Arqade is a question and answer site for passionate videogamers on all platforms. The Kerbal Space Program subreddit. Delta-v budget - Wikipedia I checked the wiki before I wrote my question, it seems I overread this paragraph Something that I think has become less clear since someone updated the wiki. Once you're at that regime, you should be able to cover huge distances on tiny amounts of fuel. and our Something that I think has become less clear since someone updated the wiki. The Panther engine can hold 19,000 steady and oscillates around 20,000. The most obvious solution is try and optimize your craft for high altitude lift by giving it long wingspan like a U-2 spyplane. This way control surface max deflection can be programmed by an aircraft designer to make . You are simply running out of atmosphere (i.e. Note that KSP planes get one substantial speed benefit that's much more pronounced than IRL aircraft, due to the freakishly small planet sizes: they're actually flying at a large fraction of orbital velocity. I currently have a contract where I'm asked to take crew reports at certain spots on Kerbal at an altitude of 18,000m. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. And it's stock, unfortunately. Any advices for building a vehicle for this task? rev2023.3.3.43278. Why not keep the engine for multi-stage rockets? - Space Exploration She has a horrible turn rate and oscillates a couple of thousand meters at cruise, but it's flyable. AoA and G-force moderation. lost birth certificate near berlin; ksp high altitude plane. I've been trying my hand at some High altitude speedy planes for a while now, but can't seem to get a hang of the altitudes that each engine likes, I know kerbal isn't earth, so looking up the crushing altitude of say the sr71, doesn't seem to apply, but I was hoping that others experiences would help me. 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. principle. Very cool. Ksp engine altitudes : r/KerbalSpaceProgram - reddit You can post now and register later. Or is it the same for all celestial bodies? No, I think it's correct, unless I've got a brain fart going, here. Now I have a plane that will fly around the world at an altitude of the low-20s. Sideslip handling. Maneuver node plans don't take drag into account, so you'll have to overshoot quite a bit to compensate. Your answer got me in the right direction, though I ended up with a different design (see my own answer). The SR-71 could probably fly higher, but it isn't flying any more. Most efficient cruise altitude for jet planes? : r/KerbalSpaceProgram Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. 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. Or it can supercruise at three times the speed of an equivalent Wheesley jet (with nearly equal fuel efficiency) at 15,000 m altitude. 3x06: I design a new, high altitude, jet to collect high atmospheric science. 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? Thank you, I was able to reach up to 24km altitude with this design. Thankyou all, I now reckon I have a much better understanding of the engines, hopefully that'll translate to better aircraft. How do I align things in the following tabular environment? It flames out at 25,000. The second, Wet mode, uses the afterburner to produce thrust almost equal to the J-X4 "Whiplash" Turbo Ramjet Engine, but at a considerably reduced fuel efficiency. KSP Delta-V Calculator - KSP HOW TO CALCULATE DELTA-V 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. Slap that behind a plane you'll be able to go beyond 20km without any trouble. Be sure to have enough intakes (I think maximum efficiency in stock is 1 ramjet intake per ~2 tons of plane, though that is aesthetically ridiculous), and if you're still running short of intake air, you can dip down a bit to speed up and get to denser air. Originally posted by lord bird: yep thats right jool has a surface. I've added more engines, more intakes to no avail. J-404 "Panther" Afterburning Turbofan - Kerbal Space Program 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. Dedicated to the growth and advancement of amateur rocket scientists! This means it is better to have excessive amounts of oxygen than not to. So that means that even if you are inside the atmosphere but still orbital (such as during aerobraking), your science will not count as "Inside the atmosphere", For example, orbiting Kerbin above 250km altitude, your science is counted as "In Space High over Kerbin." Note that keeping the plane weight low is critical, only carry a very small amount of fuel. The Rapier, for example, works great as a high-altitude engine, precisely because it can go so fast. Technically, any rocket engine is also a jet engine as it forms a high-speed jet of reaction mass. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Once I'm near or in the target area, I set the throttle to 0 and start the Swivel. "Whiplash" Turbojet. How to tell which packages are held back due to phased updates. Of course, this thing has very limited range, speed and acceleration because of the extra weight. Basically I can hit a target altitude of 20,000m but can not maintain it. Clear editor. Make sure you have lots of control surfaces because at very high in the atmosphere, there's not much air for the wings to control the craft with. This is the first version. Thanks, I'll go try to stuff a few extra turbojets and intakes on my plane Do you know how many intakes/turbojet are needed to run in the regime you described? I also added a parachute and decoupler since I find it too hard to correctly land this thing yet ;-) I managed to land in the water once, though. