Jeast

Sneak peak on the IVA work in progress (man that takes a lot of work)

What do you mean with MM patches?

What we can do, fix the aero for stock as good as possible than leave it and go on the FAR route. Hows that?

Mike, how do you think on going the FAR route?

Empty your OMS tank than the CoM will shift to somewhere in the middle (close to) where it realisticly should be. The best I can do is what I did to the 1.5 model. You can glide and land at around 85 m/s with stall speed at 55 m/s. There are a lot of topics on this forum showing that SSTO's are now kinda impossible to make realistic. In my opionion we can do 2 things. 1 = wait for a new patch. 2 = go FAR all the way and see how this goes. My bet is that we can get pretty close to realism with FAR (I once created a shuttle for Real Solar Systems from scratch).

Oh yeah Mike, there is something wrong with the right gear. It gets loose during reentry and wobbles while on the runway. - - - Updated - - - To much mass you mean? With the new drag model all the numbers don't do anything anymore. Only on the lifting objects you have that modifier. The drag gets auto calculated by KSP using the mass and shape of the object. - - - Updated - - - I hate to say this but my guess is that it is impossible to get this thing flying realistic due to the way KSP works and calculates stuff. We have to compromise. Do we want this thing to float realstic and be able to do S-turns and glide in from further out? Or do we want this thing to stall at around 55 m/s so the landing is a bit harder? I think these 2 are the options. If I'm wrong please let me know but I do not know of an example craft in KSP where realism is top notch.

Okay here it comes. I flew a couple of reentries while editing the configs everytime. My observations are that with the lifting surfaces removed and only the elevons acting as lifting objects we could probably get there. The fact is that this doesn't do anything to drag. The problem is that the thing bleeds speed very fast until the flare. It is now impossible to do S turns, fly a 20 degree final, come in and 120 m/s for the flare and land at 87m/s. It already bleeds you to 80 m/s till when you are over the runway treshold.

For all: you have to put Xtrim on the OMS gimbal to 12 to resolve the OMS control problems. - - - Updated - - - Thats what I did. The KSO has an override so doesn't use the stock drag model. It doenst fly realistic don't you think?

Well.. Yeah thats a way to see it ;-) - - - Updated - - - Ok working on it right now. I reverted back to the stock aero model, removed all the lifting surfaces so only the elevons create lift now. Going to test it right now.

Netherlands here my friend ;-) They put a cube in a new part config file in the main folder. This cube excludes drag, like a void.

Well we can try it. The only thing is the cargobay wich is hollow. Ksp has a hard time calcing drag for hollow parts so maybe we should keep the CB dragmodel on override.

Yes thats exactly what I did. Im going to test it in an hour but it sounds like it flies completely different than it did before the upgrade. Can you confirm this SP? If so it is much easier to find the problem. Mike, with stock aero it bleeds speed so fast you can only fly like 20 meters. Thats the reason of the dragmodel override. Without the lifting surfaces you cannot control it until 6000 alt. Thats when the control surfs kick in. With the pre patch CoM location you needed a 12 degrees y axis OMS gimbal. Due to the fuel change the CoM is shifted. That should explain the OMS control issue.

I have not yet tested the aero fix with the new version. It sounds like the CoM shifted with the oms fuel change. I will look into it asap. - - - Updated - - - Btw the videos are recorded with the 1.5 version + aero update.

Yes indeed. Don't try to reënter at an angle, just follow prograde.

Awesome!!! How easy is it to place? I have no good relationship with the other canadarm mods as those give me bad luck with the nodes everytime.

Yes Im working on modeling all the stuff instead of a simple texture. Its going to take a while though.

The HUD on the new cockpit is now actually useable:

Nice nice nice! When this thing is done its going to be so much fun to fly!

You think its still too floaty?

Did you use my latest Aerodynamics update (version 1.5)? Sneak peak work in progress:

No the HUD is useless in the current model. You have to aim the down part of the HUD at where you want to go. But the good news is: I am redoing the cockpit with a more accurate HUD. Its almost done! - - - Updated - - - Yes I just slammed a radial parachute to the tail. Mike is working on an accurate model. We need more testers! https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-ALRjYUGKH7UDdVOUtKd3JyRk0/view?usp=sharing

100 should indeed not have too drastic of an effect. Did you use rcs during the flare? We need more testers and details to replicate.

Meeb, are your oms tanks completely empty when landing? The weight of the fuel will shift the CoM drasticly enough to change the flight characteristics a lot. I have found that you need a lot less lift te be able to land after an abort but that when you do a reentry with the same amount of lift in the parameter you go nose down from reentry to ground. I cannot understand how that can be and it is probably some kind of bug. I created the last configs only based on a complete reentry and you should not be able to float and stall at 55m/s. Real life the shuttle should even float better than this as the shuttle increased speed at a 15 degrees glideslope while in ksp you have to fly a 30 degree glideslope to stay at speed. But this is probably more related to drag and hopefully I can get this far with further tweaking. If you still have this floating issue please let me know and give all the details so I can try to replicate it.

Can you confirm the landing goes well, so stall speed around 55m/s and no taking of once touchdown? Another landing with the aero fix. Time to upgrade the cockpit, started working on this already. Will post some pics soon!

Realy? Hmm thats weird. Tested it again and past 55m/s it goes nose down at my system. Cannot get it of the ground again either. Can it be other mods are causing this?