KSP: The Amphibious Spaceplane AND Stock Ocean Launch Site! 

NEW MERCH DESIGN! "Deep Space Kraken Slayer" - wearing this T-shirt/Hoodie/Sweater will instantly grant you +3 resistance to Kerbal Space Program glitches 🚀🚀🚀 bonfire.com/krakenslayer

7:09 "So I decided that my problem was that I didn't have enough boosters." True KSP mentality. Well done, Matt.

Here is a few of the rules I always follow when making flying boats: 1) Lots of lift, or very little weight. You're never gonna get enough speed, so the slower you need to go before taking off, the better. Also, keep the center of mass and the aerodynamic lift very close together, as the less your plane wants to naturally nosedive, the better. 2)All of the mass near the fuselage. Don't put engines on the tips of your wings, as they're too heavy and will dip into the water, creating alot of drag, while the engine on the other wing will only then work to further push you into the side. 3)If all else fails, make a vtol.

This is the most chaotic thing I've watched but also. Exactly what I would expect from Matt

Uploading at this time means that Matt either stayed up all night to finish it, woke up early and is a productive member of society, or im just on something and he always uploads around this time. Something to think about

Wait, WHAT? I never knew that you can unlock launch sites to begin with! How many launch sites are there to unlock? Also, this is one of the funniest videos on your channel. The comically awful spaceplane that you tried getting out of the water had me giggling the whole time.

I might be a tad late but here are a few suggestions that could have made your design have flew since the start: 1-it does not matter the how much thrust vectoring you add so it goes up, the real think that makes it nose dive is actually the pontoons, you dont have to really alongate them but otherwise just push them to the very tip of the boat, if you look at sea planes, specially the japanese ones which are just normal biplanes with floats attatched to them, its basically your idea but the floats are more forward (thus making it fly) 2-make bigger wings, the reason why your flying boat design didnt worked was because it simply didnt had enough wings nor the power to actually take off, and this kind of goes for the ssto to, if you look at flying boats online you'll see they have massive wings with pontoons on the tips so they stay stable 3-pontoon size doesnt matter all that much, the thing that really matters is WHERE the pontoons are, think as this: the closer the wing pontoons are from the center of the craft the more useless they willl be, and the farthest away from the center of the craft the more it will want to nose-dive. 4-the engines should NEVER stay in the tips of the wings, because your plane already struggles with stability putting them on the tips is asking for the whole plane to be extremely unstable, as they will naturally hit the water by some point and while one works, the other doesnt because it got drowned, which leads to an eternal cycle of pain that only ends when the plane flips over. I hope this helped as i have already been through the same pain you are right now and those where the ways i found to solve the design flaws i had.

I haven’t seen many people do anything with water since the Life On Laythe series. I’m definitely going to need to go unlock that water launch site!

Every time he made a change the seaplane looked more and more comical, especially at 9:18.

Hey! I've been loving these videos for years now! I I've started watching launches live thanks to Space this week! My name is Michael Collins so I'm kind of dedicated to this space stuff.

Gotta love the “controlled out of control maneuver”

A 20 minute video that embodies the phrase, "technically still a win". Love it!

This was hilarious and a lot of fun to watch. Also, I really love watching these types of iterative design videos where you encounter problems and then redesign to try and solve them. Cheers!

Using the mk2 parts as a pontoon is so pleasing. Thanks again for another great upload!

I love how we all though Matt was so good at ksp and then this video comes out. He's all of us!

I literally just accidentally stumbled onto this launch site today! Like an hour ago! So cool! And so glad I wasn’t spoiled by this video. Great one!

For me this was a SUCCESS, and Im proud of how this video came out, good ksp content for ever!!!!

Your tutorials are super helpful btw. I managed my first mun landing today from an old video of yours.

12:19 "I feel like duct tape would be more secure than those rotation servos"

Hydrofoils!!! Work a treat and only a little aero cost. Got my sea SSTO to orbit but couldn't get to Minmus because of an *extensive* tweaking program eating half my day. Cheers for the inspiration Matt!

literally a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the whole video.

We need a part 2 where you take what youve learned into a build youre actually proud of! Always enjoy your videos and this was a good comedy/schadenfreude episode :D

God Matt I will absolutely be getting one of those hoodies for Christmas. Your content is infinitely rewatchable and your perseverance in this video especially is astounding. I wish you all the good luck in the universe on your upcoming exams.

14:06 Hulk: "I See This As An Absolute Win"

Lovely chaos, ty. Also control and stabilization surfaces are also important on the parts that go underwater to help with stabilization... just little ones... like in boats, ships, submarines, surfboards... pontoons.

Dude, I LOVED that video. Thanks for the fun and the thrill !!

