KerbalX

The Brikoleur’s love affair with early jet-age aircraft continues. The BAK Bolide isn’t a tribute to any one of them in particular; instead, it recreates a common design pattern of the time: narrow fuselage, big engine nacelles centre-mounted on each wing, long tapering tail with a relatively small rudder and tailplane. The name is inspired by the Gloster Meteor which is built to this pattern, but it’s not a particularly close resemblance otherwise.

The amazing thing about recreating these old designs in a Kerbalised format is that all of them work straight out of the gate. I just put everything more or less where it should be, and the centre of mass, centre of lift, and fuel balance magically sorted itself out, and the result is, again, great fun to fly. The power these Junos give feels just right – enough to have fun, not so much it becomes meaningless.

Have you tried doing a hammerhead stall? It’s an aerobatics manoeuvre that looks pretty impressive. Build up some speed, fly straight up, cut the engine if you like, and while you’re still going fast enough that your control surfaces work, yaw a little bit to one direction. You’ll eventually run out of speed, experience a magical moment of stillness in the air, then drop like a hammerhead in the direction you yawed, diving straight for the ground. Build up a bit of speed again and pull out of the dive to thundering applause. Try it with the Bolide – it feels like it’s built for it!

A stock aircraft called BAK Bolide. Built with 47 of the finest parts, its root part is Mark2Cockpit.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.3.1.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 47
• Pure Stock