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[1.12.5] Cormorant Aeronology - Mk3 Space Shuttle


Pak

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3 hours ago, MrMeeb said:

@trooperMNG, you may find this of interest :) 

Hey guys, just threw together a quick shuttle using this mod and DIRECT, for anyone that doesn't want to build their own. It's not as capable as I'd like it to be right now, but I'm pinning it down to the unfinished balancing of DIRECT. It works fully, and I've successfully completed a mission in it to verify that. Vague stats are in the description.

Hope you enjoy

https://kerbalx.com/MrMeeb/STS

RXyEChp.png

Nice work! Altough I am a very poor shuttle pilot, I successfully delivered a full Kibo module in a 100x100 orbit. Probably I could have done it better. I always have trouble at rotating the shuttle shortly after SRB sep, in every shuttle I've built or tried (lol). Again, like every shuttle I've ever flown, nice and controllable reentry until stall speed (and it WILL reach stall speed) and everything goes rotating like hell.

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9 minutes ago, trooperMNG said:

Nice work! Altough I am a very poor shuttle pilot, I successfully delivered a full Kibo module in a 100x100 orbit. Probably I could have done it better. I always have trouble at rotating the shuttle shortly after SRB sep, in every shuttle I've built or tried (lol). Again, like every shuttle I've ever flown, nice and controllable reentry until stall speed (and it WILL reach stall speed) and everything goes rotating like hell.

The trick is to watch everything really closely during the reentry. I use MechJeb's SmartASS to control ascent (probably why I have no trouble with roll) and descent up until the final point, and I've had success with around 20° nose up until you throigh most of the heating, then you should level off and follow prograde, nosing down as you do. You should never really try and do any form of pulling up into positive attitude, and try and keep it around 15° nose down (you'll find it'll accelerate at that point). Final descent and approach can be done around 150m/s and as you get closer to the ground just reduce your descent, let the speed bleed off, and flare at the end for a nice smooth touchdown :) 

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1 hour ago, MrMeeb said:

The trick is to watch everything really closely during the reentry. I use MechJeb's SmartASS to control ascent (probably why I have no trouble with roll) and descent up until the final point, and I've had success with around 20° nose up until you throigh most of the heating, then you should level off and follow prograde, nosing down as you do. You should never really try and do any form of pulling up into positive attitude, and try and keep it around 15° nose down (you'll find it'll accelerate at that point). Final descent and approach can be done around 150m/s and as you get closer to the ground just reduce your descent, let the speed bleed off, and flare at the end for a nice smooth touchdown :) 

My orbiter vehicle (which looks similarly designed to yours) is successful at up to 40 degree nose-up on reentry using FAR (different aero models could be the culprit) which is nice for quick deceleration. I'm still figuring out where to put my periapsis to land back at the KSC, though.

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22 minutes ago, Spartan-S63 said:

My orbiter vehicle (which looks similarly designed to yours) is successful at up to 40 degree nose-up on reentry using FAR (different aero models could be the culprit) which is nice for quick deceleration. I'm still figuring out where to put my periapsis to land back at the KSC, though.

Yeah mine works at 40° too, but like you, I'm trying to figure out where to put the periapsis, and just went with 20 instead. Nothing is set in stone right now :) 

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My last tests (Which are far from conclusive) I started at 100km, used mechjeb's landing guidance ONLY to predict where I'd land, and then set my crash, I mean, landing point to about halfway between KSC and that Korea looking bit of land east of KSC.  That was too high for a glide in to KSC, but it was my closest test so far.  I guess the Trajectories mod could be used the same way if it's updated now.

Basically, set your touchdown target on some repeatable location on the globe, then see where you REALLY come down.  Adjust as needed.  Once you get it "dialed in" it should be repeatable for all flights of at least that particular orbiter design.

