martinborgen

So there's no heat transfer, say I have ten drills but all my radiators are mounted on a single strucural fuselage attached with a klaw. Would all 1000kw going through the claw an fuselage part affect it in some way?

Mybe I missed something earlier, but suddenly I need radiators to all my IRSU ships! I never added them before, because I did not see the point, but now, I need to retrofit a bunch of them - and some are not very retrofittable (i.e. The Klaw -sollution). Before I go about klawing radiator panels, can someone explain how this heat transfer system works? I don't want connecting parts getting destroyed by overheating and such.

Yes, I am redesigning the lander with new experience. Now, I won't fuel it from Gilly as first done, but on Eve, hence the desing will be a lot lighter. Lots or aerobrakes and four big S delta wings will hopefully alow me to steer the craft, as well as better heat shield arrangement. I did not know airbrakes acted as radiators? That seems a bit odd, but I guess they would explode otherwise.

Haha, well I've landed small things, no problems.

OK. I can however proudly announce that allthough the lander couldn't survive re-entry, it was capable with margin to take of from 1000m above sea level - even though the second stage flipped and I oversped the rocket. Then again, the thing weighs 280 tons fueled up, so it better be. Now then, back to the drawing board, and get the design with A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S. and wings etc.

Thanks, wrong forum, my mistake. So do you use fuel to get down below orbital velocity while still in space? Or do you have a low eve orbit and just use air brakes from upper eve atmosphere in a standard descent?

Hello all. I've found that my Eve lander consistently disintigrates because of heat issues. Struts and full fuel tanks overheat - despite having heat shield on the bottom (forward facing) end of the lander's stacks. I've aerobraked several passes, but even getting my orbit down to 1500km ap (which took a month, because of shallow pe, also because of heat issues), I feel that there's no way I can get the thing down. I see lots of very large and rapid fluctuations on the heat bars, so I suspect the engine can't handle the heat transfers quick enough. Even so, after turning ignore max temp on, I found that several parts, even un-heatshieldable parts like struts, goes to red (ie. exploded due to heat if not for cheat) heat all through the descent. Despite all this, the heat shields have plenty of ablator left? So apart from burning a crapton of fuel all the way down, how do you do it?

To find the SAS button. Everything since has been piece of cake.

Thanks Your heavy lifting spaceplane designs are a really interesting concept, that I also intend to explore.

IRL, yaw keeps the G-indicator in the middle. Basically, when you bank turn, you don't need to bank 90 (or close to) degrees. Theoretically, one might think so (and yes if flying a fighter jet or so), but because of earths gravity and whatnot you dont bank that much - hence yaw to keep you turning nice.

Probably not, but that's a beautiful flap configuration!

How do you mean asymetric? Yes, roll is one of the main wing only. Perhaps a Rhino would do better if I tweaked the fuel load - I tried and it worked but I had much smaller margins. Basic criteria is one orange tank module (an orange tank plus some docking ports, rcs and panels). So say 38 tons at minimum. The Mammoth-engined verision can probably take more than 40 tons. Starting weight is about 380 to 400 tons, so it's not an efficient SSTO (10% payload compared to 25-30%?), since it doesen't use airbreathers to maximum gain - but then it's a much simpler craft - keeps the part count much lower which is nice. Now I recently figured out a setting on this laptop that limited my performance, so the craft has lost some of it's original purpose. Still, it's a rocket-speed lauch, which is nice.

The X-15 is pretty scary, but pretty cool. The trick is maintaining the AoA. Which leads me to what you wrote about flaps. I have now successfully landed several times using flaps that induce a strong upwards pitch - as I need to maintain high AoA at low speeds. Basically, the flap-thing (extra lift at low speeds) is provided by the fuselage.

Ah, thanks!

I noticed my "show vessel labels" got unticked while in game. I think it's after reverting or quickloading many times. Anyone else noticed this?

