rev2023.3.3.43278. its rather flat but its a solid surface. Should i add a larger wing area for higher lift? The returns are diminishing so eventually you will hit a ceiling. KSP - High Altitude Aircraft 16,702 views Jan 22, 2016 172 Dislike Share Save Phoenix Fleet Systems 222 subscribers Have a type of atmospheric craft you'd like to see me experiment with? Now lets combine these two indicators: The best performance your engine can achieve is when you have an optimal amount of Air Flow (obviously) but also the MAXIMUM amount of Air Intake. To get higher with the low tech jet engines, you need rocket assist. - "In Space Low" means your craft is inside the "Space Border" altitude and in an orbital path. So if you want to make a plane go as fast as possible, you want to minimise both angle of attack and angle of incidence necessary to sustain level flight at your target speed and altitude. A full suite of flaps on the trailing edges of the main wings give it exceptional low-speed lift, and small hydroplane steps mounted on each side of the fuselage bottom help lift it out of the water (lowering water drag) during takeoff runs. Chapter 4. Kerbal Space Program Jool Landing Youtube. More air is better. But my guess is that these same general principles would probably apply to FAR, and that all that would change would be the numbers involved. It is somewhat slow but very steady in flight. That annoys me but I can't seem to get a design to make it work. Don't worry about Isp. I looked into the .cfg files and there are no special properties allocated to them. 1Altitude requirement 2Orbit 3Speed, range, and altitude 4Flight duration 5Flight profiles 5.1Ballistic missiles 5.2Tourist flights 5.3Scientific experiments 5.4Sub-orbital transportation 6Notable uncrewed sub-orbital spaceflights 7Crewed sub-orbital spaceflights 8Future of crewed sub-orbital spaceflight 9See also 10References Your answer got me in the right direction, though I ended up with a different design (see my own answer). What altitude and speed should I go? The thrust of jets (turbo or otherwise) depends on airspeed: basics deliver more thrust at low speeds, while turbojets only really come into their own when you fly very fast (which also means flying very high, 20km and over). All other versions are slower and lower and unstable in turns. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. I did some testing and found that the turbojets get the best Isp around 5.2 km altitude, so I was thinking of flying at that altitude. Thanks for asking this, I've been struggling with the same problem in career mode. Powered by Invision Community. From my experience using a panther it starts to lose speed after 15-16 kms, a more suitable cruising height is 9-13km. I'm in career mode (have the turbofan engine) and trying to get some science readings for a mission at a high altitude. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Powered by Invision Community, Thanks, I'll go try to stuff a few extra turbojets and intakes on my plane, I was generally under the impression that basic jets were mostly deadweight on high-performance aircraft: [] at hypersonic velocities. What's the difference between a power rail and a signal line? The sweet spot for the upper atmo engines, I find, is between 10k and 12k. Did any DOS compatibility layers exist for any UNIX-like systems before DOS started to become outmoded? Or try using SRBs instead. She has a horrible turn rate and oscillates a couple of thousand meters at cruise, but it's flyable. The benefits should be obvious. Which lets you go faster, which lets you climb higher. Rationale: If that's all a case of Too Many Words, think of it this way: Suppose you just build a plane the "default" way and don't put any AoA at all on the wings. This is the first version. Your previous content has been restored. Grichman's answer got me in the right direction. Well, this game isn't a perfect flight simulator yet, so it will be difficult to figure out. As high and fast as you can go without engine flameout: preferably ~2000 m/s at 25-30 km (and yes, that's almost orbital velocity). Here's Mr. Manley using it in his tutorial: @Pvt.Grichmann: I think it's at specific locations on Kerbin, not just anywhere above 18km. Can't remember where I saw/read about it - Scott Manley maybe? If your using NEAR/FAR, once you get high and fast, kill the engine and glide to save fuel. As high and fast as you can go without engine flameout: preferably ~2000 m/s at 25-30 km (and yes, that's almost orbital velocity). a screenshot of kerbal space program 2. by: lord bird. Valve Corporation. The Panther engine can hold 19,000 steady and oscillates around 20,000. I would like to know which altitude I have to maintain for my experiments. air) that high up. (Disclaimer: I've never used FAR myself; all of the above is based on my experience with stock aerodynamics. You need to do it with what you've got. That's sub-optimal, because having the fuselage pitched