Plenty of people have done air to air refueling videos before, I decided to do something suitably Kerbal and build and entire flying runway to land my aircraft on and refuel.
ZeroDecibal But then the second aircraft carrier still isn't meant to be flying. I think the correct name would be aircraft carrier aircraft aircraft carrier.
CallisTrOn Entertainment Its just an aircraft carrier carrier. Lol. What does it carry? Aircraft. Then its an aircraft carrier. oh it carries aircraft carriers? Then its an aircraft carrier carrier. The OP could be right, though. If you call the thing scott made an "aircraft aircraft carrier", as opposed to a "ship aircraft carrier", then hes right. But, I think youd call it an "Aircraft carrier aircraft" from "aircraft carrier ship", so, then Zero is right.
Jacques Kerbal would like to thank you for providing all the targets for his scuba class to go and find at the end of the runway. You have single handily financed his new ship by providing so much stuff for his divers to recover. The crazy stuff is always the most fun.
I made a flying hangar a few months ago. It was a lot like this thing but with walls and a roof. Like a long flying box with one end open and a docking port on the opposing wall. I made it auto-stabilized by angling the front set of wings up a bit while making it a bit nose heavy. That way I only neded the throttle to regulate pitch. Landing in it was like threading a needle while receiving electric shocks, while spinning upside down while bungee-jumping, but I pulled it off eventually.
If anyone is interested in FICON, the Soviets actually used a similar idea in combat early in WW2. They docked 4 small fighters, either I-15's or I-16's to a TB3 bomber. The idea was that the bomber would carry the fighters most of the way to the target, then drop the fighters. The fighters would then perform strafing runs and rocket attacks on the target. The fighters would then return to the parent aircraft and redock. This allowed the fighters to hit targets at much greater ranges than they'd usually be able to. It worked relatively well at first, but German fighter technology improved too rapidly, and the TB3 motherships were sitting ducks against Bf109's, and the program was quickly terminated.
I know this episode is really old, but I have a new plan for you to do, put this thing in 100,000+ orbit, then land a space ship on it and go to the moon and back from that. The catch is once you put the ship back you have to get landing pad back too.
I always enjoy watching your videos Scott Manley. You do fun things with KSP that I do not seem to be able to pull off ever. I have watched all through KSP Interstellar. I hope to continue to watch far into the future as well.
Watching this makes me appreciate how easy we have it in Space Engineers with our 6DoF and gyroscopic attitude control (as opposed to flaps and rudders) - whenever you got close to the runway, I was thinking "time for a nudge to the left" or "braking thrusters on". Kept having to remind myself that planes don't have 6-way thrusters like that 😆 In any case, I am a sucker for the crazy flying runway and similar impractical concepts; good to see it in action.
Everyone thinks about a flying aircraft carrier but you just do it, brilliant. One minor fault though. This is the ultimate runway because it really runs. Not like those whimpy things on the ground.
Spectacular video scott! Love that you said "That I would say is a victory" 5 seconds after that your refueled aircraft crashed, because the engines wasn't turned on again :D
Nice! Did you know Scott that an actual flying aircraft carrier was built, it was basically a massive airship capable of carrying scout biplanes (I believe it had capacity for 2 at a time but I could be wrong) and basically what they do is get the airship flying flat out and then lower the aircraft on a cable below the airship cabin, the biplane co-pilot then had to climb out of his seat onto the wing to release the cable. To land they got the airship once again to fly flat out, then the biplane pilot had to carefully position under the airship cabin while the co-pilot climbed onto the wing again to attach the cable, once the cable was attached the aircraft was then winched back inside the airship. The system failed because the US government got hold of the prototype, decided it was excellent and then wouldn't allow the designer to take it out of it's flight trials to fix a crucial flaw he'd discovered in the airships structure, and sadly one day the inevitable happened and the airship was lost with all hands, at which point the US government declared the system to unsafe to consider using again.
This reminds me of the fun I had doing some formation flying between a PA28 and a C172 for some aerial photography - it was so difficult to hold station as the throttle was so se sensitive etc...
I gotta get kerbal space program. This is AWESOME. I have always been interested in physics and astronomy...... never even heard of this until recently.
After seeing you do this scott, i decided to try it myself, and honestly, with boat parts installed you did it the hardest way you could have, i used RCS, and the cable (like real Aircraft carriers) and i used the thing boat parts adds that makes your jet push you backwards to slow you down :P but it was awsome idea~! thanks scott!
Hi scott, Aircraft Mechanic here. This oscilation of the aircraft is called Dutch Roll, and is caused by response time of the flight controls being too low to counter the aircrafts' oscillation. You should put some fast reacting control surfaces to settle this. As for the Idea of a flying runway... well it is damn old! USS Akron and Acon were Zepplin Aircraft carriers from 1930s :) More recently in video games, the Spiridus, from Ace Combat X. Later came the P-1112 Aigaion from Ace Combat 6... a classic !
you had it that second time. you realized that when you docked the mother ships throttle reset but what you didnt realize that when you undocked from the mother ship the jets throttle also reset. you might have been able to save both there :P
Only played one Ace Combat game and instantly got reminded of the Gleipnir Also the Zveno project the Russians had in the 30s comes to mind somewhat for me, except they're dropping parasite aircraft and not necessarily receiving them in mid air
Lol I noticed you yelled "crickey" (I don't actually know how to spell that) when your plane started going really far up from the dock. I thought that was really funny as I've never heard someone say that before XD btw you are a god at ksp
One of the problems I noticed is that the docking port was at the front of the runway which I understand is so there's more room, but if you dock at the back then with more weight on the back the nose will pitch up and keep from going for a swim. You could also put ore tanks at the back until the center of mass is over the docking port, but then you may want more lifting surfaces.
the air refueling reminds me of a very early but not easy mission were you had to line with a plane in speed, direction and height to refuel in tom clancy hawk 2
I loved this video. Most of the other videos I've seen you produce are too perfect. This one was just right. It had failure and success. It also told the story of how you went form failure to success. Again, wonderful video and I hope you make more videos in this story format. That of beginning in a failure state and ending up in a success state. Only showing a success state isn't much of a story.
Why not try a reverse hook, catching a cable on the deck. Backing onto a carrier, catch hook, increase carrier speed on hook to compensate for weight. Love this!
This reminds me of the planes in Ace Combat series. I'm wondering if Scott Manley has ever played those. The game developers used that docking fighters to bombers idea in their games. A megalothic bomber that can house upwards of 15 fighters inside it, with a runway.
This kinda reminds me of those WW1 airship carriers(they had a hangar inside the balloon) and the B-36 peacemaker mothership, where pilots would dropped of a hook and after their missoin would have to fly and reattach with the hook.
There is something in aerodynamics called "Ground Effect" where you could have a false takeoff due to increased air pressure between the ground and wings. This causes a sort of false lift because once the wings gain enough distance from the ground, lift is drastically reduces.
