How to open a 'chute as high as possible?

[g00bd0g]

Hi, I'd like to trigger the parachutes to fully open as high as possible. Obviously we need bring the vehicle to safe deploy speeds, but is there any way to get a full deployment on kerbin at more than 5000m?

Edited April 21, 2018 by g00bd0g

[bewing]

Do you mean in pure stock, or are you willing to mod the configs?

 

[g00bd0g]

2 minutes ago, bewing said:

Do you mean in pure stock, or are you willing to mod the configs?

 

Pure stock would be nice, I guess I can install real-chutes if I have to... Why the arbitrary 5000m max alt in stock? Wouldn't it be easy to allow limit set to say 50,000m?

 

Edited April 21, 2018 by g00bd0g

[bewing]

IRL If you can't get enough ram pressure into the chute, it can't open. And when the devs put that in, they were just figuring that people wouldn't want to spend 100 years floating down. Plus, if you fully deploy a chute above 10km, gravity will easily still accelerate you because the chute will produce almost no drag. So you will probably accelerate enough to destroy your chute if you open it that high.

FYI -- that altitude number is "above terrain", not sea level, just in case you were wondering. So you can get the chutes to fully deploy 5km above the highest mountain peak you can find.

But no, in pure stock that's it.

 

Edited April 21, 2018 by bewing

[g00bd0g]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

IRL If you can't get enough ram pressure into the chute, it can't open. And when the devs put that in, they were just figuring that people wouldn't want to spend 100 years floating down. Plus, if you fully deploy a chute above 10km, gravity will easily still accelerate you because the chute will produce almost no drag. So you will probably accelerate enough to destroy your chute if you open it that high.

FYI -- that altitude number is "above terrain", not sea level, just in case you were wondering. So you can get the chutes to fully deploy 5km above the highest mountain peak you can find.

But no, in pure stock that's it.

 

Thanks! I was just making sure I wasn't being a dork and missing some setting. So 5k limit it is then... I'm trying to do a mid-air retrieval type mission, which historically deployed at like 50,000ft. I think 10km at kerbal scale would be more realistic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-air_retrieval

 

[bewing]

Hmmm. Well, I'd think a partially deployed drogue chute would be good enough for that -- rather than a fully deployed mains chute. The main problem with that sort of thing is that parachutes are non-physical objects so you can't grab them. And that's how a typical mid-air retrieval works is by snagging the chute.

 

[g00bd0g]

I figured I'd just try and claw the probe out of the air ;p

[bewing]

Heh! Best of luck with that. 

[Snark]

I guess if you wanted to slow it down a little, you could spam airbrakes on it.  Won't be as good as a chute, but at least you can open them at arbitrarily high altitudes.