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Showing results for tags 'parafoil'.
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Just about 20 minutes after EVA parachutes appeared in 1.4, someone came up with a method of getting a Kerbal into a Command Seat with a deployed parachute (you couldn't deploy the 'chute while in the seat until 1.4.3) and used that method to build a parafoil trike. They built a biggish monstrosity with folding wheels that must have come in at 4-5 T mass. I'm trying to build the smallest, simplest parafoil the game will support. I've got a setup with a single Juno, Mk. 0 Liquid Fuel Fuselage, Small Round Intake, and a Command Seat -- and then a pod on a launch clamp with a second Mk. 0 Fuel Fuselage to take a radial decoupler; the craft I'll fly sits on the decoupler before launch. I get Jeb into the Command Seat, set the parachute to deploy "immediate" and deploy it, spool up the Juno, and decouple; the craft slide forward off the decoupler, descends as speed builds up -- and then, if I have more than about 20% power, the engine unit and Command Seat begin flipping, pitching up through 360 degrees every second or so. This nullifies the thrust, so the whole contraption hits the runway about as far forward of the launcher as it was high. So far, Jeb has survived every attempt, but the power unit does not. SAS doesn't help, even if I add 1, 2, or 3 Small Reaction Wheel units (the Juno's alternator produces plenty of power to run these reaction wheels). If I set power below 20% or so, the power unit doesn't flip, the whole shebang just plummets to the tarmac (with pretty much the same end result). The originator of the stock parafoil craft didn't seem to have this problem, but then his craft was probably several times the weight of my 585 kg (without reaction wheels) contraption. My question is this: What kept the power from flipping the original parafoil trike, yet allowed it to fly at 200+ m/s?