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landing parachutes


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Well it depends what you use chutes for...

I use the small chute and/or radial. I don't use the bugger chutes. because I usually stick docking ring on the ship noses.

when I get back to Kerbin, I tend to use more chutes to land only with the chutes. When I land on Layth or Duna, I "under" chute and do a final burn with then engines to slow before touch down.

But I've a question of my own. I have a return ship with 11 kerbal from a very long mission around Jool, bringing 250 experiments (!). I'll have a very high relative speed to Kerbin. I will aerobrake, for sure, Do I deploy the (8 radial) chutes on the first pass ? Do i deploy the 8 chutes at different altitudes ?

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Hi everybody,

What parachutes do you use on landing?

The stock one are torn away on deployment.

You don't say on which planet you are trying to land, so no idea what atmosphere you are having to cope with, but I've never had a stock chute torn away. Are you using time warp, as it is known that warping through the chute deployment stage can lead to chute failure?

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There's a reason for drogue chutes ... but aerobraking should get your speed well down before your chutes start opening.

You're right, but drogue chutes are heavy and drag is very low. Further more, they don't exists as radial and my nose node is usually devoted to a docking ring.

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You're right, but drogue chutes are heavy and drag is very low. Further more, they don't exists as radial and my nose node is usually devoted to a docking ring.

That's what the radial attachment points are for. Stick them on for drogue/large chutes on radial mounts.

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The stock one are torn away on deployment.

The only thing that would cause this to happen would be A) You're traveling at incredibly high speeds when the chute fully deploys, or B) You're using physics warp. Physics warp causes dangerous physics-y things to occur that can result in bad situations. We need a little more info so we can help figure out the problem.

Personally though, I use either the tiny parachute or the radial ones, they take care of my safe-landing needs :D

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Sorry my question was not good!

I am talking of parachutes for breaking aircraft on touchdown!

Well, i use chutes on rockets, i used them on Duna and on Eve and it was perfect. Also on kerbin

But when i tried to use them for braking my aircraft landing at 80m/s on Kerbin runway they just opened and were torn away a second later! But i must say i am using FAR, so may be it's the problem....

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Stock chutes disappear on contact with the ground. You would need to use RealChutes mod that has drag chutes for what you need. But IMO if you are landing at 80 m/s that is slow enough to just use your brakes.

Edit: Corrected drogue to drag.

Edited by Landge
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Stock chutes disappear on contact with the ground. You would need to use RealChutes mod that has drogue chutes for what you need. But IMO if you are landing at 80 m/s that is slow enough to just use your brakes.

Yes. To be perfectly clear, the OP's chutes are NOT being "ripped away", it has nothing to do with landing speed in FAR or otherwise. Stock chutes disappear whenever a craft is in contact with the ground. It sounds like the OP is trying to use chutes to slow the ship after it's on the runway, which is a perfectly reasonable idea and would look AWESOME but is just not supported by the game.

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Stock chutes disappear on contact with the ground. You would need to use RealChutes mod that has drogue chutes for what you need. But IMO if you are landing at 80 m/s that is slow enough to just use your brakes.

Correction: Drag Chutes. Drogue chutes are used before the main chute to lessen the G forces of the main chute. Drag chutes are what you see behind the

. (At least that is the terminology RealChute uses, I'm no parachute expert).
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gilflo, I'll echo other folk's sentiments in that you're using the wrong parachutes.

You're parachutes aren't being torn away on landing - in fact, the stock parachutes are designed to automatically cut when the vessel first reaches ground level, so what you want is a parachute that remains after touchdown long enough to actually slow you down.

As others have recommended, you need to use the Drag Chutes from the RealChute add-on.

Correction: Drag Chutes. Drogue chutes are used before the main chute to lessen the G forces of the main chute. Drag chutes are what you see behind the
. (At least that is the terminology RealChute uses, I'm no parachute expert).

The terms drogue and drag chutes are used interchangeably in real life, but RealChute makes this distinction to help builder identify between them - drogues autocut at ground level, whereas drag chutes don't.

