KipardSkylon

License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Revived Skylon replica mod for today's KSP.

Originally made and released (open alpha) in December 2014 by kerbal forum user CaptainKipard who last appeared mid-2016. Original thread.

Main Features

• 5m diameter at the midsection. 3.75m engines. Its Payload Bay comfortably holds 2.5m or tightly holds 3.75m.
• Runs on Hydrolox (not LFO) by default: SABRE, OMS/tail engine, Payload Bay's builtin fuel cell and RCS.
• Balanced for 2.7x ~ 3.2x scaled systems. Rated for 30 tons to 600km in 2.7x with its own bay.
• Drone core contains 4 control points: Forward, Up (Docking), SABRE thrust vector, OMS thrust vector.
• Precoolers each create up to 200 Oxidizer per second between Mach 1.2 ~ 6.
• Shock cones animate if B9AnimationModules mod is installed.
• SABRE (as per true turborocket nature) sips on Oxidizer in air-breating mode which explains its enduring power in higher atmosphere than most other jet engines.
• Aerodynamics stats thoroughly tested but there's always the inherent issue of the center of lift being under the center of mass due to the wing placement.

Bonus Features

• Added custom cargo bay for use as a service bay. Can comfortably hold 3.75m and can provide a wide selection of inner node clusters for mounting useful 1.25m things.
• Can sweat Liquid Hydrogen for thermal control/transpiration. (This might not actually be needed.)
• Includes reconfigured, recolored stock wheels to fit its profile.
• Includes some part upgrades.
• Variant themes: Black & White, All Black.

Dependencies

• B9 Part Switch
• Community Resource Pack

Integrations

• B9 Animation Modules (bundled)
• WBI Classic Stock

Issues

Some lasting issues that I've discovered in the process of this takeover include:

• A drag cube problem with the largest tank pieces. I am not sure if they can be properly fixed. Until then these tanks have an extra stack node added to them and must receive a 3.75m nose cone there. Feel free to hide (but do not scale down) the cones afterward.
• The pre-made wheels run on Firespitter but misbehave even with the current version of Firespitter (as at KSP 1.8.1). While these remain unusuable I have supplied customized stock wheels to use in their place, and hidden them from part select and the R&D facility.