Why are people turning aerobrakes the wrong way?

[AlamoVampire]

@qzgy The eagle was my mind as I wrote my post. What is a cutout if not a hole? If you zoom in on RICs picture of that munitions tail you see holes. They reduce pressure as its in flight, something which cannot be denied. To other design purposes for said holes is only speculation but we can agree a cut out is like Juliets rose by any other name. 

Given that our air brakes lack holes its logical to posit the orientation seen in the op is "wrong" but, I circle back to my own OP:

Right: it works

Wrong: it breaks, fails and wont work.

anything beyond this is debating aesthetics only. And as such, in my book, aesthetically they are 100% wrong in orientation to my aesthetic tastes. No more & no less.

Edited May 28, 2017 by AlamoVampire

[Red Iron Crown]

If holes are necessary in that orientation then how do things like this work?

[Gargamel]

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Red Iron Crown While your example is neat, it has a pair of flaws. First being those "air brakes" are designed to work in a sub sonic environment, to which brings flaw two: they have holes in them to allow for a lower pressure in their operational environment.

The air brakes we have look as if they are designed for a super or even hyper sonic environment. They also lack the holes to afford a setup like in the picture in the OP. To my eye at least they should fail in such a configuration. But thats my 2¢

Considering where the OP's photo is showing the landing happening, it sure looks like a low pressure environment to me. 

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Red Iron Crown While your example is neat, it has a pair of flaws. First being those "air brakes" are designed to work in a sub sonic environment, to which brings flaw two: they have holes in them to allow for a lower pressure in their operational environment.

The air brakes we have look as if they are designed for a super or even hyper sonic environment. They also lack the holes to afford a setup like in the picture in the OP. To my eye at least they should fail in such a configuration. But thats my 2¢

Considering where the OP's photo is showing the landing happening, it sure looks like a low pressure environment to me. 

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Red Iron Crown While your example is neat, it has a pair of flaws. First being those "air brakes" are designed to work in a sub sonic environment, to which brings flaw two: they have holes in them to allow for a lower pressure in their operational environment.

The air brakes we have look as if they are designed for a super or even hyper sonic environment. They also lack the holes to afford a setup like in the picture in the OP. To my eye at least they should fail in such a configuration. But thats my 2¢

Considering where the OP's photo is showing the landing happening, it sure looks like a low pressure environment to me. 

[AlamoVampire]

@Red Iron Crown With respect, the thrust reversers depicted on that aircraft are

1. Designed to have the full thrust of that engine dumped into them. They are specifically engineered by design to channel the thrust in such a manner.

2. Are considerably smaller and thicker than an airbrake.

@Gargamel Duna has a thin atmosphere and as such the pressure is lower. Reentry heating is over, and drogues are deployed. 

The thrice copy was overkill man.

I make this my final post to this thread and will not post here again to this particular thread after my final comment:

To my personal aesthetics the orientation in the OP is 100% wrong. We are also debating IRL vs a GAME, apples and oranges my friends. Also giventhat the true test for anything is KSP to determine right or wrong is: "right: it works & wrong: it breaks, fails and wont work" we are arguing about aesthetics and that is, to me a fight I will NOT allow myself to be dragged any further into, I depart this thread having contented myself to make my point and to take my leave. Fare well and happy adventures

[Red Iron Crown]

4 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

1. Designed to have the full thrust of that engine dumped into them. They are specifically engineered by design to channel the thrust in such a manner.

2. Are considerably smaller and thicker than an airbrake.

 

Right, so you could make an airbrake similarly and have it work, as the airstream is way less hostile than jet exhaust. There's no technical reason it couldn't, it's a practical concern on aircraft for them to fail off.

[purpleivan]

18 hours ago, Sokar408 said:

I keep seeing this in screenshots and videos, and my question is; Why are people turning the aerobrakes the wrong way around? 

Example of aerobrakes turned the right way:

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/805684screenshot6.png

Example of aerobrakes the wrong way around:

 

As the mounter of the aerobrakes in question I understand what you're saying, but as for turning them them the wrong way, no turning was involved. According to my crack team of kerbal engineers "they just attached that way, we didn't have to turn a thing".