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3 hours ago, MrMeeb said:

Yeah mine works at 40° too, but like you, I'm trying to figure out where to put the periapsis, and just went with 20 instead. Nothing is set in stone right now :) 

Biggest thing I'm waiting on is the update to Space Shuttle Engines and gimbal trim (it'd be nice to have a plugin that points your gimbal through CoM by default, too) and the adjustable landing gear. I find the stock landing gear too springy. There's not enough dampening (I think) when I touch down. Even less than 150 m/s touchdown (faster because of FAR), bounces me back into the air even though I don't have the speed to generate adequate lift to stay airborne.

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anyone else having a problem with the Big-s wings and wing strakes just falling of as if they were decoupled every time u go from VAB/SPH to the launch pad?

 

Love the mod BTW and im hoping that i can get this fixed

 

 

Edited by ParamedicPants
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Not with a new build vessel, but if I loaded vessels from earlier versions of ksp, yes.  I think they altered those parts.

 

Note: this was before pak updated these parts, so in my case it wasn't his fault.

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7 hours ago, tg626 said:

My last tests (Which are far from conclusive) I started at 100km, used mechjeb's landing guidance ONLY to predict where I'd land, and then set my crash, I mean, landing point to about halfway between KSC and that Korea looking bit of land east of KSC.  That was too high for a glide in to KSC, but it was my closest test so far.  I guess the Trajectories mod could be used the same way if it's updated now.

Basically, set your touchdown target on some repeatable location on the globe, then see where you REALLY come down.  Adjust as needed.  Once you get it "dialed in" it should be repeatable for all flights of at least that particular orbiter design.

I've found that while Trajectories gives you a good idea of where the orbiter will land, it's better to set it up short by aiming the crosshairs on or behind the mountain.

Why?

Because you're generating a lot of lift on reentry and you will overshoot KSC by 20-50 Km or so. Plan to land short so your glider can, you know, glide in properly. I've been able to touch down at about 125 m/s to 70m/s. Not always on the runway, but pretty close to it.

Edited by sharpspoonful
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5 hours ago, Spartan-S63 said:

Biggest thing I'm waiting on is the update to Space Shuttle Engines and gimbal trim (it'd be nice to have a plugin that points your gimbal through CoM by default, too) and the adjustable landing gear. I find the stock landing gear too springy. There's not enough dampening (I think) when I touch down. Even less than 150 m/s touchdown (faster because of FAR), bounces me back into the air even though I don't have the speed to generate adequate lift to stay airborne.

Try setting the spring strength to 0.05, and making dampener (or not...I noticed no difference). If you max out spring, your plane will bounce around like it's on hydraulic pistons! :D 

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Hey it works kinda. I'm forcing the mirror with the CFG so the tiles always try to be on the bottom face of the wings in the SPH no matter how the craft is rotated. Weird side effect but it works in flight and upon reloading the craft so far. So that's okay

GXmqC7I.png?1

 

As for the patch parts it was just getting to be too many parts to test with how often the stock aero and lifting body stuff seemed to be changing since 1.0. I wanted to get this stuff done. They'll be coming back, I'm figuring out how I want them to work and what sorts of problems they're going to cause.

 

You guys are making me happy with all this shuttle talk. One of my main reasons for creating these parts was to learn more about how and why the shuttle works. If using these parts can help you guys learn about it as well then I feel like I'm doing something right.

 

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8 hours ago, Pak said:

Hey it works kinda. I'm forcing the mirror with the CFG so the tiles always try to be on the bottom face of the wings in the SPH no matter how the craft is rotated. Weird side effect but it works in flight and upon reloading the craft so far. So that's okay

Snap

As for the patch parts it was just getting to be too many parts to test with how often the stock aero and lifting body stuff seemed to be changing since 1.0. I wanted to get this stuff done. They'll be coming back, I'm figuring out how I want them to work and what sorts of problems they're going to cause.

 

You guys are making me happy with all this shuttle talk. One of my main reasons for creating these parts was to learn more about how and why the shuttle works. If using these parts can help you guys learn about it as well then I feel like I'm doing something right.

