TomcatMVD

Cue the Inception music... *BRRROOOOMMM!"

Please tell me you nicknamed it "The Cow" xD

Definitely, I wouldn't go by that "tutorial" at all. Anyway, like people said, I'd give the Lazor Docking Cam a try, it really helps a lot. I learned docking before installing it and now I just feel like I'm cheating.

I loaded 100% of my monopropellant on the service module, and used the lander only up until rendezvous, then the SM docked onto the lander module.

I managed to put together my first "Apollo style" Mün landing. It is such a thrill to have everything work out as expected, specially for someone who keeps struggling with rocket building. The rocket performed well enough although I should have a third stage in it, so as to avoid wasting fuel from my service and lander modules. The dockings went pretty good, I even had to dock more times than planned because when I detached from the service module, I realized it was better to undock while it was behind the SM, since it was supposed to then start burning retrograde, so I docked again, turned around, and detached once again. Everything went silk smooth up until the reinsertion burn, which was only possible thanks to my copious amounts of monopropellant, otherwise my trustworthy 3 man crew would be stranded around Kerbin on an elliptical orbit with a Pe in excess of 3,000,000mts.

I love docking too. My struggle is building space-worthy craft... I would starve as an engineer.

Decided it should look more like a nation's flag than a Space Agency banner. Anyway, it's in my sig.

Figured I start anew after the last update. Just sent a probe to the mün. Next mission: Jebediah's münshot. First docking in Kerbin orbit: Some people can't get used to the whole EVA-ing without being secured to the mothership Jeb's having a blast though

Thanks, I was looking for an automated way of knowing it. IIRC it was MJ that had this little part you could attach to your ship as you were building it and it'd tell you the Delta V for each stage. Oh well... I can always do the math I guess Thanks.

What do you use for knowing your ship's Delta V? I used to use the MJ thingy but now it doesn't work.

My first successful mission to the Mün and back. Such a thrill! The third picture reflects how much fuel I had left after my re-insertion burn

Happened to me yesterday and I lost my **** until I realized the solution was rather simple. Place a maneuver node anywhere in your projected trajectory and pull one of the radial markers (the blue ones) until you see a Pe appear. Then just wait until you reach it and burn retrograde to create an actual orbit.

Thank you, kind sir.

I'm sorry for the question but I'm pretty new to this whole thing and don't have the mods figured out just yet. Which one gives you that robot arm thingy you're using to unload your cargo? Thanks.

Another helpful hint is, when extending your prograde node, try to make it so that it will intersect the Mün's orbit about a quarter of the way ahead of it. So, if the Mün is at your 3 o'clock, you should try to aim towards 12 o'clock.

Correct me if I'm wrong but given an equatorial orbit there is no need for using the "pink markers" as these would only change your orbit inclination. AFAIK you should use the prograde marker to to extend your orbit until it falls within the Mün SOI.

I get your point, the way I see it though, the "tilt" of the wing when compared to the fuselage is not really necessary. Usually when on the ground, airplanes would tend to have a slight nose-high attitude (when on the runway, most airplanes will start flying on their own just a bit after rotation speed). Once airborne, the higher speed means a smaller AoA is enough for level flight. As a matter of fact, one pic is worth a thousand words: This is a Cessna 172. The most common single engine piston airplane. Those wings are definitely not parallel to the ground, however they seem more or less level with the airframe (if there is a tilt, it's not noticeable). Once in flight, the airplane's attitude is quite different as the nose drops down a little bit. It's all relative though... I mean we're talking about 3º here. The wings could be perfectly aligned with the body and you'd be maintaining level flight by keeping a 3º nose high attitude, which for all intents and purposes, you can hardly call a pitch up attitude. As a matter of fact, your pitch must be corrected as you change your speed, in order to maintain an AoA that would keep the airplane flight level, so whether there is a "tilt" of the wings in comparison with the airframe, is beyond the point and would only serve a design purpose (i.e. if the wings are level with the airplane maybe the cockpit floor does have a little tilt so passengers won't feel discomfort by the most common cruise attitude of the airframe).

Wings need a positive AoA, whether that means a relative tilt compared to the airframe, I believe that is something different. AoA pertains to the angle at which the wing meets the incoming air (or rather air meets the incoming wing ), it is entirely possible to have a wing with 0 tilt in reference to the airplane's longitudinal axis and still keep a level flight AoA by maintaining a slight nose-up attitude.

IIRC it is only possible at very high speeds, but in most aircraft, level flight is achieved by maintaining an AoA of 3 to 6º depending on the airspeed.

Well... the Bernoulli explanation does not demand that both airflows meet at the trailing edge, that's just a misconception resulting from ages of teaching it that way in order to simplify its understanding. The acceleration of the particles is most often explained by the Venturi effect, whereby the narrowing of the passage between the airfoil and the undisturbed air accelerates the particles of air. It is through Bernoulli that this acceleration generates a decrease in air pressure.

Ok. So while we agree on the fact that the flow above the wing remains crucial to generate lift, it is the reason for such behavior that we can find a disagreement on. When I mentioned spoilers I wasn't referring to the drag they generate but rather the disruption of the airflow over the wing, which decreases lift quite drastically. Now, if the reason for that decrease in lift is the prevention of the downwards motion of the upper flow rather than the lack of "suction" from the lower pressure of the faster air particles, then I could see the Newton explanation taking relevance over the Bernoulli one. All in all, the explanations I've found online sort of point out to a combination of both phenomenons. This has been quite enlightening, I am a private pilot myself, and have gone through my whole training praising Bernoulli and only him for the magic of flight Granted it always struck me as "funny" when thinking about inverted flight, but I guess I just always kind of thought it was too complicated for me to understand xD

I think it does a great job of portraying the physics of space travel at a very high level, but the atmospheric flight physics seem way off (it is an extremely hard thing to get right though). However, I haven't seen many "sandbox type" physics based games with such a level of customization (a.k.a. modding), so yeah, it probably is the best one around.

Although I can agree with an explanation that combines both Newton's third law and the Bernoulli effect, I wouldn't disregard the latter as such a minor player in the creation of lift, after all, a stall occurs when the airflow separates from the top of the wing, so the lift created by that airflow is vital. Not to mention the use of spoilers, which deliberately disrupt the flow over the wind in order to reduce lift. So while we can explain a "pushing" force as understood by Newton's third law of motion, there is also a "pulling" force being exerted on top of the wing that cannot be explained by it and plays a major role in the creation of lift. At least that's the way I see it.

Well... I wanted to try and drop this thing on the moon, turns out I barely had enough Delta-V for estrablishing an orbit though... should have studied the D-V maps before launching a mission... oooops