POLL: Has Anyone ever had to do an abort Using LES?

[Xavven]

I had a manned rocket start to flip while under 10km altitude. LES abort saved the crew.

[Cavscout74]

21 hours ago, Loskene said:

Nice. I've yet to have a plane break up with enough altitude to let me bail out all the Kerbals in time, but then I rarely build SSTO spaceplanes. I've taken to making sure all my test flights are done with only a single pilot on board instead. If anyone else sneaks aboard while I'm making edits, on their gargantuan heads be it.

For test flights I stick with just one as well, but that incident was a routine crew transfer in one of my most flown spaceplane designs.   It's also the only time I had Kerbal Launch Failure pick on a spaceplane - prior to this, I actually thought it only applied to pad launches, not runway launches. 

For test flights, I've started building pilot escape pods into my experimental aircraft/spaceplane designs - decouplers on both sides of the cockpit, enough sepratrons to boost it up & away from the craft even in a 0/0 ejection and a parachute to land the whole assembly after the fireworks are over.  Once I'm satisfied that the design is more or less safe, the escape system gets removed to reduce mass & part count.  Plus it's just rude to the passengers for the pilot to eject without them.

Escape pod test:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by Cavscout74

[FahmiRBLX]

I was using that LES Tower part while abort-testing my Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft replica. And all aboard indeed survived.

And also used a similar system of a cockpit-and-Sepratrons back in 1.1 during abort-testing and the real deal, when I'm about to hit the VAB, Astronaut Complex or the R&D Complex.

Edited August 24, 2019 by FahmiRBLXian

[Gargamel]

Part Failures Mod.  Enough of a chance that all I design all my crewed vessels with some sort of launch abort procedure.   Gets real interesting trying to make that happen for a 40 kerbal tourist bus.   That upper stage engine just doesn't have the oomph to do a 0/0 abort, so If I need to abort that one from the pad, I have to actually launch it to get momentum to abort.   I don't think I've had to do it outside of testing, but it won't be fun (but then, that will make it really fun!).   But yeah, all the smaller ships use the LES if it's got the oomph to get the pod off the stack.  I've had to use those a number of times.    I give all my kerbals a special "Abort" ribbon in Final Frontier if they make it. 

[garwel]

I never used the stock LES part, because in KSP, explosions don't affect nearby objects (no fireballs etc.). So it's enough to just separate the crew pod from the launcher and deploy the chutes. But I've had to do it quite a few times (I play with no reverts) and I always make sure that I have correct actions set for the Backspace key. Since I launch most of my ships with a kOS script, I included an auto-abort feature in it.

[Daniel Prates]

On 8/21/2019 at 1:48 PM, Geonovast said:

LES testing is becoming one of my favorite parts of designing a rocket.

This is so true. I started playing with no reverting and quicksaving a while back. Test flights and unmanned simulations with crewed craft became a most enjoyable portion of my game.

As to the LES parts: I dont feel the "abort" button all that intuitive to use. To my personal tastes the actiongroups buttons feel more handy. So for everycraft I concoct my own abort system, usually with more functions than a mere escape booster, and tie the whole thing to a key.

[Geonovast]

49 minutes ago, Daniel Prates said:

As to the LES parts: I dont feel the "abort" button all that intuitive to use. To my personal tastes the actiongroups buttons feel more handy. So for everycraft I concoct my own abort system, usually with more functions than a mere escape booster, and tie the whole thing to a key.

The Abort action group can be triggered with the backspace key.

[Daniel Prates]

8 hours ago, Geonovast said:

The Abort action group can be triggered with the backspace key.

You learn something every day! Tks.

[Empiro]

You don't really need an LES in KSP. When playing without reverts, I bind my abort key to shut down all engines and decouple the pod. Generally, parts don't really explode in a way that will cause damage to a pod.

[Robonoise]

I use it when I want to test my rockets. Shoot the kerbals up, and if something goes wrong use the good ol’ LES. Of course sometimes I forget to bring parachutes...

[magnemoe]

On 8/30/2019 at 11:33 PM, Empiro said:

You don't really need an LES in KSP. When playing without reverts, I bind my abort key to shut down all engines and decouple the pod. Generally, parts don't really explode in a way that will cause damage to a pod.

This is correct, the only exception is if you get an telescoping effect, this was far more common in early KSP then the connection between first stage and stack broke and the first stage started to destroy the second stage and accelerating. 

Term come from railroad cars and is very bad and why light rail is still battleships compared to cars. Simply adding an wooden hut on top of an flatcar has some issues. 

Real world rockets has an automated system for this. an set of wires running down the stage, is multiple breaks the abort is initiated automatically. 
Apollo used an small test rocket for the abort test. Basically some missiles bolted together Saturn1 style, this disintegrated during flight so the abort system initiated before it was planned. 
Making an perfect test  
And yes they will kill trust hard. Blowing up the turbo pumps is one way. 
 

[kerbiloid]

LES is the last chance to reject that stupid idea of the flight  and stay on Earth.

[KerbolExplorer]

I never needed it KSP's physics allow me to decouple the command pod and roll out.

And that is if I ever let a rocket blow up i mostly revert flight(If enabled)when something goes wrong