I did think it amusing that the example chosen for incorrect aerobrake orientation was a vehicle with an asteroid stuck on top of it, trying to make a landing on its engine.

[purpleivan]

8 hours ago, Darkstar One said:

Hmm I see engineering here at work.

My guess is that after the burn is completed the main chutes open and flip the craft around so it can put that kerbal containing container on the now top and then on the bottom directly onto the ground.

Almost right

The plan was to use the engine to de-orbit then detach it and the LF tanks and come in asteroid first, with the crew quarters sitting on top of it.

Unfortunately I didn't stick to that plan but instead (because I had a huge amount of spare fuel) decided to try and land whole the thing. Even if I'd landed on level ground (it wasn't) I doubt it would have stayed upright, but I just had to give it a go.

As for parachute placement, it worked just fine for a tail down landing.

Unfortunately there was no way it was going to stay upright and reverting to my last quick save (a couple of hundred metres off the ground) and detaching the engine section, didn't give time to flip the asteroid section around for my intended landing orientation, with the expected result...

 

[Gargamel]

14 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

 

@Gargamel Duna has a thin atmosphere and as such the pressure is lower. Reentry heating is over, and drogues are deployed.

 

The thrice copy was overkill man.

I make this my final post to this thread and will not post here again to this particular thread after my final comment:

To my personal aesthetics the orientation in the OP is 100% wrong. We are also debating IRL vs a GAME, apples and oranges my friends. Also giventhat the true test for anything is KSP to determine right or wrong is: "right: it works & wrong: it breaks, fails and wont work" we are arguing about aesthetics and that is, to me a fight I will NOT allow myself to be dragged any further into, I depart this thread having contented myself to make my point and to take my leave. Fare well and happy adventures

1- Yes, and because of this, all your previous arguements are moot.

 

2- Wasn't my fault, if you can't deal with software not respecting your reality, shouldn't be playing KSP.

 

3- Cya

[jhousen]

they'll work backwards in real life, too.

the real question is "fail open or closed?" if you don't care if they fail open, then backwards is a perfectly valid solution

[vosskftw]

By default they are placed like that. And they look cooler

[magnemoe]

On 12.6.2017 at 8:54 AM, jhousen said:

they'll work backwards in real life, too.

the real question is "fail open or closed?" if you don't care if they fail open, then backwards is a perfectly valid solution

Issue with wrong way airbrakes is that too strong force will snap them off wile an correct way would just be forced to close a bit.  an partial open will be forced open by the wind and its impossible / very hard to close them after opening before you stop.
If you don't plan to close them like on the bomb wrong way has the benefit that the air will push them open and open them. 
Using them during reentry would expose the mechanic to the heating, it would also be impossible to close as drag increase.  

[FungusForge]

If we wanted to do something of the such in real life, we'd specially make the parts to survive in the expected conditions, while Kerbals just have a bunch of all-purpose rocket lego. I really shouldn't be able to get away with dragging a poodle engine all across the runway and still have it work when I slam it into the Mun's surface a day later, but I can. Is it really that hard to believe that the Kerbal airbrake would be significantly tougher than its real life counterpart?

[Kerbart]

The only issue I can think of, but this is an extremely, extremely unlikely scenario, is that at one point in time Squad decides that, yes, the airbrakes should show some "realistic" behavior and have some kind of failure when exposed to the airstream in the wrong direction. Maybe you can't deploy them, or they get ripped off when deployed over a certain speed, or you can't retract them, etc.

Remember, after that long, long beta program, the update to 1.0? When people were complaining that aerodynamics were suddenly "broken?" The complainers had gotten used to 80° re-entry coming back from Eeloo at 8000m/s and the capsule would nicely slow down to 100m/s without a parachute. Suddenly that didn't work anymore. Or  the burger-flip when making that pitch maneuver at 10,000m going from straight up to 45° in one second. But I digress.

The point is, don't worry about others, and feel perfectly entitled in insisting for yourself that things are done "the right way," because when the time comes that "the wrong way" is punished by the simulation, you won't have to deal with that (I do not use lander cans inside any atmosphere. Why? Because the description says so!)

