Cheating a craft into orbit? You obviously haven't used Extraplanetary Launchpads.
Get an object into orbit, unfold it, done. Isn't that basically it?
I tried making a fighter. It was...interesting. I didn't put big enough wings on it, so it didn't lift off. Then the engine hit the ground and exploded, sending the rest wobbling until one wing hit the ground and broke, then the other, then the thing crashed and exploded. I think that's a failure on many levels.
Solution? Bigger wings! Triple-delta rather than single-swept. These should provide enough lift, at the slight cost of making it look a bit like a butterfly. (Albeit a butterfly with a mosquito head.) I again encounter issues of the "engine hits the ground, plane falls apart" type. But I made progress!
Bits survived!
I try moving the rear landing gear backwards. This time, I take off easily, before somersaulting backwards. Two chunks of wing and the main body of the craft (including rear gears and parachutes) survived.
Let's try fewer wings and more control surfaces. Two fewer delta wings, two more standard control surfaces. This time, takeoff goes well! Now, where was that SSTO Spaceplane guide Sean gave me a few days back...There it is! Now let's just tilt back a little and OH GOD I'M SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL! I give up on manual attitude control and leave MechJeb to do the work. It doesn't flip around, even if it turns much more poorly than I'm used to seeing MechJeb do. I note that electric charge is swiftly dwindling, and that the liquid fuel from the little combined-fuel tanks is being drained before the main-body liquid fuel. (Well, it's all liquid fuel, so it should still work.) The maximum speed is under 100 m/s; I want more than ten times that. Hopefully higher atmosphere will be able to provide. I watch MechJeb spin and determine that switching from 25 degrees AoA to 45 is a bad idea. In fact, I'll try to avoid steep angles of attack, period. Sadly, it's too late for this fighter...
Well, changes. First, action groups for the air intakes and solar panels. Second, non-extendable solar panels to keep charge up in atmosphere. Third...I was a bit top-heavy, so to try and fix that I stick some radial monoprop fuel tanks on the belly and some RCS ports around the craft. I'm sure RCS will come in handy someday.
Takeoff is rough, but only because I gave MechJeb bad commands. Trying again without telling MechJeb to take the fighter straight forwards (ignoring gravity) works better. I begin rising at a safe 30-degree angle, watching, waiting.
Ging more or less at the Mun. Neat.
As the load lightens and the air things, the velocity increases. Still an order of magnitude smaller than I want, though.
We are almost to 10,000 meters ASL before intake air drops even slightly. How high will two ram intakes feed a RAPIER?
Thrust goes down suddenly. I turn it back up before remembering that I'm still in the lower atmosphere, then reconsider if that should be a consideration given that I'm jetting. In the end, I leave it up.
We're close to 14,000 meters before intake air drops to 50%. Hm. I try to tilt up to 45 degrees; MechJeb overdoes it. I try to turn it back down to 30, but we're already spinning. I turn off the engine, and this helps. We began falling, though...and we begin spinning again. Turn off the engine, order a 20-degree angle...still falling, no spinning until I try to have it "Kill Rot" to cure the dangerous-looking wobbles. Same deal without killing rot, it takes forever to stabilize so I turn off Mechjeb and try to fly manually. I am promptly reminded of why I was using MechJeb to fly this bird in the first place. I get it slightly more stable and order MechJeb to take over. It starts spinning again. I take over and promptly start twirling around on my side. And it was going so well there for a while...
Okay. No more 45-degree ascents. Ever.
Takeoff the next time is shaky, but MechJeb fixes it. Ascent begins again.
Just under 18 kilometers ASL, I switch to a more horizontal angle as intake air drops towards 25%. I drop it a little more at 19,000 meters, then raise it because 15 degrees isn't quite steep enough to keep me rising and not falling.
20 kilometers ASL. Finally, the air intake level drops to 0.09/0.4. Velocity a bit over 800 m/s and climbing but well under 1100.
23 km ASL. We've passed a kiometer per second. Intake air has dropped a third over these last three kilometers. Nice how that worked out.
Just past 24.5 km ASL, we pass the 1100 m/s barrier. Intake air at 10%. Let's see how much we can get out of these.
Twelve minutes in, twenty-six kilometers up, and 0.03 intake air. All around the same exact time.
Around 28 kilometers (0.02 intake air), I notice that the RAPIER's thrust is dropping. I turn off the air intakes and watch the RAPIEr switch. Now, let's see if my hypothesis on how fuel works is true...
Once we pass 32 km, I quicksave and tilt back to 45 degrees for a better ascent. No spinning out of control! Also, we pass two km/s. And apoapsis is 90 kilometers! Should have been watching that earlier, I guess, but I'm used to not being below 40 km when the apoapsis is in space. It's about five minutes out, so I've got plenty of time for a maneuver node. I wait until we break atmosphere, then get an orbital insertion. It's quite a circular orbit--82.5 by 80.5. I have less than twelve units of oxidizer and excess liquid fuel, so I can't get much of anywhere with that, but I do have twin ion engines and RCS. So, ions for transport, RCS for maneuvering, burn the rest of the oxidizer for re-entry, and the last of the liquid fuel for landing? Sounds decent.
Spaceplanes are pretty neat. The RAPIERs are pretty useful, too. Overall...I'm not sure if I'm a bad pilot and a terrible plane designer or a terrible pilot and a bad airplane designer, but I hope I can overcome that and get better at this, because this was awesome.
