficiency in a vacuum, but alas only 270 efficiency in an atmosphere. (Which is somewhat less than the LV-909s I normally use for landers.)
- It's damned heavy. Heavy motor. Heavy battery. Heavy capsule. Heavy!
Anyway. The fun part: separating it from the rocket:
Hm. Structural element is "jammed" on the docking port of the carrier... oh well, should still work. (And after a Kerbal "unload/reload physics" cycle it might disappear anyway.)
Kerbal thinks there's two probes in orbit? WTF?
Time to fall for awhile...
"Aerobraking" if you can even call it that in this thin air...
Retroburnin':
And in descent configuration (retroburn cut it a bit close-- got waaay too close to cratering!):
Final approach:
Cut engine:
And... landed. I did pretty fucking good on fuel usage, if I do say so myself. A poodle on 1/3rd thrust still guzzles a LOT of fuel.
Not 100% sure it's good ENOUGH for a decent take-off but hey, any orbit is sufficient, I can remote-control the mothership to meet the capsule instead of the other way around if I need to:
Let's have Bob plant the flag, Bill and Jebediah get all the attention:
And... flagged!
There's Bob in the corner. There's Bob in the spot light losing his religion! Or... something.
Let's get out of here:
Per usual, my fuel worries completely unfounded. 181 units left, more than enough to dock with the mothership. Plus I didn't use a gram of monoprop.
Which probe is real, which is bug? I think I have the right one set.
ROFL I was wrong, been chasing a plate of metal this whole time:
Fortunately, it's only 10.8 km away from the real (I hope?) probe.
That's a bit more like it:
And docked, awkwardly. Too WAY too long to get it lined-up for docking:
Final fuel remaining: 91 units. And probably 40-50 of those went towards chasing a bug.
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For me, the best part of these posts is the faces of the Kerbalnauts:
"Holy shit! That actually worked! We are still alive!"
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Still waiting on re-orbit.
Edit And you've now edited your re-orbit into your previous post. Bravo.
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Ok, let's take this sucker to Ike.
First a little housekeeping, fill the lander's tanks from the mothership:
That took enough to completely empty the rear tank, so let's ditch that weight:
Now we're set for Ike:
This is an awesome orbit, I can pass Ike coming and going!
Separation (sorry for dark, orbit works out this way):
Another retro burn:
Final approach:
Cut engines:
And landing:
Let's have Bill do the honors this time:
Liftoff:
And orbit:
I like this shot:
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ROFL I was wrong, been chasing a plate of metal this whole time
BTW, Kerbal lets me "control" that plate of metal:
Of course it has no motors, no SAS, no RCS so... not much you can do with it.
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Time for the trip home.
First a little housekeeping, empty the lander of fuel and monoprop so we can discard it:
Ok, all fueled-up, let's detach:
And back:
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I forgot about KSP.
I need to take a one-week vacation and just play video games and junk. Lately my only free time is at work.
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Lately my only free time is at work.
I burned all the remaining vacation I had this year so I wouldn't use it. My last two days off were last week. Then I remembered that Warlords of Draenor drops tomorrow, and I should've taken this week instead of last off.
Hmmm, I do still have a few sick days...
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Challenge: Accepted
Introducing the Micro-Gnat:
Building this thing with my "no overlapping parts" rule has been a bitch-and-a-half.
Alas, the test-pilot is Jeb who loves this stuff, so you won't see much frowning:
Even when it flips over at high altitude because the aerodynamics are all fucked:
Well sorry, Jeb, she ain't getting into orbit, but that's ok, we can parach-- oh wait I deleted the parachutes. Let's ditch:
Uh. Sorry Jeb.
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Started a new game, doing a few easy contracts. Somehow I ended up with this:
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Working configuration (piloted by robot here):
I don't like the look of it, but it's a new record-winner for fuel-economy. Estimating about 80-90 units to get into the same orbit as the Gnat.
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It's using a single Rockomax Poodle. Which has a great 220 thrust and 390 efficiency in a vacuum, but alas only 270 efficiency in an atmosphere. (Which is somewhat less than the LV-909s I normally use for landers.)
Poodle's a good engine; it beats 4x 909's in most situations. Duna's atmosphere is so thin that the Isp difference on the ground is likely negligible.
I need to take a one-week vacation and just play video games and junk. Lately my only free time is at work.
That's the plan for the second week of my upcoming vacation.
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Ok let's do it all official-like.
The Random Number Gods didn't give me an Orbas to abuse this time around, so I picked Shepgun who has the lowest Courage and highest Stupidity available to me and also sounds like a bad fan-fiction Mass Effect character:
Shepgun (cough) forgot to release the brakes before throttling up to full:
Ok, let's try this again:
Here's those facial expressions people love:
Of course the key to saving fuels on spaceplanes is to climb to the ceiling as quickly as possible before leveling-off... intakes still doing well at 11k, based on the robot-trial this thing should be (barely) able to fly straight-and-level at 26,000 or so:
Eh, sorry folks, Shepgun's passing the abandoned airfield far below at 27k and 1400 m/s and he's become pretty copacetic about the whole affair. Must be those "hydration" pills we gave him before take-off:
Hit "orbit" mode on the navball and my jets are still grabbing air, niiiiice:
Go man go! I thrusted up to an apoapsis of 100k, now it's a fight against air resistance (this time I was smart enough to shut down the intakes, which reduces drag a lot on this ship):
70k, and officially out of the atmosphere:
A 10-second boost to round-off the orbit, and:
Victory! Stable 100 km orbit, only 81 units of fuel used. Less than half the fuel available in this ship.
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Nice gentle landing:
Good job, Shepgun:
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Nice editing, but goddamned that music. Which is fine itself until the vocals come in. Jesus.
Reminds me of the awful vocals in this:
Starcops Intro – 03:04
— davecallaway2001
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Once I get an idea (entire space program on a plane) I have trouble letting it go. But I gotta scale it down, so let's make a Mun-landing plane!
Well she's in the air, but she's a beast to maneuver. And that's about the best climb rate I can manage:
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It's impossible to get sufficient air to a large spaceplane without it looking like fried ass, sadly:
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After reading this thread, I may have to get this game. I didn't need to get anything done this winter anyway...