Seeing matt struggle so much is something I haven't seen in a while, and it's surprisingly entertaining

I really would like to see more trial and error videos, it's always fun to watch the learning process. I still think this guy should experiment with other in-depth building games too.

I spent the first 5 minute screaming 'You should put a para-foil on the front!', it really does make it easier to nose up in the water. It also helps with the dolphin-like jumping the craft was doing. Edit: Para-foil may not be the best solution, but it was so obvious to me. It kinda hurts to watch somebody try everything else, but not think of the obvious solution.

Just found this channel an hour ago, and it's great. Good work! akakakakaka

When you finally got that vehicle in the air I thought, "that was ridiculous, how could he top that..." And then you landed in that, (lake?) pond. This video had my wife interested, and she never watches KSP videos. Excellent work, thank you

Amazing 10/10 Video. Just because you didn't accomplish what you expected exactly, doesn't mean you didn't accomplish anything.

KSP content is what we need in these trying times

That was pure chaos. Loved it.🤣 I feel like the pontoons forward was the better design to give you a permanent "nose up", but the wings were a bit too low. That "SR-71" design needs so much speed that water takeoffs are a little tough... I'd like to see it done with a slightly more "conventional" wing design maybe on some sort of rotator like the F-14 to allow high speed flight and the better glide profile between forms. -I guess it's a "2-stage" single stage plane like that lol.

This is the most beautiful production I’ve ever witnessed

you're so much better than me at ksp lol, i decided to land the entire mothership next to my crashed lander as a rescue mission lol

Love your videos! You taught me how to use sstos! Thank you very much

I am sure Matt was very thrilled when the hilarious plane took off hilariously 😂

When building seaplanes I often place small winglets on the pontoons/hull underwater, since as soon as I have some speed they'll lift the craft out of the water with their lift, like a hydrofoil.

Woooo yeahhh Matt lowne video wooo (watching from us east coast at 5am)

That was amazing Matt 👏 that's exactly how I play. A win is a win.

That was some interesting take-off technique! Cove Launchpad by name, Launchpad McQuack by nature 😆

Hey Matt just want to say I love your videos!

Been watching for ages and noticed straight away that you almost lost your mind on this one because you didn’t run out of things to say in the video😂❤️

I'm so looking forward to ksp 2 and seeing all the stuff I didn't see in ksp 1 I know the sequel is gonna be absolutely jam packed

Btw simple tip on pontoons. Even in real life they cause a lot of drag so they are placed forward of cg to counter the pitch down moment with buoyancy and hydro forces. Ksp doesnt really have good hydro physics so no pitch up hydro forces really happen so you need even more bouyancy in front and more control surfaces always help

Laughing out laugh for real.... and I needed it, thanks Matt!

I enjoy these videos that show how the iteration went

Scott Manley did a video on hydrofoils in KSP almost a decade ago. It's possible that all of the changes since then have rendered his designs moot, but it would have been a good starting point in designing a sea plane that can reach takeoff speeds.

Also having a wide V shape to the pontoons cpuld help with the stability as mk2 fuselage has lift vectors so you basically just put 2 big rudders down in the water any yaw made it roll dipping the wings

I loved this video, I love how silly it was but I really hope you return to this concept later

4:50 what a magnificent space metal-dolphine, swimming so freely

I swear this video is in my top 5 fav Matt Lowne videos ever.

Matt this might be my only chance to ask you if you could try the Outer Planets Mod. You've done a planet pack before after all.

This is just pure skill. The chance of that mission going right was close to zero percent, and you did it anyways.

Is is probably the best new matt lowne video its just so chaotic and I love it

I love your videos, Matt. You are my favorite creator

Would love to see a follow up where this is done "properly." Although, this was pretty spectacular in that KSP if it works it works way

What I do with my jet boats is use a small wing at the front as an aerofoil type design. Once the speed picks up it lifts its self out the water amd skims on the aerofoil if angled correctly 😊

This was a good laugh... Thank you Matt!

I think you can disable interactable waves in the Scatterer config. You can probably do it either in the in game GUI that can be toggled with alt+f10 or alt+f11, or by editing the config file

I've had the same issue with water physics in Scatterer! Active seas are hugely appealing for realism, but a lot of my stock seaplanes can't take off anymore since the undulation in the waves catches any "draggable" surface and keeps my speed well below stall. I think the best solutions are building bigger floats and taking care how they're positioned w.r.t. CoL and CoM, ensuring wings/engines are high up out of the water, and aiming for higher aspect ratio wings to increase lift. I'd rather take a little more care in design than go back to stock Kerbal water graphics 😅

This was very funny. I tried an amphibious plane once, and the solution that I found was a few small pontoons (Mk0 fuel tanks, though a larger plane might need Mk1) and, essentially, a small wing with a high angle of attack below the water near the front of the craft to lift the nose out of the water.