like that means it'll have more drag than it otherwise would have. The flight time won't be as long, but you'll be able to fly a "plane" above 18km. AoA itself refers to the angle of the wing (or the whole plane if the AoI is 0)relative to the airflow. Range with this method is pretty short due to drag. http://www.youtube.com/user/Cruzanak?sub_confirmation=1Quicklinks to topics in this videoJet Engine Concepts: 0:30Air Intakes: 1:13Flameouts: 2:22Control Surfaces: 5:08Flying Tips: 5:57This video will go over everything that you need to know about to design a capable plane that can fly in the thinnest of atmospheres. Clear editor. A well-designed jet with this engine and with the afterburner lit, flown properly, can momentarily climb to 30,000 m altitude. KSP doesn't care (much) about aspect ratio; the total lift is the same regardless of configuration. Let me. Use the reaction wheel to hold your attitude slightly nose down as you float down and you can guide yourself like a paraglider. Now I have a plane that will fly around the world at an altitude of the low-20s. Pretty often, the tail "wiggled" and/or the plane became totally unstable when I fired the rocket boosters. My 'plane science' is more advanced than my 'rocket science' (career mode) because I got tired of seeing all the high-altitude missions I had on the books and wanted to finish them. This means that the only thing that decides wheter your engines run efficient is determined by how much thrust they produce (opt. The most efficient way is, of course, to make a high altitude (or space) plane. Once I'm near or in the target area, I set the throttle to 0 and start the Swivel. As I understand, the OP wanted "the most efficient way to fly", and simply needed a bit of help in realizing that that is a hypersonic, high-altitude, high-performance aircraft which is a RAPIER and a little oxidizer away from being an SSTO spaceplane. Delta wings are able to work better since the lack of lift per square area is compensated by having larger area to provide lift. Check out the website and try the game out for yourself :Dhttps://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ If too little air runs into the turbine your combustion chamber will not be able to burn up fuel effectively due to the lack of oxygen. Is it even possible? You can post now and register later. Proceed with caution. Let me share what I know about jet engines, speed, and efficiency. The longest flight got them down to a little more than half full. Your airspeed is mostly limited by terminal velocity; you can go much faster if you climb a little higher. It will be expensive and time consuming. And it's stock, unfortunately. But a rockets can do it. That will unlock: "Whiplash" Turbojet Which is capable of high altitude, high speed flight. I find that a conservative amount is 2 RAM intakes and 2-4 radial intakes per turbojet. You'll notice that usually your prograde marker is slightly below your pitch. In the stock atmosphere, the benefits of moving faster outweigh almost everything else. This thread is quite old. Your decreased flight time means you probably won't make it to your location. Paste as plain text instead, KSP also tends to have very harsh induced drag if angle of attack gets too high. I'd almost expect it to work better in stock since infini-gliders can be done. Using Kolmogorov complexity to measure difficulty of problems? In the main KSP settings menu you should set the default throttle to 1.0 (technically the above mechjeb setting winds up restoring the default throttle, so it needs to be 1.0) In the attitude adjustment menu make sure you are using the "better controller" Whack the 45 degree phase margin button Whack the restore all other defaults button At that point your engines will be running about .7-.8 efficiency and you will be out of the thicker atmo which will allow you to go faster. Espaol - Latinoamrica (Spanish - Latin America), https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1933948095, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1933948668, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1934517923, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1335577943, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1640213502, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1640214586, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1937826505, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1937931692. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Make sure we're on the same page with terminology. Upload or insert images from URL. If drag were the only concern, at any given altitude the slower you go, the less fuel you need: the work done by drag over a distance grows linearly with speed (the force grows quadratically with speed, but the time falls linearly). The most efficient way is, of course, to make a high altitude (or space) plane. The other thing to bear in mind is that tuning the AoA (angle of attack) of your wings makes a difference. You get tons of thrust if you put it into "wet" mode, but you lose fuel efficiency. Dedicated to the growth and advancement of amateur rocket scientists! 