Giving Aircraft a Purpose (GAP) Giving Aircraft a Purpose (GAP) is a contract pack for your aerospace program, providing aviation milestones to achieve, regular flights to service, and Coast Guard rescue . This contract pack is compatible with all stock and modded careers (except RSS).

Purpose: To provide a useful purpose for the existence of aircraft in a Career game, and promote the use of stock runways, helipads, and DLC airfields.

Spiel: Runways and helipads are meant to be used, not just sit there and look pretty. This pack provides a small set of repeatable contracts for early career aircraft, and thus provides the career player with a predictable source of income, science, or reputation return (depending on the type of contract) using a standard fleet of aircraft you design. It beats having to design a science car, or one-time use craft, or send a probe to nowhere, when all you need is just a little bit more cash, science, or reputation to advance your space program. Of course, you may have so much fun flying things around that you may forget you have a space program, but if so, then I've succeeded!

Requires Contract Configurator and Module Manager

All contracts and vessels included in this pack are completely playable in stock KSP, but I highly recommend these mods to enhance your gameplay with GAP:

Take Command Continued (Launch and Spawn into Command Seats) (Allows GAP to recognize Command Seat only aircraft...think Wright Flyer!)

Kerbal Aircraft Expansion (KAX) (Minimalistic set of stock-alike propellers and helicopter parts) (GAP recognizes KAX parts)

AirplanePlus (Propellers, Jets, Airplane parts) (GAP recognizes AirplanePlus parts)

Kerbal Rotor Expansion (Additional rotors for contract completion)

Waypoint Manager (For better waypoint management and navigation) (GAP uses a lot of waypoints)

Wider Contracts App (Increases the width of the contract checklist for better readability)

To complete helicopter or part retrieval missions, I also suggest these mods:

Kerbal Attachment System (KAS) (For attaching winches, fuel ports, and parts to parts on EVA)

Kerbal Inventory System (KIS (For carrying the above parts while on EVA)

And take the helmet off your Command Seat kerbals when flying in the open air:

TextureReplacer with Cetera's Suits (get both on CKAN!) (Non space suit Kerbals while on Kerbin, smell the fresh air from your Command Seat flying machine)

Contract Pack Goals: * Missions to test aviation prototypes and achieve progressive aviation milestones. * Regular repeatable stunt, tourist, and scheduled passenger flights. * Rescue missions to retrieve mountain climbers, downed test pilots, and adrift sea crews. * Fully compatible with new and existing stock and modded careers.

To Get Started: The first immediate contracts are not contracts at all but rather GAP: Economy contracts that are originally intended to give starting players basic parts from which to fully enjoy playing GAP. Originally intended so that Wright Flyer type aircraft could be built, the part contracts were free in previous versions of GAP, but now require funds to purchase these prototype technologies. The economy contracts are designed to help bypass any need for GAP to recommend a tech tree for starter technologies.

There are three contract trees each with starting contracts:

The Wright Aeronautical: Build and fly your first glider! contract will appear when you've acquired a Command Seat, and any flying control surfaces.

contract will appear when you've acquired a Command Seat, and any flying control surfaces. The KSC Airclines: Flight 101 contract will appear when you flown to completed the 2500 meter altitude contract.

contract will appear when you flown to completed the 2500 meter altitude contract. The KSC Coast Guard: Coast Guard contracts will appear when you've completed the helipad mission.

Agencies: These are the agencies in the pack that will offer regular or semi-regular contracts, and special missions: