[1.3.1] Ferram Aerospace Research: v0.15.9.1 "Liepmann" 4/2/18

[AndreyATGB]

Thank you for detailed explanation, that actually sounds really useful, I should really get more into FAR's more technical aspects.

[Schilcote]

It'd be neat if FAR (or something else) changed the "recovery of a vessel after a flight" science bonus so that you get extra for "recovery of an aircraft after supersonic flight", and maybe some other flight conditions. Maybe have a new science category for every mach number?

[Klingon Admiral]

It'd be neat if FAR (or something else) changed the "recovery of a vessel after a flight" science bonus so that you get extra for "recovery of an aircraft after supersonic flight", and maybe some other flight conditions. Maybe have a new science category for every mach number?

The problem I see with this is that KSP does make no difference between spacecraft and aircraft, and a re-entering capsule will always move at a high mach-number.

[Moon Goddess]

@Moon Goddess: Lower TWR. Smoother, earlier-starting gravity turn. Fairings. Tall rocket, not asparagus pancake. Fins. Pictures of problem vehicles are helpful here.

Yeah....looks like my issues are a combination of Too much TWR, mimicking the gravity turn I learned from MechJeb (keep spinning out there) and I discovered, wobbling parts inside my procedural fairings.

Learning to fix all these things.

[Amaroq]

Starwaster came up with this fix for me, which I put into an MM script:

@PART[RC_radial]
{
  MODULE
  {
    name = ModuleAeroReentry
    adjustCollider = -0.025
  }
}

@Gaiiden - Thank you, I'll give that a shot. I'd actually "solved" my problem with a high-altitude drogue chute to cut some speed.

Yeah....looks like my issues are a combination of Too much TWR, mimicking the gravity turn I learned from MechJeb (keep spinning out there) and I discovered, wobbling parts inside my procedural fairings.

Been there, done that! I use Kerbal Engineer Redux to monitor my TWR as I burn off fuel (I aim for an active TWR of between 1.6 and 1.8 during thick atmosphere, and throttle up once I'm clear).

The FAR gravity turn is radically different than the "stock" one. Try turning to about 70 degrees as soon as you're clear of the launch pad, and "rachet over" 10 degrees six or seven times as you ascend, so that you're not burning radially until you're up about 45km.

[ferram4]

@White Owl: Do you want me to work out IAS too? I know it's less useful, but it might be fun for giggles and more "real life" piloting, and it just works out to another few calculations to do.

@AndreyATGB: Really, EAS is a way of measuring the dynamic pressure Q, which is equal to 0.5 * air_density * velocity². All aerodynamic forces scale directly with Q, so knowing that tells you how strong aerodynamic forces will be. The only problem is that Q isn't very intuitive, for either the pilot or the engineer; what do you relate it to, and what meaning does 50 kPa have? EAS on the other hand, can be easily related to how fast you're going, and it's easier to connect to the same forces as at 202 m/s at sea level.

@Schilcote: Out of the scope of this mod. Especially since it increases the number of things that it could conflict with. It's not happening.

[NathanKell]

Ferram: IAS? That reminds me I was going to ask you for KTAS and KIAS

Moon Goddess: These are geared for RSS/RO, but the basic techniques should apply to stock+FAR too. One by Ferram for manual gravity turns, one by me for how to fly them with MJ. https://github.com/NathanKell/RealSolarSystem/wiki/_pages

[White Owl]

In my opinion, IAS isn't really called for; usefulness trumps realism in this case. But I've never been overly concerned with duplicating a specific real-life airplane... maybe somebody into that kind of modeling would disagree.

[NathanKell]

It's more because, after 25+ years on flight sims, I *think* in KTAS and KIAS.

[White Owl]

Heh heh... I know what you mean. But after all this time flying planes in KSP, I'm so used to m/s that any other measurement would seem weird.

[localSol]

Satellite uplink audio recording..Timestamp Apr 12, 1979 : "chht!Ahh, Kerbtraut-33-1 this is foxtrot-32-1, we have the

alien scout on radar, we're receiving helium sounding giggling from your communication ID, you're moving out of formation please

respond, ahh, over.chht!"

Thanks for another great FAR release! I remade the 'MiG-32 Foxtrot' from the game Xenonauts in KSP.

It could maybe have fancier shaped control surfaces, I got impatient. It flew amazingly well on the first test takeoff, straight to

supersonic after only four struts. !? Maybe too well, I wonder if anything is malfunctioning, but if not, what fun it was anyway!

Proportions are a little different from the xenonauts aircraft. Engines are AJE 1.0 stock burning Realfuels 5.1 kerosene.

Screenshot album :

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Craft file (for KSP 0.23.5) : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6231140/KSPstuff/kerbtraut-33_10.craft

Mods used (probably require most of them to load it) : Hotrockets r6, AJE 1.0, FAR 0.13.1, RealFuels v5.1, B9 for ksp 0.23.5 patch (and B9), Procedural Dynamics 0.7, Deadly Reentry 4.6

Edited April 13, 2014 by localSol

[Dirt_Merchant]

The answer is yes, you can indeed make an x-wing fly, behold my (Se) X-Wing and Texture demonstrator CY-25 WRM (su25frogfoot). The su25 has been modified to reduce weight hence WRM, weight reduction modifications. I used: pWings, FAR, AJE, Procedural Parts, and Firespitter Parts among many others to make them. Re-Textures were created by myself in GIMP and powered by Firespitter plugin to allow for texture switching in editor.

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Last pic there is a Mig-25 by ChrisPBacon, more pics of his absolutely beautiful airplane soon.

