Basically you just need to fiddle with it and try some test flights. Planes in Space. Turbojets are so ridiculously efficient that it doesn't really matter. But since when do Kerbals wait for ideal conditions? Another approach, which I was managing with some success before I figured out jets, is to build a rocket and catapult yourself towards the measurement point. principle. Laythe - Kerbal Space Program Wiki Building a High Altitude Jet | Stream pt. Or try using SRBs instead. KSP also tends to have very harsh induced drag if angle of attack gets too high. As has been said, ISP is nothing to worry about. 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. However, I've failed to build a vehicle to achieve this (without a hundred retries). Because of the exponential nature of the rocket equationthe orbital rocket needs to be considerably bigger. Rockets aren t the only way to get to space. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Once it's in the air, it's stable and easy to fly and manages to fly at altitudes between 11k 12k without problems. I don't have that other stuff yet. Let me share what I know about jet engines, speed, and efficiency. Incidentally, for these speeds and altitudes, ordinary jets are the better choice. Once I'm near or in the target area, I set the throttle to 0 and start the Swivel. The easiest "default" way to build a plane in KSP-- i.e. Ksp engine altitudes 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. Tutorial: Making the AI fly | BDArmory Wikia | Fandom Under some circumstances, you may want to reduce the engine gimbal range or disable it altogether, particularly when flying at high speeds (e.g. You will find that when you're flying around, will always be slightly below the crosshairs on the navball. What plane in existence can fly at the highest altitude, and - Quora But a rockets can do it. How to know if you've nailed it perfectly: when you're cruising in level flight, you want the marker to be precisely centered in your navball cross-hairs. How do I align things in the following tabular environment? Also, Valley and Theomon fly to different corners of Kerbin and three mapping satellites are launched. Subscribe - http://www.youtube.com/c/MikeAben?sub-confirmation=1 Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/MikeAbenPatreon supporters receive early, ad-free, access to videos, kOS and craft files, and more. 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This can be done with moar boosters or more calculated wing and body design, depending on the aero model you use. If it's above the cross-hairs, you need a little less. How can I make money in the new career mode? I'm going to try adding a small solid fuel rocket engine toned down to get the initial height then dump it, as well as check into that high end gear mentioned. Paste as plain text instead, KSP Quick Guides: High Altitude Design and Flying - Stock v.23 Stoober AK 3.32K subscribers Subscribe 21K views 8 years ago This tutorial will cover designing and flying a plane that can soar. Be aware that heat buildup can gradually become a problem when the afterburners are used in sustained flight. The Kerbal Space Program subreddit. 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. Range with this method is pretty short due to drag. From my observations I can say that "Efficiency" is not a good indicator of how well your engine performs. *I use FAR these days, which basically means completely replacing every spaceplane and rocket you ever designed to account for its much more realistic aerodynamics. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. - "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. TroubleshootingMechJebPVG - KSP-RO/RP-0 GitHub Wiki Either of the two speeds are to be avoided. Cheers again fellas. That's all true, but just read the OP: hypersonic appears to be completely out of the question. The flight time won't be as long, but you'll be able to fly a "plane" above 18km. (Disclaimer: I've never used FAR myself; all of the above is based on my experience with stock aerodynamics. Have a plane that ditches its wings and rockets up to 18km once you reach the right point. . This works, but it's not optimal. This means that the only thing that decides wheter your engines run efficient is determined by how much thrust they produce (opt. KSP Delta-V Calculator - KSP HOW TO CALCULATE DELTA-V This causes the body of your plane to generate additional drag. Third, which I haven't given a good try, would be a carefully-timed deorbit maneuver so you come down through your desired location as you fall from space. 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. You cannot paste images directly. Either finish the low-altitudes and then spend all your fuel on the high-altitude boost, or do the boost first and save a little fuel or try to hit the rest through unpowered gliding. However, it seems as if your delta wing has has more area, might that be it? - "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. Kerbal Space Program 2 . I have enough patience to do the slow flying, but is it horribly inefficient? Hopefully this will be helpful to you. Personally, I don't enjoy survey contracts on Kerbin. For comparison, the second most maneuverable engine is the CR-7 R.A.P.I.E.R. 600+ m/s) and low altitudes (e.g. I didn't succeed with his design, though; I always ended up having somehow unstable airplanes. The benefits should be obvious. 