[Bill Phil]

On 5/27/2017 at 0:19 PM, Kerbart said:

This is why on the ISS the solar panels track the sun 24/7, even on the night side--it's easier for the station to let them turn continuously then to start/stop them every orbit, because that does introduce torque to the system. But keeping them rotating in a constant fashion doesn't, as stated earlier.

Not necessarily. The ISS has a night glider mode to reduce drag on the night side. Not sure if it's used presently, but it has been done before.

On topic: It doesn't matter what orientation the airbrakes are. Players choose when they use them if it's correct or not.

[Kerbart]

48 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Not necessarily. The ISS has a night glider mode to reduce drag on the night side. Not sure if it's used presently, but it has been done before.

Last thing I heard on podcast, from the guy in charge of it, was that they stopped doing that because it wasn't worth spooling up and down the inertia wheels every time they stopped and started the rotation of the panels. But even if they did go back to night glider mode; the point was that it's the starting/stopping of rotating the panels that causes the ISS to counter-rotate; once they're in continuous rotation it has no effect on the station.

[bonyetty]

Ya all are doing it wrong. Air breaks ha, they're actuators. 

[Kerbital]

They seem to work the same either way anyway. I just find the "wrong way" looking cooler.

[GDJ]

On 2017-05-27 at 5:57 AM, Sokar408 said:

I keep seeing this in screenshots and videos, and my question is; Why are people turning the aerobrakes the wrong way around? 

Example of aerobrakes turned the right way:

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/805684screenshot6.png

Example of aerobrakes the wrong way around:

Actually In real life this arrangement would provide greater drag but at a cost to stability depending on the placement of the airbrakes vs COM/COL locations.
Also in real life this arrangement would be less flexible because of the necessity of massive actuators to overcome the induced drag and the atmosphere keeping the airbrakes open. They could break off yes, but not necessarily. Having the airbrakes flipped around would have less drag but would be physically stronger, and the actuators don't have to be as heavy-duty so-to-speak. Magnemoe mentioned this in his/her post earlier on.

However, as other have said, KSP doesn't model Aerodynamics the same as real life. They exist, they have a certain value of drag, and that's it. There isn't a right or wrong way game-wise.

Personally they look fine to me.

Edited July 2, 2017 by GDJ

[Kerbital]

7 minutes ago, GDJ said:

Actually In real life this arrangement would provide greater drag but at a cost to stability depending on the placement of the airbrakes vs COM/COL locations.
Also in real life this arrangement would be less flexible because of the necessity of massive actuators to overcome the induced drag and the atmosphere keeping the airbrakes open. They could break off yes, but not necessarily. Having the airbrakes flipped around would have less drag but would be physically stronger, and the actuators don't have to be as heavy-duty so-to-speak. Magnemoe mentioned this in his/her post earlier on.

However, as other have said, KSP doesn't model Aerodynamics the same as real life. They exist, they have a certain value of drag, and that's it. There isn't a right or wrong way game-wise.

Personally they look fine to me.

That's what I was thinking. If the brakes are placed the wrong way, too low they should negatively affect stability. But if placed high up on a long ship would work better and perhaps prevent the ship from flipping over from atmospheric drag, assuming the actuators are strong enough. I think if the brakes were modeled realistically it would add some interesting design options.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Kerbital

[GDJ]

Just now, Kerbital said:

That's what I was thinking. If the brakes are placed the wrong way, too low they should negatively affect stability. But if placed high up on a long ship would work better and perhaps prevent the ship from flipping over from atmospheric drag, assuming the actuators are strong enough. I think if the brakes were modeled realistically it would some interesting design options.

I agree.

But, in KSP beauty and function is in the eye of the beholder and creator. 

[Guest]

Now, FAR should simulate correctly.

[Regor]

17 hours ago, dundun92 said:

Now, FAR should simulate correctly.

Restarting this thread wasn't a very... good idea.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, mabdi36 said:

Restarting this thread wasn't a very... good idea.

Oops. Its  bad habbit of mine not to pay attention to the date of last post.