KerbalX

EAV-6 Pelican is a highly reliable VTOL survey aircraft. It’s designed to bring a team of 4 to difficult-to-reach locations and study the surface / investigate anomalies. Also great for travelling between bases and facilities around the world.
If you actually plan to use it, please take a look at the Instructions section at the bottom.

Key Features

• Reliable VTOL capability thanks to near-perfect CoM balancing, until remaining fuel < 210 units (1810 units in total). This portion of fuel is stored in 6 Mk0 tanks. It acts as ballast / emergency reserve and will be burnt lastly. VTOL no longer safe from this point on, fly and land normally before it completely runs out.
• Flies smoothly and responsive also at low airspeed.
• Stable both in flight and on the ground. Danger of rollover is minimal thanks to its large wheel base.
• Robust: can withstand landings with 17m/s vertical speed.
• Decent range for its size: ½ Kerbin equator in a conventional one-way-flight, a bit less with VTOL. Ballast / reserve fuel not taken into account.
• Illumination system for night flights.

Other Stats

• Horizontal takeoff speed (Vr): 70m/s
• Max VTOL altitude tested: 1300m (full fuel); 5300m (bingo fuel)
• Turning overload: 2-6G depending on speed
• Cruise speed: Mach 0.6-0.7 @ 6000m
• Max speed: Mach 0.85
• Ceiling: 9800m

Album contains 31 pictures. These are selected from more than 200 screenshots, and I really can’t discard even one more pic…Alt+scroll down trick is amazing.

Note a few things here: the illumination; flight time (4h in-game); TWR indication (SGV in German); bingo fuel (259/210); radial-in lock; angled VTOL engines (to avoid overheating the bottom for sake of realism).

Design Notes

• This is built to complete Anomaly Surveyor contracts and for visiting Kerbal Konstruct bases, because I want to actually be there before opening a base.
• It was not until I finished it and decided to name it Pelican did I learn about the existence of the HALO dropship with the same name. These two aircrafts do share a few similarities, I see it as a very pleasing coincidence. Maybe because they both look like a pelican somehow…(Do they?)
• I had Mi-24, Harrier, A-6, F-4, V-22 and even Vertibird in mind while building this. Just not that dropship.
• The idea to add a decorational refueling probe is inspired by crafts from Xenome. I find it fun to enter IVA, press AG8, and watch the little animation.
• This engine combination is not the best solution for a VTOL. The J-404 Panther is a much better choice, especially in wet mode. And a fast plane actually has a larger range (am I right?) But I want to keep this plane small and with minimal part clipping, so yeah.

Instructions

• Do NOT press Spacebar! It will mess things up. Use action groups only. Please check Action Groups tab.
• When doing VTOL, You can control from the OKTO2 core under the refueling probe and lock radial-in. I personally think it’s great for hovering but makes it harder to achieve a pin-point landing, but the choice is all yours!
• To do vertical takeoff, engage brakes and SAS, full throttle, then press AG2.
• Monitor stage TWR by clicking the dV number on the left.
• After lift-off, release brakes, press AG1 and wait for horizontal speed to exceed 60m/s, then press AG2 again and you are good to go.
• When doing vertical landing, you can press Backspace to engage main engine reverse thrust, quickly killing horizontal speed.
• Keep vertical touchdown speed <17m/s, which is very forgiving IMO. Horizontal landing speed can be very low, as this plane glides pretty well at low speeds.

Wish you enjoy and happy VTOL!

Description

A stock aircraft called EAV-6 Pelican VTOL. Built with 137 of the finest parts, its root part is Mark2Cockpit.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.6.1.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 137
• Pure Stock