Any way to boost RPS of an engine?

[Toklo490]

Hello!
Im making a cargo plane of sorts. I figured itd be cool to have it be able to float on water.
At 20 RPS, my aircraft engines were able to provide enough lift for me to take off and fly with okay speed from an airstrip, but the moment i was in the water the drag was simply too much.

i added a few rudders to act as hydrofoils, and they do their job great. When it water with the engines on, there is just about as little drag as can be (almost the entire plane is lifted above the water when at a decent velocity with the hydrofoils).

The problem is taking off. I still simply dont have enough speed to overcome the water, even while pointing at a pretty high upwards angle.
I upped my max RPS, but they simply didnt want to actually go above about 21 RPS, no matter what i did.
i tried the backwards gearbox 3:1 trick, and that actually gave a slight speed boost, and infact gave me a very nice RPS decrease for the same ammount of speed. I was now running around 7 rps for slightly better speed. But not nearly enough extra speed. I only really have space for 1 gearbox, not wanting to get 10 to accomplish this.

The problem here is i cant seem to just up the "minimum" RPS of the engines.
As far as i know you cant really turbo/supercharge the engines, nor can you just pump more fuel, so im having trouble with this.

I dont care about temperature or fuel cost ATM, i just want to get my engines to start going at a higher RPS than ~20. (the current cap for both is 60, but they go nowhere near that.)

So, is there any way to simply boost the engine RPS, even when they dont need it and are not strained? They dont seem to have any trouble with what i throw at them, but theyre never willing to go up to their full potential of ~60RPS and thats the issue.

[Teamkiller]

You may solve this problem in KSP style: add more engines!
I mean you can just put some electrical engines to boost RPS while takeoff in a water. In all other cases they just need to be switched off.

Another way, I am using on my small hydroplain - is to play with propellers collective: first set it low (but not to zero - maintain some speed) and when props spin up just set it to 1: it will create a great boost in thrust for a few moments. This boost just catapultes my small plane out of the water.

[Arc]

If no gearbox can get you in the air either redesign the plane to have less drag or add more engines as you are maxing out the power output of your current one.

Upping max RPM of the engine does not increase it's power, it's only useful for 1:1 rotor/prop/drivetrain in some situations.

[Toklo490]

Originally posted by Teamkiller:

You may solve this problem in KSP style: add more engines!
I mean you can just put some electrical engines to boost RPS while takeoff in a water. In all other cases they just need to be switched off.

Another way, I am using on my small hydroplain - is to play with propellers collective: first set it low (but not to zero - maintain some speed) and when props spin up just set it to 1: it will create a great boost in thrust for a few moments. This boost just catapultes my small plane out of the water.

Interesting idea with the electric engines. i like it.
A friend of mine uses the same concept for a kind of NOS system for his boats.
Should be compact and simple to add in, too.

Ill have to try the collective, though sadly i doubt that it will be enough of a boost to get me out of the water. Its a fairly big plane boi.

[WhiskeyFur]

Your best solution might be to use gearboxes and do some kind of manual/automatic transmission.

Start with a gearbox flipped so it's 2:1 to get the craft moving, then to 1:1, 1:2, 1:3..
What I did on my small boat was one diesel (overkill ,I know), starts at 1:1, goes to 1:3, 1:9, then 1:27 on an automatic drive and it works beautifully.