#Plane to North Pole of Kerbin

17 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

median nova
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Hi I am a new player to Kerbal Space Program and I am currently trying to design a plane so that I can get to the north pole of Kerbin so that I can collect science
But none of my designs ever seem to work
And I was hoping for a general guide line as to what is needed on a plane so that I can achieve this

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Any help would be much appreciated

wanton holly
median nova
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Thank you

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!!!

covert burrow
bright crater
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one thing you can do, is have a sorta long ish fuselage, with wide wings. try to have a lot of fuel in the main fuselage, but also, another thing you can do is use drop-tanks, basically fuel tanks that store fuel, that have fuel lines to keep your plane fueled, untill they run out. these can extend the range of a plane, making them easier to design for long-range aircraft. But, in order to do this you need to have the fuel line part unlocked. once you have it unlocked, it acts kind of like a strut connector, where it can connect to two parts. so, first place it on the droptank, then place the second part of the fuel line onto the main fuselage of the aircraft. (place this in symmetry) you can also have more drop tanks, but as you have more and more fuel you will need more wings for more lift, and more engines.

wet shell
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Use the following
Big plane
Large wingspan. Make the thing a glider so it needs less takeoff velocity
Lots of engines
Creepers suggestion
Try using srbs to boost you initially then drop them

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Or make an ssto and just drop in from earth space

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With the glider you want to go high and then either just use low or no engine power for a long time till you need to increase it

primal fossil
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Use Wheesley engines, or Goliaths if you have those- both are high efficiency, low speed jet engines and so are better for long distance flight. Drop tanks can be useful for extended range, don’t use Mk2 parts as they’re very draggy, fly at high altitude (>10km) to reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency. It’ll take a while to fly that far so an autopilot mod like Atmospheric Autopilot might be a good idea, stock SAS doesn’t do planes very well.

wet shell
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and you could use mechejb to auto the flying part

lunar whale
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  1. If you use a Wheesley (Goliath as well), fly at mach 1.55 (thrust and efficiency drop over M 0.9, but then raise again to another peak at M 1.5. So flying just past that will give you an equilibrium and it'll get there faster and burning less fuel.

  2. Use cannards. A conventional tail is antagonist, if you pitch up it makes a down force on the plane, that must be overcome with more angle of attack, wich increase drag. However a cannard setup makes the contrary, it helps you.

  3. Use the fine orientation tool to slightly add a positive angle of incidence of the wings and cannards. This will make them have their needed angle of attack while keeping fuselage's angle of attack as close to 0 as possible (less drag). This is a minor range improvement, though.

  4. As told: use Mechjeb!

Using those tips you can make a somewhat simple plane with a Wheesley able to circumnavigate Kerbin 3 times. I've done that flying at 9,000 - 13,000 m at ~520 m/s.

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I've also circumnavigated once with a pair of Junos, if you don't have the Wheesley yet.

bright crater
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Also, panther engines may be a good engine for a design.

like if its a glider type design, with lots of lifting surfaces,
so you can use panther afturburning mode to takeoff easier, and then once in flight/at altitude, you can switch them back to dry mode/cruise mode, so you can have the higher efficiency of those engines, as on dry mode i belive they have same isp as wheesleys

lunar whale
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You can also circumnavigate Kerbin up to 2 times with the panther in afterburning mode at high altitude (taking off without afterburner, that thing guzzles tons of fuel at low altitudes)