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. I have enough patience to do the slow flying, but is it horribly inefficient? It is usually best for initial designs to be based on logic and real-world physics and then be prepared to experiment with non-logical alternatives for optimisation. In the game, players direct a nascent space program, staffed and crewed by green humanoid aliens known as "Kerbals". What you should be concerned about is atmospheric drag, and that's minimized by high-altitude flight. . As said above, the Wheesley is specifically designed as a low altitude engine. Delta-V is the velocity change necessary to perform orbital maneuvers. I wasn't expecting so many excellent answers! Welcome to the forums. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. When added to a plane it allows tuning of the controls vs speed/altitude/G load/other factors. I was generally under the impression that basic jets were mostly deadweight on high-performance aircraft: while they are superior for low-speed, low-altitude operations, they become deadweight at hypersonic velocities. principle. Alternatively, you can assign the afterburner toggle (labelled "switch mode") to an action group if you wish to activate it with a hotkey. KSP Career: Episode 13 - High Altitude Surveys Mike Aben 28.5K subscribers Subscribe 7.7K views 7 years ago Day 114: A busy day at the KSC with three missions, the highlights being the launch. The U-2 is probably the highest altitude aircraft still flying. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Any advices for building a vehicle for this task? The drag differential is because your long-wing layout is using a bunch of struts, and the reason your delta-wing has a higher ceiling is because it has more wing area to provide lift. Aircraft can be very temperamental to fly, especially on the keyboard. What are the units of measure used in Kerbal Space Program? Either of the two speeds are to be avoided. Or you need to put a little bit of angle of incidence in your wings, which will reduce drag since you don't have to pitch the entire plane up, but will be stuck at a fixed angle meaning you'll have to pitch up or down anyway during certain phases of the flight that the plane isn't optimised for. Air temperatures vary with latitude and time of day. However, I've failed to build a vehicle to achieve this (without a hundred retries). The main body is a fuel tank with a Swivel engine at the end. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. If that's all a case of Too Many Words, think of it this way: Suppose you just build a plane the "default" way and don't put any. The stratospheric region, where temperature rises as altitude increases, spans the region between the altitudes of 10 km and 22 km. For comparison, the second most maneuverable engine is the CR-7 R.A.P.I.E.R. 3.) I didn't succeed with his design, though; I always ended up having somehow unstable airplanes. Just sounds like the engines can't get enough air, in KSP high speed also generates air intake so I'm guessing what is happening is that you have the initial speed to get to altitude but the lack of air at altitude is starving the engine resulting in lower speed which further reduces air intake and it cascades until either the engine shuts down or you return to denser atmosphere at a lower altitude. When I say ", You know you've nailed it correctly if, when you're in level flight, your. Personally, I don't enjoy survey contracts on Kerbin. That's all true, but just read the OP: hypersonic appears to be completely out of the question. You do get certain inertial and lever-arm effects, but those aren't really relevant to 'do I have enough lift to stay up'. At 3500m, you have half the drag you'd have at the surface; at 7km, 1/4 the drag, at 10.5km, 1/8 the drag, etc. Strictly speaking this optimisation is unnecessary, but it can win you a bit of range. Note that keeping the plane weight low is critical, only carry a very small amount of fuel. If you enter the Mun's SOI, it immediately counts as "In Space High over Mun" until you get below 60km Mun altitude. Thankyou all, I now reckon I have a much better understanding of the engines, hopefully that'll translate to better aircraft. It'll probably be more efficient with more intakes, but I wouldn't increase the number of engines. They will someday, but they don't now. So I'm pretty darn new to KSP, and my career has barely gotten started, and the jobs for crew observations seem to dominate Content titles and body; Content titles only It's Kerbal Space Program v.22! From my observations I can say that "Efficiency" is not a good indicator of how well your engine performs. Press J to jump to the feed. Best way to get down into thicker air and land is to perform what dogfighters called a 'Split-S'.