Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Girlinhat]

As the air gets thinner and thinner there's less drag keeping you from accelerating, and you should eventually reach a speed of about 1000km a second or so.  When you hit that it's almost time to turn on the rockets, try to eek any more speed you possibly can with the air breathing engines.  Then right when you think they are about to cut out, kill the jets, toggle all the air intakes off, kick on the rockets, and pull up for space.  Ones yer AP is out of atmosphere, add another 1000km a second to your orbital speed and you should be in orbit.

An even better way to do this is to have 1 central turbojet.  You can have others on the wings as well, but a single jet gives you one big advantage.  When you get up to VERY thin atmosphere, cut off any side jets - if they burnout, you'll start spinning - and leave your center jet on as you turn on the main rockets and aim up.  The single jet will eventually flameout, but it won't cause you to spin because it's in the center.  You can turn it off at your leisure later, as you ascend via traditional rocket.

[Facekillz058]

Alrighty, thanks again guys. I'll try all this tomorrow when I have.

[Greiger]

As the air gets thinner and thinner there's less drag keeping you from accelerating, and you should eventually reach a speed of about 1000km a second or so.  When you hit that it's almost time to turn on the rockets, try to eek any more speed you possibly can with the air breathing engines.  Then right when you think they are about to cut out, kill the jets, toggle all the air intakes off, kick on the rockets, and pull up for space.  Ones yer AP is out of atmosphere, add another 1000km a second to your orbital speed and you should be in orbit.

An even better way to do this is to have 1 central turbojet.  You can have others on the wings as well, but a single jet gives you one big advantage.  When you get up to VERY thin atmosphere, cut off any side jets - if they burnout, you'll start spinning - and leave your center jet on as you turn on the main rockets and aim up.  The single jet will eventually flameout, but it won't cause you to spin because it's in the center.  You can turn it off at your leisure later, as you ascend via traditional rocket.

There's that too.  Does the jet still use fuel when it's air starved?  I thought they did but I never bothered to actually double check.  Saves the trouble of timing yer engine switch, and I bet a single engine feeding off all the intakes can run at an even higher altitude, especially with rockets increasing the speed.  I'll have to try that next time.

And I missed the intake question, I hear ramjets are the best intakes, but I haven't seen any numbers actually backing that up, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Girlinhat]

Jets with no air will not burn fuel.

The 'sticky outy' air intakes seem to be the best, especially as they can be mounted radially and don't take up the prime real estate of 'rocket tip'.  The in-line intake is also an interesting one, in cast you just want a smoothly-shaped ship...

[TheBronzePickle]

I kind of wish there were other space/airports. It would be kind of nice to have a legitimate reason to build a non-space plane.

They could even tie it into the career as a way to make money when they add that part of the game.

[Putnam]

Try heading 120 degrees from the airstrip :V

[Aseaheru]

Yah, theres an airstrip and a launchpad besides yours. Ones fr away, ones a SRB throw away.

[TheBronzePickle]

Oh.

That's actually really cool. I wonder what they're planning with it.

[Sensei]

Oh.

That's actually really cool. I wonder what they're planning with it.

I think it was only ever intended as a target to land on. I wish there were more, if you're trying to explore the world there's not many places to land a plane.

[BigD145]

Eve. Why you have so much gravity? 
My one man rover is stuck on its back and I broke its home base. RCS is not enough. I had it all prepped for 4 separate data collection sets. I even "rescued" a lost kerbonaut.

[Putnam]

Gravity isn't the problem, the atmosphere is.

[BigD145]

Right. Forgot about that. Probably why I neglected to put atmos equipment on the rover. It's a good thing my rescue rocket was unmanned. I guess I can always send another.

I have power still so partial transmissions will have to do.

[Girlinhat]

Let the Rescue Pile commence!

[alway]

So, went to Minmus. Had some unexpected funtimes.

Spoiler: God damnit. (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: More balance than a budha (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Then I landed on a mountain (click to show/hide)

See, this is why I have that funny looking reinforced structure up on top. Those structural pieces will pretty much survive any rolling around after landing in non-ideal locations. By using structs like that, you can keep the forces off the science lab, and protect everything by keeping it off the ground. In that last image, the ship landed, tipped over, then rolled down the mountain on its side about 100 meters before coming to a stop. And not a drop of science was lost.

[Girlinhat]

Might help if you deployed that landing gear...