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The problem sounds like a stock KSP problem. In stock chutes are cut away as soon as you touch the ground. To prevent this happening you would have to either deploy the chutes while flaring (pull up very hard just before touchdown so that the increased angle of attack let's you glide for a longer period while the chutes are braking you. However this generally leads to disaster in my experience so I'd reccommend using RATOL style solid rockets (sepatrons can do the job nicely) or get the Real Chutes Mod, this adds chutes which can fullfill the role you need (I have been told, I do not use the mod myself.

Edit:

Note to self: Read the second page before making an ass out of yourself :P

Edited by TheXRuler
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Not really relevent to the original post as it turns out but I thought I would share this discovery here anyway.

When using multiple chutes on a single craft I have started using the tweakable to slightly stagger there opening altitude. That way instead of them all opening at once causing a big impulse that rips the top of my craft off i get a series of smaller shocks that my craft can survive.

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Either way, I wouldn't suggest using the 'chutes for slowing down your aircraft. If they're not directly on the CoM, it will:

a). Flip the nose up/down & stay on, causing way more drag than you need,

or

B). Break off, while possibly rapidly disassembling your expensive spaceplane

Now, if you need to bleed off speed, I suggest S-turning while you're still in the air. Just turn to one side and stay that way for a while. It extends your distance to the runway, allowing you to slow down more by air resistance.

Also, doesn't FAR allow you to use your ailerons like flaps on a commercial airliner? I haven't been able to try FAR (potato computer), so I may be wrong. I think the flaps work to decrease your speed while increasing lift. Again, I'm probably wrong about the flaps

It also sounds like you were touching the ground when you popped the chutes. Since KSP has wonky rules about parachutes, they can't touch the ground without disappearing. It's like this with rockets too. Look at your next atmospheric landing with parachutes. Right when the chutes touch the ground, they disappear. Same goes for spaceplanes.

Hope this helps

-Vec

EDIT

Ninja 'd by about 5 other posters. Perhaps I should read the whole second page before I post!

Edited by Vector-5
Ninja'd
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Either way, I wouldn't suggest using the 'chutes for slowing down your aircraft. If they're not directly on the CoM, it will:

a). Flip the nose up/down & stay on, causing way more drag than you need,

or

B). Break off, while possibly rapidly disassembling your expensive spaceplane

I do it all the time. They do need to be near the CoM to prevent them from pulling the craft around but other than that there are no problems using drag chutes to slow down.

Now, if you need to bleed off speed, I suggest S-turning while you're still in the air. Just turn to one side and stay that way for a while. It extends your distance to the runway, allowing you to slow down more by air resistance.

The problem here is some craft simply will not fly at slow speeds. You can't keep them in the air, they nose dive. Flaps can help with that, but not always, it depends on the design of the craft.

Also, doesn't FAR allow you to use your ailerons like flaps on a commercial airliner? I haven't been able to try FAR (potato computer), so I may be wrong. I think the flaps work to decrease your speed while increasing lift. Again, I'm probably wrong about the flaps
That is just incorrect. Sorry.
It also sounds like you were touching the ground when you popped the chutes. Since KSP has wonky rules about parachutes, they can't touch the ground without disappearing. It's like this with rockets too. Look at your next atmospheric landing with parachutes. Right when the chutes touch the ground, they disappear. Same goes for spaceplanes.

That is why everyone is suggesting RealChute. It fixes this problem and even gives you the option to auto-deploy on touchdown.

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Flaps don't do a lot of speed decreasing. Sure anything that blocks airflow is going to reduce it some, but their primary intent is to keep a plane in the air at a lower speed. They reduce the minimum safe airspeed. The speed decrease is not as significant as air brakes or parachutes.

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Correction: Drag Chutes. Drogue chutes are used before the main chute to lessen the G forces of the main chute. Drag chutes are what you see behind the
. (At least that is the terminology RealChute uses, I'm no parachute expert).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drogue_parachute

Drogue is simply another word for drag.

It is basically a small parachute meant to provide extra drag, but not slow anything down to a safe "falling" speed.

A force to pull out the main chute as in sky diving, or a force to decelerate something... its the same basic concept.

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