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EAV-12 "Manta" VTOL

EAV-12 "Manta" is a highly reliable, high performance VTOL survey aircraft. It’s designed to bring a team of 4 to difficult-to-reach locations and conduct surface research / investigate anomalies. Also suitable for business travel and stunt performance.

Its design is derived from a retired low-altitude deep penetration (LADP) bomber with advanced aerodynamics and extremely low wing load, granting it exceptional maneuverability and maneuver precision compared with common civilian aircrafts. Military-grade afterburning engines even enable it to break sound barrier. Reinforced air inlet gratings protect the engines from bird hit when cruising near the surface, with the cost of decreased intake efficiency.

Use only action groups 1 and 2 to control engines. Pressing spacebar won't cause accident (unlike on the EAV-6 "Pelican") but it leads to wrong behavior of the "top air inlet", so it's still not recommended. Also take a look at Action Groups section below. Click on the dV reading on the left to monitor TWR when doing VTOL.

Pure stock, no mods, no DLCs. 102 parts, root part is the cockpit.
Works best with the mod "MouseAimFlight".

- A joy to fly.
- Reliable VTOL capability during the entire mission thanks to near-perfect CoM balancing: vertical thrust torque remains <0.4kNm regardless of fuel consumption.
- Great maneuverability: typical cornering overload 6-12G.
- Flies smoothly and responsive also at minimal airspeed (30m/s).
- Stable both in flight and on the ground. Danger of rollover is minimal thanks to its large wheel base.
- Very short takeoff and landing distance even not in VTOL mode.
- Mid-long range: 3/8 Kerbin equator.
- Horizontal takeoff speed: 40m/s
- Cruise speed: Mach 0.7-0.8 @ 6km
- Top speed with afterburners: slightly over Mach 1
- Operational ceiling: 11km
- Maximum flight time (typical): 2h

- Same crew capability, more science instruments
- A lot better maneuverability, speed and acceleration.
- No ballast required, near-perfect CoM balancing and reliable VTOL capability until the last drop of fuel.
- No drop tanks, less fuel capacity and shorter range (3/8 vs 4/8 Kerbin equator)
- Pressing spacebar isn't taboo anymore, it's just not recommended.
- No thrust reverse functionality.

RCS = main engine afterburners
AG1 = main engines on/off
AG2 = VTOL engines on/off, toggle "top air inlet"
AG3 = toggle ladders
AG7 = toggle reaction wheels (default on, required for VTOL)
AG8 = conduct experiments
Manually setting control from the drone core near the tail cone and selecting SAS mode radial-out enables auto-hovering (keeping level), but the control might be weird in this mode. Use with caution, I do not recommend it.

- New semester begins, I may have less time and energy for KSP stuff. This not-so-complicated aircraft took me 3 weeks to publish...
- I do love its flight characteristics, but it owns to the excessive amount of lifting surfaces required for its shaping. The "air inlet gratings" are required to shift CoL a little bit forward. They are not actuated however, I tried to keep it as reasonable as possible.
- You can toggle off the RWs via AG7 when not doing VTOL, but it actually doesn’t make much difference.
- Yes, it can fly under the R&D bridge in normal flight mode with ease. MouseAimFlight mod is highly recommended.
- The idea comes from my old A-12 replica. It actually started as a flying wing SSTO project which indeed succeeded, but it’s much too unrealistic that such an aircraft could achieve hypersonic speeds. However, I noticed that its CoM hardly shifts, so I decided to modify it into an atmospheric VTOL, and it turns out to be quite satisfying.

Wish you enjoy and happy flying!