KerbalX

Description

AG1: Toggle shock cone intakes
AG2: Toggle ‘R.A.P.I.E.R.’ engines
AG3: Toggle ‘Poodle’ engine
AG4: Toggle control surfaces

A stock aircraft called Skyhawk. Built with 923 of the finest parts, its root part is mk3CargoBayM.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.12.5.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: spaceplane
• Part Count: 923
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.12.5

I decided to finally break into spaceplanes and overdid it a bit for my first ever SSTO (First 100% stock craft too!).

A little bit Skylon, a little X-30 with a dash of shuttle.

Flag tiles were placed in 24 way symmetry in ascending sizes along the nose and tail, then I went through and removed symmetry one by one to allow for easier removal. They are about as flush to the fuselage as I could get them - There’s probably about a week’s worth of work just put into adjustments. Flags on the wings still have symmetry applied.

Note: There are 2 flags that consistently explode when the poodle is activated, you can prevent this by either replacing them with 2 of the same flag in symmetry and shifting them up or removing them entirely (pictures below)

The idea here is that you can make your own TPS designs by simply picking up the tiles you don’t want and deleting them - Doing this reduces part count significantly. The versions pictured with tiles removed are around 550-650 parts depending on payload and amount of flag removal.

Not sure why KX is reading the craft’s root part as the cargo bay, I will try re-uploading at some point to fix but for now just make sure the root part is the probe core located in the tip of the nose

Flight plan (~70-80km orbit), best results with MechJeb Smart A.S.S. for pitch adjustment:

-Engage brakes

-Spool R.A.P.I.E.R. engines up to 50kN (Or skip this step, I know nothing about flying, just kind of made sense in my head)

-Disengage brakes

-Pitch up 5° for takeoff then level out at 3°, deploy front canards between 5-10° to keep level, adjusting as necessary to keep from gaining altitude too quickly. You will likely not nose up until the very very end of the runway, if at all (I tried really hard to correct this but no dice, maybe try a short RCS burst?)

-At 450-500 m/s pitch up gradually, maintaining velocity increase until 25°, adjusting front canards to maintain nose down

-Monitor shock cone intakes, when effective air speed is below 20 m/s activate AG1 to toggle closed

-R.A.P.I.E.R. engines automatically switch to 50% thrust closed cycle mode to maintain stability, pitch down to ~15°

-As atmosphere becomes thinner and nose begins pitching up activate AG3 (or stage) to engage Poodle engine, this helps with stability. Engage RCS

-Activate AG4 to toggle control surfaces once suborbital, gradually pitch down. Deactivate R.A.P.I.E.R. engines when apoapsis reaches 65km and continue under Poodle power until 75-80 km

This flight plan is capable of carrying 10T to LKO (I tested 15T and it’s doable, but it’s pushing the limits). You should have a short apoapsis burn of about 50m/s to raise periapsis and ~800 m/s Delta V remaining once in orbit

Big, big thank you to DemoRevolution for inspiring me with their craft and encouraging me to build bigger https://kerbalx.com/DemoRevolution

Out of the box configuration

Remove tiles at your discretion - Symmetry has been removed on all nose/tail flags!

Shuttle inspired TPS pattern

Example payload (not included)

These flags annoyingly heat up no matter what. I recommend removing them

Flag image - Save in Gamedata\Squad\Flags as dark_background.png

For stock colored flags (Flags covering the Mk3 cargo bay) save a transparent image in Gamedata\Squad\Flags as empty.png