Yes, I found your post very nice, always enlightening to see others' take on the problem. I can now proudly announce that I've managed to get a configuration for this plane that works. I added the S-control surfaces and canard to my delta wing (and moved the yaw rudders so they won't induce roll). The S-control surfaces added quite some lift. Also a Shift-tap incidence on the wing and forward control surface. Mapped the S-control surfaces to action group, deploy as if maximum elevation, and two aerospikes in the cargo bay as retro thrusters. The S-control surfaces on action group turned out to be both flaps, brakes and flare control - activating this on the last few hundred meters gives me a nice flare in at ~150 m/s, some engine to control descent, and upon ground contact, press action group that shuts down all engines, opens cargo bay, fires aerospikes, turn on brakes and deploy drouge chutes. Extra pair of radial chutes as needed, though not above 100 m/s or craft brakes apart.

Barn goes well with whole "found by the side of the road" thing

By all means, that would be a more traditional space plane approach (I have a few of those designs that work quite satisfactory). I just don't like using 30-something rapiers or so, because of the bloated part count (lower FPS). This rocket doesen't use the jets for more than a little boost and to calibrate landing - most of the thrust is from the mammoth, all the way from the runway. The launch is also much faster that way. (originally designed to launch from pad, but rolling start gave the jets twice the thrust, and a lot more payload to orbit). However, the deign is secondary to the topic (just to be clear, this is an alternative design experiment from me, not the way I try to build all my spaceplanes) - the actual topic is the landing procedures, to see what tips and tricks people use to make landings easier, in what is not really a flight-friendly game UI. I do appreciate the construction tips about wing Angle of Incidence, and such. Having this hard-to fly experiment is what made me think of the very details of landing in KSP. Generally, I land without too much trouble in my more conventional designs. Speaking of which - has anyone fond a nice usage of the deploy function on control surfaces?

Thanks! Yes, how do you get the 5 m/s sinkrate to converge with the beginning of the runway? Haha, thanks! No, I'm not discouraged, though I was a little peeved at some peoples response. Lots of good advice also, like this. However, I've found that parachutes deployed while rolling won't be cut. However, the stresses on the fuselage by the parachutes is immense - often the plane lands nicely but is broken apart by the chutes.

Thank you for your constructive criticism. Perhaps you need help distinguish between the act of taking off and landing - we're discussing the latter. The X-15 did land by itself, in case you didn't know.

My idea is similar to this; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15. So forum verdict is that it's not really feasable?

Well, this space"plane" is going to be hard to land - hence why I need to organize my landing approach. As I earlier said, I'm no stranger to the mechanics of landing, but I find it's really hard to control in KSP. The AoA is lost when doing other manouvres (nose dips), and the plane tends to roll to one side without reason. On a more sane design, I'm able to overcome these obstacles, but a saucer design is harder. Anyways; here's the plane. http://imgur.com/a/DGQRK

I have landed it a few times, but it's hard with keyboard controls. I haven't tried KSP with a joystick yet, but from my flight sim experience, I think it should be much easier with a stick and throttle. I find the hard thing is learning how KSP flight works.

So, I tried with flags, and to see slowest speed where this contraption could go. Turns out it's about 175 m/s (at 10 degrees AOA). Here's some pictures for you - however I find the throttle hard to control while keeping the AOA and landing, so I botched this landing. Anyways, here's some pictures of the madness; http://imgur.com/a/DGQRK

Oh, yes, A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S. are there - eight of them. Break torque was eventually maximum on rear wheels. I asked because this aircraft in particular has quite small lift - it's a rocket SSTO with wings on it (starting weight 380 tons, landing weight ~80t). It relies mostly on body lift. Landing speed was at about 275 m/s, and that's where I will do my next modifications - more wings, or chutes, or retro thrusters. However, to get the first aircraft down safely, I needed several tries, and hence I started thinking of these problems when waiting for my plane to burn through the atmosphere. Now the aircraft is down, although I had to stop right after the runway and just before the water.