@ferram4: Thank you for making this freaking amazing mod. I eagerly await my "dumb" control surfaces lol. Additionally I've had another idea creep slowly through my frontal lobes: Instead of allowing for negative deflection in the tweak-able menu, simply (maybe?) add a button for an option to invert deflection.

[localSol]

The answer is yes, you can indeed make an x-wing fly, behold my X-Wing and Texture demonstrator CY-25 WRM (su25frogfoot). [...]

Cool! What was the blue ring looking part on the front of the first version? Did the one with canards and vertical fins fly better?

Edited April 13, 2014 by localSol

[NathanKell]

Dirt_Merchant, that's bloody amazing!

Ferram: I'm having issues with gear, still. Updated to .13.1, and now not only do Firespitter gear still get wacky drag, *also* my application of zero-drag MODULEs fails.

[Dirt_Merchant]

Cool! What was the blue ring looking part on the front of the first version? Did the one with canards and vertical fins fly better?

those are b9 puffers, or basically rcs that uses air instead of hypergolics or monoprops, lets you have attitude control on vtols or other strange things like my ship above. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Harrier#Controls_and_handling for more info on the development of these bleed air puffers IRL.

Regarding flight dynamics, the canards helped with mach tuck at supersonic speeds, but at subsonic speeds one solution was as good as another really. At low airspeeds the craft needed a bit of help with getting the nose up, mainly just after takeoff, and just before landing. Takeoff was not too bad save for some lateral instabilities setup by the landing gear themselves, but that aside the thing has a solid 15* AOA inbuilt on the ground so it would run up to speed, then just jump off the ground. One comment on its wings though, they are so draggy its nuts, like think badminton style shuttlecock draggy. If i managed to get it to spin or otherwise depart (its not easy) the recovery procedures go like this: let go of stick, wait three seconds, resume flight.

@NathanKell: Thank you sir, and right back at you for your work with RSS and RO related offerings! Keep it up man!

@Ferram4: I can also confirm that there is indeed some wild drag on the landing gear, specifically all those provided by Snjo's Firespiter pack. Though I can report that the drag between deployed and retracted states is significantly different, around a 5x difference between states, which I certainly enjoy. Given that i've not done any sort of drag testing on any landing gear ever I cant comment on what these values should be for deployed landing gear, but for reference I will attempt to supply some test card style flight data for you at the earliest opportunity.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Dirt_Merchant

[camlost]

I didn't notice any of the B9 landing gears have huge drag. I use them most of the time -- rescaled of course

[White Owl]

Hey, great looking planes!

But whoah, hang on and let's back up a second... you can swap textures on procedural wings in the editor!? HOW!? Why haven't I heard of this before?

[ferram4]

@NathanKell: Yeah, as part of handling the issues with Interstellar stuff all parts with animations update their drag properties when the animation plays. I thought I fixed it, but it seems to be interfering with a bunch of other code that's in there to make sure that a bunch of other B9 parts don't have their drag messed up. For some reason the same exact part ends up having different surface node orientations (as in, part local, the surface node is defined differently), and I don't know why; I might have to try grabbing something slightly different to make it work properly, at least for landing gear, since everything else seems to work properly.

[NathanKell]

Ah, ok, that makes a lot of sense. I was wondering why the drag model addition was getting clobbered. At least that means for static parts it still works to define drag models.

[not-a-cylon]

is there way to make parts invisible to FAR? I'd like for my ladders to not create drag on my aircraft- I don't think it's balanced that the game's lack of aerodynamic ladder choices (or ladders directly built into hulls) should compromise designs.

[bludclot]

After about 500 hours of KSP I was completely bored with the game until I installed FAR and Deadly Re-entry.

That was 290 hours of play time and about 150 flights ago! FAR and the HUD from steamgauges is all I ever wanted in KSP and It makes planes behave more like I expect them to after 25 years of flight sims.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! The awesome of this plugin can't be exaggerated.

My only complaint is I would like the interface to look as sexy as MJ panels do. But I never really use it when flying anyway so that is minor.

Nowadays my only use for rockets is to accelerate from +/- 1700m/s to orbital velocities and for orbital maneuver. (unless I leave Kerbin orbit but I will still use SSTO to deliver modules for in orbit assembly)

[a.g.]

is there way to make parts invisible to FAR? I'd like for my ladders to not create drag on my aircraft- I don't think it's balanced that the game's lack of aerodynamic ladder choices (or ladders directly built into hulls) should compromise designs.

Why does FAR apply drag to non-physical parts all of a sudden?

[Motokid600]

Why does FAR apply drag to non-physical parts all of a sudden?

Hmm.. this may explain the issue I'm having with the FASA mercury pod.

But.. the reason I post here today is for Denny's SaturnV. Ferram I'm not sure if you got my pm, but what would it take to make his rocket work with FAR? It's gotta be more the just renaming the LES to "shroud".

[GentlemanJack]

FAR hates my rockets. Any rocket i build that is perfectly aerodynamic just likes to flip whenever i go to do my gravity turn at the start. It starts cartwheeling in mid air and it's really frustrating cause the rocket design seems fine. http://imgur.com/2wsKwVv

[jrandom]

Config question: I'm looking at making the SpaceplanePlus parts FAR-compatible and am not sure what I need to do for the drag model. Can I just reset the dragModelType to 'default' (and removing the other drag settings that I'm assuming were made for the Firespitter lift model)? Most of the parts are meant to be lifting-body parts and I'm not sure how to do this correctly.