rhoark

Perhaps the derivative of acceleration ("snap") would be a better proxy for mechanical stresses.

It's not uncommon or specific to this mod for the parachute to snap if you have anything more than a pod attached. Use a drogue first in that case.

AmpYear and RemoteTech both use the same flight computer module that lets you do this. RemoteTech also changes gameplay a lot for probes, but AmpYear for some reason omits roll control from the autopilot.

AmpYear lets you toggle rotpower and ASAS.

In the part.cfg, you can set the parameters of the PID controller.

ASAS in the atmosphere is fine as long as you don't have excessive pitch authority (ie, multiple mainsails with gimbals on.) Tail fins are a big help with rockets flipping, but below 40k you should still take the turn 10 degrees at a time.

Great, thanks!

I was resisting getting started with pWings, but my Hermes-style reentry vehicle wouldn't have been possible without them!

Absolutely. That's why I started using Ferram, Deadly Reentry, Ioncross, and AmpYear.

RemoteTech's flight computer lets you control roll in surface mode. That seems to be missing in AmpYear. If its too much to get the full control in, it could at least try to roll to 0 instead of some arbitrary angle that makes it near worthless for planes.

If you put together something that has good dV but too little surface TWR, SRBs are a quick fix.

KW rocketry's 3.75m parts (with interstage fairings!) are good for making a Saturn-esque rocket.

The drag is proportional to the air deflection. It can't do one without the other, regardless of the surface shape. Flat may not be optimal, but it works. (And airbrakes can certainly be curved, in particular split-tail style.) Bottom line is an airbrake will affect attitude unless cancelled by a symmetrically placed partner. The firespitter airbrakes affect attitude, but not in the right way.

A flat surface angled at 45 degrees doesn't care what you call it. The difference is in where its placed and when its deployed.

Hello, I'm having problems with airbrakes (from B9, but using the Firespitter plugin). With airbrakes on the back upper surface of the wing at a 30 or 45 degree angle, you'd expect them to act as elevators, pitching up. Instead, they pitch the plane down (with FAR at least). I think this has to do with the fact the plugin works by altering the drag of the part, rather than taking into account the angle of deflection, like a control surface. The modeling could be more accurate if implemented as a control surface that toggles by action group instead of the usual attitude inputs. The verisimilitude could alternatively be improved by trickery with the model's scene coordinates so that it considers the part's forward direction to be perpendicular to the plate of the airbrake in the deployed position. However, I'm not sure this method would account for Newton's 3rd law on the deflected air as the control surface method would.

I'm having issues with the B9/Firespitter airbrake. First off, it's having an effect even while on top of the wing while flying belly prograde. I'm not sure whether responsibility for shielding it should go with the airbrake part cfg, Ferram, or the pWing the airbrake is sitting on top of. Secondly, Firespitter models the airbrake basically as a brick of variable size, rather than an angled surface. That's obviously not in Ferram's purview, but I figure people looking at this thread would know how to get started modeling the airbrake more properly as a toggled control surface.

Be sure to try Ferram Aerospace as well, so you're rewarded rather than punished for making your designs aerodynamic with fairings or nosecones.

Looking at the airbrake code, it just changes the part's drag, which is applied entirely retrograde, rather than taking account the angle between the airstream and the surface of the airbrake. (This is in the firespitter plugin.)

The wings run the length of the plane, but the airbrakes are positioned in the rear. Airflow should push the rear of the wings down, causing the front to rise.

A balanced/realistic SABRE uses liquid hydrogen propellant and earth-like air in jet mode or liquid oxygen in rocket mode. Note that the B9 SABRE as provided doesn't qualify, and especially not in some kind of evegas propellant mode, but with Modular Fuels it can operate in a realistic fashion. Doing so makes a craft lighter, but allows about half as much dV worth of fuel in the same volume of tanks.

I have Ferram and a plane with airbrakes on the top trailing edge of the wing. Intuition would suggest it would make the plane pitch up, just like a control surface would in that position and orientation. Instead, it makes the plane pitch down. Any ideas what is happening?

Is there any visual indicator of throttle in the Mk 2 cockpit?

Launched the lander retrograde to the command module.

The greenhouse looks awesome. What it needs to work as you described is some additional resource types, say "Biomass" and "Light" that are configured not to flow between modules. The pseudo-solar panels produce Light resource instead of electricity, and the module can also convert electricty into Light. Then the biomass resource decays at a fixed rate, while there's a reaction: CarbonDioxide + Light -> Biomass + Oxygen

Thanks for the cfg's. Let's me get started with some planes I was putting off. Thumbs up on making the SABRE use H2 exclusively in the realfuels version - makes me not feel conflicted about the unrealistic dV it could get in the default B9 configuration.