IMPORTANT: control surfaces alone can create propulsion

[Palemane]

So I made an interesting discovery yesterday while experimenting with ultra small space planes, apparently control surfaces on smaller planes are capable of acting in the same mannerisms through air as the fins on a fish would act in water. you can use the surfaces in a back and forth motion to propell your plane at extremely high speeds. this effect does not work above ~2000m but with one of my personal builds I managed to break 1000m/s under 1200m while flying without an engine. Used an ion engine to get it off the runway then decoupled all unnecessary weight. You may wish to view my screenshots to confirm this, they are open to the public, and I achieved this in vanilla ksp, no mods are needed for this. It is not practical in any way, however, it is somewhat enjoyable just to fly around.

[Syd Khaos]

Oh yea....this has been known for awhile....dig around long enough on KSP forums and you can see lots of flying fish screenies....

Have personaly got craft like this up to near mach one......takes awhile of vomitcomet like arcs to build up though.

You can launch them engineless via tall clamp =P

[Palemane]

I found a way to make it not need arcs tho, just straight-ish flight, not easily controlable tho. i'll take a look at that right now

[Syd Khaos]

Originally posted by Schlagsahne König:

I found a way to make it not need arcs tho, just straight-ish flight, not easily controlable tho. i'll take a look at that right now

Best way I found to make flying fish is Mk1 cockpit followed bu about 4-6 of the long girders covered in the control fins.....they can sustain/gain velocity from several forms of movement....shudders, left to right like a fish....even did ok doing barrel rolls lol...

[Palemane]

that's a lot of pieces, i only used 8 parts in my good one

[Syd Khaos]

...well sure you can do it with a few parts....
but if your gonna make a physics abusing flying fish it should be elaborate and look damn good =P

[Palemane]

i wish i new ho to post screenshots so you couls see this thing, it's ridiculous

[Syd Khaos]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=430416831

This is a small one...only way to land it is water ditch =P
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=430416816
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=430416841
Go into your content page, click screenshot, highlight and copy link at top of pic popup, paste here =)

[Palemane]

lol, that's just too damn much, i can't land mine either tho, if it gets too close to the ground and you turn it at all it just picks up more speed

[Palemane]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429839916

[Palemane]

figured out the screenshot thing finally, sorry bout that

[Palemane]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429859819

[Palemane]

so I tried your method and couldn't manage to get it over ~230m/s, makes me sad

[Palemane]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=430337671
although it isn't relevant, I thought you might enjoy it anyway

[Slye_Fox]

Yeah, you can say goddbye to all this.
The Infiniglide glitch will no longer be possable in 1.0.

[Gravaar]

As noted above what you are using is the infiniglide glitch, there is also the Kraken Drive (or K-Drive) which may or may not still work