KerbalX

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: spaceplane
• Part Count: 58
• Pure Stock

When the Kerbal Environmental Administration forbade the space program from dumping any more of their Blutonium-238-laden NERV engines into the pristine vacuum around Kerbin, engineers scrambled to come up with a cost-effective way to travel long distances in space without needing to ditch any stages. They reached out to C7 Aerospace, who supplied them with several high-tech RAPIER engines at deep, deep discount, and Jeb’s Junkyards, who generously donated an old aluminum oil barrel for the cockpit. Thus, the Gyrfalcon was born, extracting maximum performance from such a small spaceplane.

The Gyrfalcon is a very easy-to-fly, forgiving craft for the amount of dV it has. TWR with the Rapiers is generous, and it even has some oxidizer to help boost the apoapsis above the atmosphere. To get it into space, simply pitch up 10 degrees on takeoff (lift off at about 100m/s) and sit there until 27km, where you can stage the Nerv and switch the Rapiers to oxidizer mode. Pitch up to 30 degrees until the oxidizer runs out, then hold prograde while the apoapsis slowly comes up. Even with an inefficient ascent, you should still have well over 5,000m/s left when you reach orbit. From there, I’ve gone to the Mun, then to Minmus and then Mun again and I still had enough gas to get home.

TWR in Orbit: 0.25-0.3 (2.5-3m/s²⁾
DeltaV in Orbit: 5300-5800m/s
Mass on Runway: 32 tons
TWR on Runway: 0.65
Capacity: 1 Kerbal