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. Welcome to the forums. Using indicator constraint with two variables, Is there a solution to add special characters from software and how to do it. So now to come to an end: from my experience I'd say for a medium sized aircraft it is best to fly between 12-13 km. The more successful the flights, the more successful the space program is. This is my current best hi alt plane. Press J to jump to the feed. The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one. It'll probably be more efficient with more intakes, but I wouldn't increase the number of engines. Note that you need to activate the afterburner ("Wet Mode") manually. Only the fuel tanks attached to rockets have any oxidiser in them. If you've attached them to your fuselage with zero AoA, what that means is that when you fly, you're going to have to have the entire plane pitched slightly above in order to generate lift. Anyway thanks in advance. But. Why is there a voltage on my HDMI and coaxial cables? 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. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. 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. Use the reaction wheel to hold your attitude slightly nose down as you float down and you can guide yourself like a paraglider. 1 Pod outside the level 3 VAB. Or it can supercruise at three times the speed of an equivalent Wheesley jet (with nearly equal fuel efficiency) at 15,000 m altitude. I am currently designing a mission that will involve several very long distance plane flights. It's Kerbal Space Program v.22! It may work with stock too, I just don't know. Does a plane consume more fuel if it flies at higher altitudes? (the engines will use very little at high altitude anyway). Even better, burn a little more, and you can pop out of the atmosphere for a bit and avoid all that nasty drag stuff. And it's stock, unfortunately. Alternatively, you can assign the afterburner toggle (labelled "switch mode") to an action group if you wish to activate it with a hotkey. Welcome to the forums, ZDW. Additionally please know that .16 will feature new code that will change the way space planes work in every aspect. 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). Ksp engine altitudes : r/KerbalSpaceProgram - reddit The stratospheric region, where temperature rises as altitude increases, spans the region between the altitudes of 10 km and 22 km. Air Flow + max. Arqade is a question and answer site for passionate videogamers on all platforms. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Mounting a time-limited rescue mission for kerbal inbound to Kerbin. high-2 A Screenshot of Kerbal Space Program From my experience using a panther it starts to lose speed after 15-16 kms, a more suitable cruising height is 9-13km. That's just a guess, though-- perhaps someone more familiar with FAR could weigh in.). 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. Kerbal Space Program ( KSP) is a space flight simulation video game developed by Mexican developer Squad for Linux, OS X, Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. My plane has turbojets and lots of fuel, but I am wondering what the optimal way to fly is. 20 votes, 21 comments. Running the 60U engine at about 40U seems to give me a good balance between reduced drag and air intake. I started by attaching two LV-909 rocket engines to a regular low-atmosphere plane: In this save, I don't have custom action groups yet, so I'm using the RCS control to toggle between jet and rocket modes. How to tell which packages are held back due to phased updates. You'll notice that usually your prograde marker is slightly below your pitch. In my case, it brought me to 20km up at a 45-degree angle, but it is probably not optimal. 3x06: I design a new, high altitude, jet to collect high. high altitude flight :: Kerbal Space Program General Discussions Is it even possible? Since turbos are almost always enough to get you off the ground and up to altitude, I usually just do straight turbojets (with some RAPIERs for SSTO spaceplanes); the minute amount of fuel saved during the ascent isn't worth lugging those superfluous engines around at the hypersonic regime. How do i build a high altitude plane? : r/KerbalSpaceProgram - reddit 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. Early career high altitude observations question : r/KerbalAcademy Unfortunately, most space plane designs are impossible (or at the very least impractical) at your current tech level. : : . AoA and G-force moderation. Will post my results. Don't worry about Isp. Pasted as rich text. Is anywhere a list of the altitude levels (I don't know a better term) available? Yes, you can get into that range with the high end stuff (whiplash engines and ram or shock cone air intakes). You get tons of thrust if you put it into "wet" mode, but you lose fuel efficiency. Long distance airplane flight tips? - Kerbal Space Program Forums even stranger is that the surface is textured. Basically I can hit a target altitude of 20,000m but can not maintain it. If released at a speed of 700 or more m/s and an altitude of 20 or more km, the satellite will achieve orbit with its second stage mostly full, leaving it with approximately 1600 m/s of delta-V -- enough to achieve lunar or interplanetary orbits and, on small bodies, landings. A well-designed jet with this engine and with the afterburner lit, flown properly, can momentarily climb to 30,000 m altitude. Air Flow: Air Flow represents with how much force air passes the turbine (notice: different amounts of air at the same speed equals in different amounts of force!). Yes. It has two modes: The first, Dry mode, is similar to that of the J-33 "Wheesley" Basic Jet Engine, with a bit more thrust. Jet engine - Kerbal Space Program Wiki You are simply running out of atmosphere (i.e. One problem is i'm running stock on career mode and only have 30 part to spare, so large planes are out of the question. In this case lots of fuel is the wrong approach, I can get more than half way around Kerbin on 2 cans of Jet Fuel and a turbojet if I glide most of it. The most obvious solution is try and optimize your craft for high altitude lift by giving it long wingspan like a U-2 spyplane. I was hoping that the new intakes would give it the added altitude. 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. High altitude planes - Kerbal Space Program Forums The most efficient way is, of course, to make a high altitude (or space) plane. First is thrust; the higher you get, the lower the thrust your engines deliver. If you upgrade to the panther (or get one on a contract) that engine can get you much higher. Once you're at that regime, you should be able to cover huge distances on tiny amounts of fuel. The J-404 "Panther" Afterburning Turbofan is a jet engine added in version 1.0.5. There are no requirements as far as size or power are concerned, as the AI Pilot is capable of flying pretty much anything - from tiny scout planes to oversized freight craft. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. This means it is better to have excessive amounts of oxygen than not to. So, to correct " is below crosshairs", what you need to do is to add a little AoA to the wings. The idea is to slow the plane to a stall above your landing spot the pop the parachute. at the very least, you'd need the panther, that'll get you over 16k easily, well to 25k. You can do that by right-clicking the engine and clicking "Toggle Mode." It flames out at 25,000. Yes. 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. KSP doesn't care (much) about aspect ratio; the total lift is the same regardless of configuration. Your previous content has been restored. 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. Content titles and body; Content titles only All other versions are slower and lower and unstable in turns. 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. TLDR: You need parts you don't have to make a plane that flies that high. The Rapier, for example, works great as a high-altitude engine, precisely because it can go so fast. Then I increase throttle until about 2/3 or even full, climbing with a high inclination (it can also go straight up). These are the building blocks of solid spaceplane design!Subscribe! As said above, the Wheesley is specifically designed as a low altitude engine. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Make sure we're on the same page with terminology. Though I'm still working on learning to be better at space planes. edited 6 yr. ago. The other one I stay around 6000 meters. with a thrust vectoring range of only 3 degrees. These designs are great for getting around Kerbin quickly, but without going orbital. As you found out, it basically konks out at 15km. 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 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. - Insane TWR didn't help. Technically, any rocket engine is also a jet engine as it forms a high-speed jet of reaction mass. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. below 5,000 m), since the engine's extreme maneuverability may allow the aircraft to perform turns sharply enough to break up in flight. Strictly speaking this optimisation is unnecessary, but it can win you a bit of range. You can halve the drag by climbing a bit less than 3500m. Which makes this engine ideal for those missions which require doing many science activities above particular altitudes. Double your speed, you need twice as much fuel. Sideslip handling. So the faster you go the higher you can fly where there is less drag. But you'll need to unlock: High Altitude Flight Which cost 300 science. How do you get out of a corner when plotting yourself into a corner. Along with rockets, planes are one of KSP's most commonly referenced kinds of vessel, and are a vessel type .