 

Why not make the tiles a separate part though? You could give the tiles and try the wings a different heat resistance so that it would actually matter which side grills first on reentry. Although It would probably still require 2 separate parts for each wing (and not I'm sure about FAR interaction)

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1 hour ago, sharpspoonful said:

Not really, I've just done a ton of testing with my design, and sacrificing many kerbals to science. >:3

"sacrificing", no...

I tend to think of it as crowd control and population enrichment.

LoL.

Cheers.

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@Pak Could you please consider adding small amount of LFO to the lifting body/rear end of the shuttle so that it can be used to power fuel cells without a need to sacrifice a bit of cargo area for an extra tank?

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On 5/8/2016 at 8:07 AM, MrMeeb said:

@trooperMNG, you may find this of interest :) 

Hey guys, just threw together a quick shuttle using this mod and DIRECT, for anyone that doesn't want to build their own. It's not as capable as I'd like it to be right now, but I'm pinning it down to the unfinished balancing of DIRECT. It works fully, and I've successfully completed a mission in it to verify that. Vague stats are in the description.

Hope you enjoy

https://kerbalx.com/MrMeeb/STS

RXyEChp.png

This shuttle flies wonderfully... EDIT: well until you reach the atmosphere on reentry... then it falls like a rock (which to be fair even happens on my own shuttles Ive tried to build with CA)

Edited by Avalon304
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34 minutes ago, Avalon304 said:

This shuttle flies wonderfully... EDIT: well until you reach the atmosphere on reentry... then it falls like a rock (which to be fair even happens on my own shuttles Ive tried to build with CA)

As I've said before, I think you have to be VERY STRICT with yourself in the upper atmosphere, aka 40 degrees for the upper atmosphere, then following prograde the whole way as soon as it seems to be struggling. That way, I've found it to be okay, and to be fair, it's not like the real shuttle was doing sharp turns (I know it often overshot then turned around, but it had a lot more altitude to work with (and the S-Turns, but bleeding speed is easier, and heat tolerance is higher in KSP)). To put it simply, hands off the keyboard! :wink: 

That being said, I'm glad you're enjoying it! :) 

Edit: Also, as a general note, it looks like I mounted the orbiter too high on its ET...that's what you get for making one from memory instead of photos :blush: 

Edited by MrMeeb
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3 hours ago, MrMeeb said:

As I've said before, I think you have to be VERY STRICT with yourself in the upper atmosphere, aka 40 degrees for the upper atmosphere, then following prograde the whole way as soon as it seems to be struggling. That way, I've found it to be okay, and to be fair, it's not like the real shuttle was doing sharp turns (I know it often overshot then turned around, but it had a lot more altitude to work with (and the S-Turns, but bleeding speed is easier, and heat tolerance is higher in KSP)). To put it simply, hands off the keyboard! :wink: 

That being said, I'm glad you're enjoying it! :) 

Edit: Also, as a general note, it looks like I mounted the orbiter too high on its ET...that's what you get for making one from memory instead of photos :blush: 

To add to this, I highly suggest downloading the Jettison Fuel and RCS Build Aid mods. RCS Build Aid will help a ton with figuring out your ET placement, SME rotation, and fine-tuning your CoM/CoL. Handy and extremely useful mods, for both shuttles and other orbiters/landers.

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20 minutes ago, sharpspoonful said:

To add to this, I highly suggest downloading the Jettison Fuel and RCS Build Aid mods. RCS Build Aid will help a ton with figuring out your ET placement, SME rotation, and fine-tuning your CoM/CoL. Handy and extremely useful mods, for both shuttles and other orbiters/landers.

Because if you do not do this, it will fall through the sky like a badly balanced brick.

Very uncool...

But it will fly and land quite nicely, but you have to do as MrMeep and Sharpspoonful say, flight rigid flight plan with a light touch..

I am landing almost every time now.

Not on the runway all of the time, but safe landing the same.

Jeb and crew just pop out the snacks and party while waiting for pickup.

Cheers.

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