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Right now, my big, fat plane has trouble breaking 10 km altitude and 200 m/s forward speed (largely due to its payload). I also set it to enable the cockpit's reaction wheels to improve control at high altitude, and close air intakes to reduce drag. I'm trying to build a high altitude plane and have found out that the rules are different. Also, jets eat fuel at pounds-per-minute -- if you cover twice as much ground in the same time, your plane will be more efficient. Jets drop thrust at higher altitude and speed, but also drop . Incidentally, for these speeds and altitudes, ordinary jets are the better choice. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Alternatively, you can assign the afterburner toggle (labelled "switch mode") to an action group if you wish to activate it with a hotkey. The ideal case for optimally efficient flight (which is what you want if you're trying to maximize cruise altitude) is when your wings are mounted to the body, pitched up just enough that when cruising in level flight, the body of the aircraft is pointing perfectly . - Inside the atmosphere works the same way, except you need to be on an suborbital trajectory. High altitude (~20km) possible with normal plane engines? This thread is quite old. So, to correct " is below crosshairs", what you need to do is to add a little AoA to the wings. Pasted as rich text. Immediately starting rocket engines at full throttle turned out to make most of my aircrafts totally unstable, turning them up gradually worked way better. 1 1: The basics 2 2: Setting it up 3 3: First flight 4 4: Finishing touches 1: The basics First of all, you're going to need an airplane. Is it correct to use "the" before "materials used in making buildings are"? 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. They always seem to lose power at about 15km, but I'm wondering if there's something I can do to fix that. Mounting a time-limited rescue mission for kerbal inbound to Kerbin. So I've created those two planes, both with weasley turbofan engine: This is your problem-- as folks have pointed out, it's not a high-altitude engine. There is a very close tolerance to the two speeds. 1.) Airplane Plus on SpaceDock If you upgrade to the panther (or get one on a contract) that engine can get you much higher. Proceed with caution. Kerbal Space Program 2 . Your previous content has been restored. At about 400-500m/s (~15km), the two engines are even. surface of jool. Ideally, you'll want to avoid these contracts until you get the High-Altitude Flight tech node and the improved jet engine that comes with it. With the tanks disconnected that way, the rockets don't leach from the jets. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. I followed a similar strategy. Are you using Stock or NEAR/FAR? At sea level, it produces 120 kn thrust, but at 15 km altitude, it only produces 13.7 kn of thrust, barely enough to provide any thrust to climb higher, Long and narrow wing has less surface area to provide lift, and at higher altitude, the atmospher is so thin that the lift generated by long and narrow wings is insufficient for sustainable flight. Any of my search term words; All of my search term words; Find results in. Use the reaction wheel to hold your attitude slightly nose down as you float down and you can guide yourself like a paraglider. As long as the engine gets enough air it will work at proper efficiency. That will probably allow you to fly comfortably above 20-25km (or higher, depending on the overall mass of your aircraft). I have enough patience to do the slow flying, but is it horribly inefficient? 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. For all your gaming related, space exploration needs. June 3, 2022 . If you enter the Mun's SOI, it immediately counts as "In Space High over Mun" until you get below 60km Mun altitude. Put a couple of radial mount parachutes just above the com and add a reaction wheel. A temple in the desert (6 29 47 S 141 40 3 W) known as Tut-Un Jeb-Ahn, although this name can only be seen when a vessel crashes into it. What you should be concerned about is atmospheric drag, and that's minimized by high-altitude flight. Really. Long distance airplane flight tips? - Kerbal Space Program Forums KSP Quick Guides: High Altitude Design and Flying - Stock v.23 Unfortunately, most space plane designs are impossible (or at the very least impractical) at your current tech level. This is particularly useful for pairs of engines, since this makes it possible to keep the thrust equal when activating the afterburners. GitHub - Boris-Barboris/AtmosphereAutopilot: Plugin for Kerbal Space high-1 A Screenshot of Kerbal Space Program By: miklkit This is the current version. I don't have the numbers handy, but you can expect something like 400m/s at 15km. 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). What are the units of measure used in Kerbal Space Program? What altitude and speed should I go? High altitude planes - Kerbal Space Program Forums You will find that when you're flying around, will always be slightly below the crosshairs on the navball. Basically you just need to fiddle with it and try some test flights. Then I increase throttle until about 2/3 or even full, climbing with a high inclination (it can also go straight up). Your engine burns the same amount of jetfuel per second regardless of how high or fast you are! Range with this method is pretty short due to drag. Have you checked out the wiki yet? It is somewhat slow but very steady in flight. If it's below the cross-hairs, you need a little more AoA. However, I've failed to build a vehicle to achieve this (without a hundred retries). 