Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. 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. Here's my example of dealing with the situation. - Spamming airintakes didn't help. That will probably allow you to fly comfortably above 20-25km (or higher, depending on the overall mass of your aircraft). The main body is a fuel tank with a Swivel engine at the end. AoA itself refers to the angle of the wing (or the whole plane if the AoI is 0)relative to the airflow. Which is capable of high altitude, high speed flight. 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." The benefits should be obvious. 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). 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.. Visit Stack Exchange 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. Powered by Invision Community. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. 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. 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. Delta wings are able to work better since the lack of lift per square area is compensated by having larger area to provide lift. I decided to look into that two intakes thing, and it turns out to make 11-12 m/s difference at 19,000m with my plane. Thankyou all, I now reckon I have a much better understanding of the engines, hopefully that'll translate to better aircraft. Under some circumstances, you may want to reduce the engine gimbal range or disable it altogether, particularly when flying at high speeds (e.g. 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. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. At about 400-500m/s (~15km), the two engines are even. Clear editor. 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. Ep. Unfortunately I won't be able to test it today, but @SaintWacko's proposal sounds promising. Orbiting is the most fun one: the higher the orbit, the less speed you need to maintain to stay in orbit, *and* the less air there is, so that's a double-whammy in terms of reducing fuel consumption. Clear editor. You cannot paste images directly. Display as a link instead, If you enter the Mun's SOI, it immediately counts as "In Space High over Mun" until you get below 60km Mun altitude. - but they were talking about having two intakes/engine. 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. 3x06: I design a new, high altitude, jet to collect high. 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). Pvt. How do you get out of a corner when plotting yourself into a corner. 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. It flames out at 25,000. The U-2 is probably the highest altitude aircraft still flying. All rights reserved. 2/3 (KSP 1.11.2) - YouTube I break out the Mk2 parts and Panther engines to build a better jet that can go higher and faster. Subscribe -. 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. FAR is supposed to take aspect into account, but I'm not very experienced with it and cannot advice you as to how it works. Pasted as rich text. You need to do it with what you've got. Why that? Cookie Notice Also, Valley and Theomon fly to different corners of Kerbin and three mapping satellites are launched. 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Information Changelog Stats Build a plane or rocket for Kerbal high altitudes, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup, Screenshot of the Week #85 [Submissions Closed - Vote Now!]. What you should be concerned about is atmospheric drag, and that's minimized by high-altitude flight. 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. 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 avoid running out of fuel altogether, I have a second plane with small tanks (no oxidizer) attached directly to the jet engines, and the rockets attached behind the fuselage, which is entirely oxidized tanks. Challenges Yes, although they have only been flown with nearly full tanks. Though I'm still working on learning to be better at space planes. Will post my results. 3x06: I design a new, high altitude, jet to collect high atmospheric science. 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. Redoing the align environment with a specific formatting, Trying to understand how to get this basic Fourier Series. That will unlock: If not, please explain why, which I know you have no problem doing! Don't worry about Isp. This means that the only thing that decides wheter your engines run efficient is determined by how much thrust they produce (opt. I'm in career mode and got all groups of the 45-science-cost level, except Flight Control, and additionally have Electrics, Heavy Rocketry and Fuel Systems. That's just a guess, though-- perhaps someone more familiar with FAR could weigh in.). First off as of .15.1 intakes don't do anything. 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. I also set it to enable the cockpit's reaction wheels to improve control at high altitude, and close air intakes to reduce drag. The sweet spot for the upper atmo engines, I find, is between 10k and 12k. The Kerbal Space Program subreddit. But a rockets can do it. 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). That will unlock: "Whiplash" Turbojet Which is capable of high altitude, high speed flight. Your previous content has been restored. You get tons of thrust if you put it into "wet" mode, but you lose fuel efficiency. You can halve the drag by climbing a bit less than 3500m. . You may be correct and that 3 engine plane is a lemon. 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. At altitude the nose goes up and down until it goes out of control. The other thing to bear in mind is that tuning the AoA (angle of attack) of your wings makes a difference. When I say ", You know you've nailed it correctly if, when you're in level flight, your. As long a you can fly faster, the lower density at altitude can be compensated for. Using Kolmogorov complexity to measure difficulty of problems? It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The more successful the flights, the more successful the space program is. Display as a link instead, "Whiplash" Turbojet. It'll probably be more efficient with more intakes, but I wouldn't increase the number of engines. I don't have that cockpit in my career game yet, but maybe it will work with the other one. Once you're at that regime, you should be able to cover huge distances on tiny amounts of fuel. Upload or insert images from URL. Really. 