KerbalX

My goals with this ship were
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a) find out if liquid fuel only really is more efficient
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b) try out the engine ratio of 1 rapier, 1 panther, 2 nukes for good performance across the speed range
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c) give it some visual features of my favorite 4.5 gen fighters - canted tails, close coupled canards, cranked arrow wing, wing-body blending
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Requirement c) stopped me piling on more wing area like i normally do, and made me stick with the FL-A10 adapter even if it’s not the highest heat tolerance
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Sorry, I had to clip the rapier and panther into each other, I couldn’t solve the asymmetric thrust issues any other way.

EDIT 30/08/2017 - Have updated craft with much larger canards. It now has a lot more pitch authority. In fact, thanks to the reaction wheels, it can be forced over stall angle at low speeds, but self recovers if you stop pulling. So long as you’re not too close to the ground…

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: spaceplane
• Part Count: 63
• Pure Stock

Seats 22 Kerbals, can take them to Minmus.
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Has an inline clamp o tron
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And 5 downward firing Vernier thrusters to land on low grav, airless moons

Action Group

1 - Toggles Nukes on/off
3 - Toggles Rapier On/Off and puts the Panther into Dry mode

Option 3 is useful for cruising around after re-entry. If you missed the space centre by a long distance, the 9000isp of the Panther will eke out your residual fuel.