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. I should perhaps start trying out NEAR to get ready of 0.90, though. Using very light "engine rich" planes and "reverse swooping" (building velocity at 10km then gently curving up) you can temporarily get above 20km with Wheesely and Juno. Don't worry about Isp. Yes, although they have only been flown with nearly full tanks. with a thrust vectoring range of only 3 degrees. If it's above the cross-hairs, you need a little less. Watch out for your SAS if you're running batteries without a jet for a long time. A well-designed jet with this engine and with the afterburner lit, flown properly, can momentarily climb to 30,000 m altitude. Beginner's Guide: Tips and Basics - Kerbal Space Program 2 Wiki Guide - IGN Building a High Altitude Jet | Stream pt. First is thrust; the higher you get, the lower the thrust your engines deliver. Should i add a larger wing area for higher lift? . Why do many companies reject expired SSL certificates as bugs in bug bounties? Why that? The more successful the flights, the more successful the space program is. You also need to be going very fast to generate adequate lift at high altitudes and unlike the real U-2, you don't need to fear about overspeeding and destroying the plane. Don't be too surprised if KSP's aero model breaks down in edge cases. Clear editor. Pasted as rich text. You arent doing anything wrong. Will post my results. 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 Not only does it conk out at high altitudes, but also it conks out at high speeds, and you need to be able to go fast to fly up high. Using very light "engine rich" planes and "reverse swooping" (building velocity at 10km then gently curving up) you can temporarily get above 20km with Wheesely and Juno. KSP also tends to have very harsh induced drag if angle of attack gets too high. Pasted as rich text. Slap that behind a plane you'll be able to go beyond 20km without any trouble. To reach the initial low Earth orbit of the International Space Stationof 300 km (now 400 km), the delta-v is over six times higher, about 9.4 km/s. Privacy Policy. Does a plane consume more fuel if it flies at higher altitudes? You can spin around the whole world on just fumes. How do you get out of a corner when plotting yourself into a corner. What are the minimum altitudes for each warp level? AoA built into the wing relative to the plane body is called the angle of incidence, just to help clear up. high-2 A Screenshot of Kerbal Space Program As you found out, it basically konks out at 15km. You are just about at maximum speed and at the same time very close to stall speed. Cheers again fellas. 600+ m/s) and low altitudes (e.g. Here's my example of dealing with the situation. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. The Rapier, for example, works great as a high-altitude engine, precisely because it can go so fast. - "In Space High" means your craft is inside the given Sphere of Influence and above the "Space Border" altitude listed in the Celestial Body Multiplier Matrix. Delta-V is the velocity change necessary to perform orbital maneuvers. At altitude the nose goes up and down until it goes out of control. It'll probably be more efficient with more intakes, but I wouldn't increase the number of engines. So the faster you go the higher you can fly where there is less drag. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. The U-2 is probably the highest altitude aircraft still flying. The returns are diminishing so eventually you will hit a ceiling. 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. CONTROLABLE plane for ~20km altitude? :: Kerbal Space Program General The longest flight got them down to a little more than half full. Or it can supercruise at three times the speed of an equivalent Wheesley jet (with nearly equal fuel efficiency) at 15,000 m altitude. Your link has been automatically embedded. At this point the plane plummets, but as it goes deeper into the atmosphere, it regains pitch authority, and at 10km it's enough to regain control and turn it around for a safe landing. i recently used a single whiplash plane and was able to maintain a stable 21-22k meter altitude. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. All the information you could want to know about science, including the altitudes for each celestial body, and what altitudes a given experiment works on are available at: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Science. Most SSTO space planes would be able to accomplish this easily. Simply changing the intakes made it fly completely out of control and impossible to land. : : . From my observations I can say that "Efficiency" is not a good indicator of how well your engine performs. But. 4. Planes in Space - The Kerbal Player's Guide [Book] I'd almost expect it to work better in stock since infini-gliders can be done. Spaceplane - Wikipedia If the wings are flat and your plane steadily loses altitude in level flight at a given speed (as most designs will by default), it means you either need to pitch up slightly, increasing the angle of attack and keeping your vertical velocity at 0 by flying up slightly to compensate for the pull of gravity that lift isn't compensating for. Let me share what I know about jet engines, speed, and efficiency. For example, the RAPIER engine doesn't seem as the first choice as the "best" high altitude air-breathing engine but in long-distance and high-altitude challenges it is. alternatively, combine a liquid fuel rocket into your plane. You cannot paste images directly. Why do small African island nations perform better than African continental nations, considering democracy and human development? By climbing, you reduce drag, exponentially with altitude. - Spamming airintakes didn't help. Sustained flight at over 20km requires at a minimum the Panther in Afterburning mode. So I'm pretty darn new to KSP, and my career has barely gotten started, and the jobs for crew observations seem to dominate I start with the normal jet engines (which takes almost the complete runway). So if you replace the turbos with basic jets, you will have more thrust from the ground up, and your vessel will weigh slightly less. Pvt. This thread is quite old. Make sure you've angled your wings up slightly so that you provide enough lift for a 0 angle of attack at top speed. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one. It only takes a minute to sign up.