Stock starship.

[Cloakedwand72]

Can I use the stock air brakes to help simulate the sky diver maneuver? With out using the breaking ground robotic parts. And does the stock air brakes generate enough lift/drag for that?

[SpaceFace545]

Dunno, try it

[Vanamonde]

What maneuver? 

[Lewie]

4 hours ago, Cloakedwand72 said:

Can I use the stock air brakes to help simulate the sky diver maneuver? With out using the breaking ground robotic parts. And does the stock air brakes generate enough lift/drag for that?

If you're ok with mods, a couple tweak scaled Vernors should work....I assume you're talking about the skydiver/belly flop?

[MKI]

5 hours ago, Cloakedwand72 said:

Can I use the stock air brakes to help simulate the sky diver maneuver? With out using the breaking ground robotic parts. And does the stock air brakes generate enough lift/drag for that?

I've tried the "sky dive maneuver" a few times with my questionable engineering skills in stock with and without breaking ground parts. Mainly with MK3 "shuttle parts" housing a bunch of payload rather than using larger parts, since I have a pet peeve about being able to access my payload ;D

I've found robotics give you much more flexibility with your entry profile and weight distribution, but its really touchy.  Without those your looking more at other control methods, RCS spam + Vernor thrusters to keep your entry profile without overheating. I haven't tried air-brakes for any of my "Starship" wannabes, but for my "Falcon 9" booster I do use them for re-entry, but heating issues show up very quickly (very similar to the real thing). Which requires you to either take a shallower profile or perform other in-flight maneuvers. I've also used air-brakes to stabilize my Shuttle approaches, and they help a little, but can only be used sparingly due to thermal issues.

You are generally looking at a more "lifting body" concept than anything with large wings as unless you get it exactly right you wont be able perform the "flip maneuver" to land, let alone control deal with re-entry heating by being able to orient fully side-on. Fully stock landing is its own challenge, where smashing that retrograde button and leaving it to Jeb works well enough if you get the throttle right, and maybe add some parachutes to help orient. However, If you have a large wing structure it might not be possible. Mechjeb has a vastly better time getting the throttle perfect, but it also can trip up on the flip if there's to much aerodynamic mumbo-jumbo going on. This is with or without the air-brakes.

For maneuvering they can help a little during re-entry and glide, but thermal is your main concern if your using then during it during re-entry. During landing you need other control methods to help with the "flip" maneuver, so your air-brakes wont help there much either and its more up to your overall aerodynamics. Finally, robotics offer the most control and flexibility throughout the approach down to the landing. 

(I can provide pictures of the iterations I've built later if anyone is curious to see my part clipping skills)