KerbalX

1.12.5 Updated Craft File

• Flight Tested and 1.12.5 Approved!

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 53
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.12.5

Description

The popular Boing Bijet, adapted for the role of mid-range ocean spotter. Equipped with a detachable ELT Rescue Relay Buoy to assist in directing slower helos and surface craft to their target.

A stock aircraft called HU-26 Guardian. Built with 53 of the finest parts, its root part is Mark1Cockpit.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.12.5.

Design Notes

After the introduction of propellers and rotors in the 1.7.3 update, I immediately began working on a series of craft to finally fulfill the Rescue and Recovery role I had always sought to include in my space program. Rotors were missing in stock for so long I had nearly given up on the idea of ever creating helicopters to go out and recover my little green friends from watery splashdowns. I never really liked the idea of just clicking the button to recover craft once they splash or crash on Kerbin’s surface. I don’t really consider a mission complete until every kerbal makes it to a base. I wish there was a Career Mode checkbox option in the game with this requirement; for now it’s just my own self-imposed rule.

This was the fourth craft that I designed for use with my new Rescue Squad team. Stationed exclusively at the Island Base, the overall mission of this squad is to recover kerbals from any place on kerbin, from the highest mountain to the deepest sea. I also kinda had in mind the vehicles and craft that might be deployed by a modern Coast Guard for Search and Rescue (SAR) operations.

I typically do not name my craft to mimic real world counterparts, but in this case I made a bit of an exception. Although, not a replica craft, the flight characteristics, crew capacity and general mission role for this craft was patterned heavily after a real world USCG jet that was very recently retired from active service. The HU-25 Guardian. So, I thought maybe in my kerbal world I would just continue the role of this jet spotter and add a +1 to the HU-25 for this HU-26 Guardian next gen version.

I see the design as elegant in its simplicity and very efficient in terms of thrust-weight-lift, fuel usage, and flight stability. It loves to fly in the 5000-6000m range and can pretty easily maintain average speeds above 300 m/s. The fuel efficiency is fantastic and although I qualify it as a medium-range spotter craft, it can easily make complete round trips between the KSC and Dessert Base on a single 700 unit load of liquid fuel.

So far, this is the only mission capable jet in my hangar that operates on just two Juno jet engines. The use of two little engines may have also played a part in the Boing Aircraft Bijet designation. Takeoff is managed much like a real plane in that you apply wheel brakes, throttle up to 100% and the plane doesn’t move until you release the brakes. The little jet has no problem reaching its suggested 50 m/s rotation speed in half the distance of the small Island Base runway. The wing design includes a lot of lifting surface area for such a small plane resulting in a rather low rotation speed and floaty landings.

Banked turns in the little jet are enjoyably stable due to the inclusion of wing dihedral in the simple design. Aesthetically, it also makes it look the part of a commercial business jet. There are some neat little automated features including:
• Landing lights that turn on/off automatically when the gear is lowered/raised.
• Wing spoilers that deploy automatically when the gear is lowered/raised for improved low speed flight
• Split-T airbrakes tied to the B key to help bleed off airspeed when coming in to land

Overall, it’s a deceptively simple little craft that employs a few good aeronautical design elements: thrust-to-weight, COM/balance, fuel efficiency, wing area, dihedral, automated control surfaces… all blending together to make it fun to fly.