🤣 Yes, more boosters. Truly a thing of beauty. It is now my goal to make a seaplane ssto. Wish me luck.

Came for an aquatic SSTO, received Matt having a breakdown instead. 10/10 would like and subscribe again

Ngl that landing was kind of insane. I wouldn't have even thought about trying that lmfao, glad it worked (for your sanity and bragging rights)

I've found that hydrofoils are preferable to floats for amphibious SSTOs. Way less drag in the water allowing you to reach higher speeds before takeoff and less drag in flight.

This is just one of the best videos in years

I feel like mounting the pontoons on the outsides of the wings would help. I'll have to give that a try.

Always here for these ksp vids👍

Refreshing like mad to see when this video would be out, good way to start the weekend

Funniest video I've watched in a while, what a rollercoaster!

was listening to 1812 overture, lets just say it's timed perfectly with the start of the successful takeoff

When I'm trying to build a speed boat, I use hydrofoils. I usually use wing parts that extend under water to act as sort of a Lifting body. Like other commenter have said; center of mass and lift are also important too. Also good to build up speed slowly. 😪 I miss my burnt out graphics card.

Thank you for another KSP video

I made one with underwater wings (deployable to a 5° AoA) instead of a lifting body that lift the plane part out of the water and control surfaces to keep it straight. Basically all the things a plane already has, but again and underwater.

I think one of the earlier designs with the smaller pontoons would have worked if you had some sort of leading blade at the center front of the craft. I'm not sure how much KSP physics take water flow into account, but a blade at the front would have probably made it stable enough to not dip the wings and ruin your thrust vectors

Matt, your center of thrust is above your center of mass. The net effect is that it will constantly force your velocity down. You always want your center of thrust to be online with your center of mass or it won’t fly well.

The centre of mass that's lower than the centre of thrust, that prevents this plane from flying in a stable manner in orbit, is also the reason why it has so many difficulties taking off. The Panther barely manages to out-thrust the 4 Rapiers that push the nose down. The placement of the Panther also means it dips into the sea and shuts down I think. Additionally, as nice as the wingtip engines look, they dip into the sea, they too stall and cause much more resistance than a "naked" wingtip would provide, which leads to the whole plane shimmying, which is amplified by the still running engine on the other wingtip. I've been trying to make a seaplane for Laythe, but it never really worked for similar reasons. It's a shame KSP doesn't offer stock-pontoon parts to make seaplanes. I think I'll attempt to use clues from the Beriev VVA-14, which at some stage of planning was meant to have engines near the cockpit that were angled slightly downwards to help push up the nose and create an air cushion under the lifting-body fuselage to help with lift.

Wow! That was a real nail-biter episode!

Getting practically rickrolled going to download a craft is one of the best things Matt's done yet

This was hilarious! Well done! Thank you Matt for such a-qua(li)ty-c content! :D

You need to keep your intakes above water at all costs. Taller pontoons, and a pontoon in the front to stop any diving attempts. Also, canards under the water that push the craft upwards out of the water help an immense amount.

my first attempts at water launches were similar then i just added canards so that it turned into hydrofoils and gave it powerful enough engines that gave it a kick in the pants to overcome surface adhesion

A while ago i made a non ssto aquatic plane called the dolphin, it went up by diving first then going strait up when fully submerged, i had to use infinite fuel and electricity but it was cool

The edge pontoons need to be the biggest ones, that should help, also cool idea, use inflatable pontoons so you can retract them when you get flying and reduce drag, and redeploy them when you go to land on the water

Standard puddle-landing; being adopted by all major space agencies as we speak Very entertaining video. Good luck with the exam!

My jaw dropped when you got that beast in the air... damn.

**doc Hudson voice** "This ain't asphalt son, this is water." "I'll put it simple. If you're pitchin' hard enough down, you'll find yourself pitchin' up."

Yeah, I am excited!

"Nothing exploded, I'm counting that as a win" - new slogan for merch :D

YES NEW KSP VIDEO

I stayed up to watch this and on happy ksp is back

Love your vids matt

You could try using hydrofoils for the next amphibious spaceplane, they're incredibly stable and you don't need massive ones

More wings so your launch speed doesn't have to be as high would be my suggestion. Also, a centralized thrust bank so you don't have as many issues with the engines getting flooded. And finally, motorized wing tip pontoons to realign center of gravity for space flight.

Love the ksp vids again

Amazing video!

The pitch-down problem is caused by the fact that you've got a ton of drag from the floats that's well below the thust axis. The floats need to be much longer to support the nose and they also need to generate hydrodynamic lift. use Mk.2 fusealge parts the right way up (they generate lift) and angle the front one upwards.

Scatterer adds the waves on Kerbin. In Stock you get a flat ocean without waves, making seaplanes a fair bit easier^^