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. In my case, it brought me to 20km up at a 45-degree angle, but it is probably not optimal. Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. Or it can supercruise at three times the speed of an equivalent Wheesley jet (with nearly equal fuel efficiency) at 15,000 m altitude. Air Intake: Air Intake shows the amount of force your engine uses to suck air into the turbine. If it's above the cross-hairs, you need a little less. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Thanks for the help! Make sure you've angled your wings up slightly so that you provide enough lift for a 0 angle of attack at top speed. If it's below the cross-hairs, you need a little more AoA. Display as a link instead, 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. Either of the two speeds are to be avoided. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Simply changing the intakes made it fly completely out of control and impossible to land. If it's below the cross-hairs, you need a little more AoA. 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. 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. In this chapter, you ll learn about the Space Plane Hangar, a building that forms part of the Kerbal . Your previous content has been restored. But you'll need to unlock: High Altitude Flight Which cost 300 science. This is particularly useful for pairs of engines, since this makes it possible to keep the thrust equal when activating the afterburners. 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. You can do that by right-clicking the engine and clicking "Toggle Mode." a screenshot of kerbal space program 2. by: lord bird. Don't rely on the efficiency indicator! 20 votes, 21 comments. As has been said, ISP is nothing to worry about. Sustained flight at over 20km requires at a minimum the Panther in Afterburning mode. As long as the engine gets enough air it will work at proper efficiency. Should i add a larger wing area for higher lift? Content titles and body; Content titles only Originally posted by lord bird: yep thats right jool has a surface. Thrust means that slower-is-better no longer applies: now, slower means less drag but more gravity, so there's a tradeoff (which I'm not going to carefully calculate for you, because it's hard). If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Minimising the environmental effects of my dyson brain, Theoretically Correct vs Practical Notation. You can post now and register later. Yes, you can get into that range with the high end stuff (whiplash engines and ram or shock cone air intakes). But maybe your patience? Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Is it possible to get to an altitude of 16-20km with normal plane engines? 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Dedicated to the growth and advancement of amateur rocket scientists! 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. These are the building blocks of solid spaceplane design!Subscribe! Thanks. And how many km can I expect to get per v (as calculated by Engineer redux Kerbin atmospheric stats, I know this is weird with planes)? Note that keeping the plane weight low is critical, only carry a very small amount of fuel. Let me. The other one I stay around 6000 meters. Even up there the plane acts squirrely. There is a very close tolerance to the two speeds. Best way to get down into thicker air and land is to perform what dogfighters called a 'Split-S'. : : . I have enough patience to do the slow flying, but is it horribly inefficient? You could try combining the two. Or about the same speed but 1000 m higher. Do plugins for Kerbal Space Program work on unix? Thanks for asking this, I've been struggling with the same problem in career mode. I didn't try for 20000m as it probably wouldn't do well. Let me share what I know about jet engines, speed, and efficiency. I find that a conservative amount is 2 RAM intakes and 2-4 radial intakes per turbojet. It seems to be based on the General Electric F-404 Afterburning Turbofan, which shares the same name and maximum thrust (85 kN dry). alternatively, combine a liquid fuel rocket into your plane. This can be done with moar boosters or more calculated wing and body design, depending on the aero model you use. Approximately 12km up the main engines stop providing enough thrust to maintain the climb, so it's time to switch to rocket mode. 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. Is anywhere a list of the altitude levels (I don't know a better term) available? To get higher with the low tech jet engines, you need rocket assist. 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. Why is there a voltage on my HDMI and coaxial cables? Now I have a plane that will fly around the world at an altitude of the low-20s. Running the 60U engine at about 40U seems to give me a good balance between reduced drag and air intake. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one. It will be expensive and time consuming. 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? 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. For all your gaming related, space exploration needs. 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!). What's the difference between a power rail and a signal line? Privacy Policy. I was hoping that the new intakes would give it the added altitude. I also had problems with a high altitude plane until I decided to follow the K.I.S.S. Since gravity is effectively lower, they don't need as much wing area to maintain altitude-- which, in turn, means less drag, which makes for more efficient flight. Then I increase throttle until about 2/3 or even full, climbing with a high inclination (it can also go straight up). 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 Right now, my big, fat plane has trouble breaking 10 km altitude and 200 m/s forward speed (largely due to its payload). Sideslip handling. They always seem to lose power at about 15km, but I'm wondering if there's something I can do to fix that. 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.