Apologies if I'm late to the party, but I too have a successful entry. The craft is part of my Hades series of aircraft, and I successfully obtained orbit before landing in both my Hades MkII and MkIII. The MkIII was a augmented version of the MkII designed to land on the Mun before departing back to Kerban, but a last minute failure after obtaining munar orbit prevented that from happening. The canards on the nose ensure that she achieves a sturdy and maintainable lift quickly. Removing the canards causes the plane to take-off at 50% later than otherwise. What a modern art masterpiece of an orbit. The irregularity of it is so majestic. My excuse for this pitiful display of pilotry is that I was unsure of the aircraft's abilities and maneuverability in a zero-g enviroment, so took a few shortcuts when achieving orbit. In Orbit. Re-entering the atmosphere using orbital momentum to provide lift. There were parachutes positioned on the craft in case the need for emergency decelerative operations arose, but they ended up not being used. Providing the exit burn of the orbit is properly initiated, the craft won't need any further engine power to land and can reach the ground through a unbearably slow gliding maneuver. I did time the glided landing out of curiosity, which took roughly 20 minutes from the time the burn to de-orbit actualized. The only improvements that this had over the MKII were the removed RAM air takes and added fuel tanks. As hypothesized, the small amount of extra fuel proved to be an excessive amount for just reaching the mun, meaning I could probably fly to Minmus immediately afterwards if I got my trajectories perfect. With a better understanding of the aircraft's abilities, I was able to constrain myself from taking any shortcuts which ensured the orbit was (relatively) evenly spaced and circular. Some pictures of the vehicle in orbit. Once the Mun appeared on the horizon, I adjusted my heading before forgoing the transfer burn. After approaching a distance of 40,000 meters from the Mun, I quicksaved. Once the spaceplane was below 10,000m from the Min, I burned again to achieve munar orbit. Immediately following this a gradual landing was attempted. Complete failure. Sorry Bill. Upon trying again, I was greeted with a lovely quicksave error. Unfortunately, the lack of balance in the aircraft created by the incident was incurable. Inevitably, we'll be forced to add back-up gyros to cope with tightening federal regulations after the classified disappearance of Bill Kerman.
