Is my KSP Broken?

[Solar71]

Hey guys.

I just started having a problem.

Today I was flying a simple Jet. Doing a contract that asked me to fly to a spot and take a crew report.

So I fly there and take the crew report. YEA!!! I get credit for doing it.

So I start to fly back to base.

I get close to base and start my landing approach.

I Bring the Jet engine down to about 2.5 Kn thrust. Just above being turned off. I would guess they were at about 1-2% throttle.

I'm at about 3,000m above sea level going about 200 m/s. I bring it down to about 500m.

Plane is barely slowing down. Now I'm was going 185 m/s.

I'm flying level but plane is barely slowing down at all.

So I turn engines to 0%. (0.0 Kn) I'm still going 175 m/s.

Still cant slow down. So I touch down on the run way with brakes on. Slow down to 170 m/s and bounce slightly up.

Now the runway is behind me. Dang it!!! What's going on?

So I turn on the FAR flight data. It says be total drag is 0.21

That seems extremely low for some reason. My plane will just not slow down!!!

What happened?

Yesterday I was flying. I lower the jet power to about 5% thrust.

The plane slows down from 150 m/s to about 70 m/s very nicely. No problems.

But today its completely different.

The only thing I did today was I added a mod called Karbonite.

It added a few parts like Jet motors but I didn't use a single part from the new mod.

Not ONE!

I just wanted to be able to mine Karbonite from the Mun so I could re-fuel my ships. That's all.

But now it seems like the drag model is completely broken.

Does anyone know a way to fix this problem besides just deleting the new Karbonite mod?

Thanks

Edited April 22, 2015 by Solar71

[Mister Dilsby]

Silly question maybe--was your navball set to SURFACE or ORBIT when you observed the high speed on landing? No idea how or why that mod could have affected drag. When I've had this problem, it was always because the silly thing was set for ORBIT.

Edited April 22, 2015 by Kuzzter

[Lhathron the Elf]

I don't really think it's a problem with Karbonite. It might have just been the plane itself, or maybe it was just a one-time thing that won't happen again. I really wouldn't be able to tell you unless I was in that moment, though. I'm sorry, I hope you figure out what went wrong.

[ghostbuzzer7]

Ferram AeroSpace completely changes the aerodynamics (obviously). So, if you were using a different plane from the one from yesterday the drag from the wings can be different. In addition, If you continue to encounter this problem there could be a problem with infin-gliding in which your aircraft wont ever slow down. Or may'be you can try aerobraking by taking bank turns. However, as far as I can comprehend from this information, it must be infin-gliding, FAR physics merging with ksp physics, or just coincidental. May I have a picture of your craft.

[Solar71]

Hi guys. Thanks for the help.

Yes. Nav ball was set to surface.

Yes. It was exactly the same plane from yesterday.

I had FAR installed yesterday as well. The plane flew nicely.

Only added this Karbonite mod today.

PS: the Karbonite.zip file did have a few "EXTRA" folders inside it besides the Karbonite folder.

I think it was a grouping of mods made to work WITH karbonite.

I wonder if it was one of those grouped mods that caused the problem?

Like the mod that added the new Jets and Rockets that use Karbonite fuel?

PSS: Doesn't 0.21 drag sound low for a total amount? coming from a complete plane?

ie: Cockpit, fuel tanks, Main wings, Tail wings, front little winglets, Engine, Air intake, 3 small landing gear?

Thanks

Edited April 22, 2015 by Solar71

[eddiew]

Happily, FAR brings the option to set control surfaces as spoilers when in the SPH: give them a right click, tell them to be spoilers, set a pair with opposite deflections (e.g. +20 and -20) so you don't crash into the ground/pull up, and you're sorted. Braking will now deploy them and help slow you down in the air.

Karbonite doesn't touch aerodynamics... I have been using both Karbonite and FAR for months. But feel free to delete it and find out - can always put it back later

[Solar71]

Happily, FAR brings the option to set control surfaces as spoilers when in the SPH: give them a right click, tell them to be spoilers, set a pair with opposite deflections (e.g. +20 and -20) so you don't crash into the ground/pull up, and you're sorted. Braking will now deploy them and help slow you down in the air.

Karbonite doesn't touch aerodynamics... I have been using both Karbonite and FAR for months. But feel free to delete it and find out - can always put it back later

Thank you eddiew.

I appreciate the help.

You know what? Yesterday when I was flying my plane around and I said it was flying perfectly fine.

It was, but I was putting in mods and removing them the entire time because many of them I didn't like.

Also a few of them were not playing nicely with some of my other mods that I had already installed "Like FAR" and "Procedural Parts"

So I was removing and adding mods to try and find the conflicting mods. Well during that time I think I deleted the FAR folder inside the GameData

folder about 3-4 different times for testing. Then I was just putting it back, and everything was fine.

But I bet its possible when I was flying my plane around, that one time and it was flying more like I was expecting it to fly, I may have had FAR deleted

and didn't notice because I was deleting it and putting it back in so often. In fact that's the only thing that makes sense.

Before that, after installing FAR the 1st time I think I was only using rockets. Not Airplanes. Hmmm that's actually funny. lol

Well TBH If this is how FAR works with Airplanes its not as realistic as I first thought.

I can Coast my airplane at level flight for miles and miles and miles and it will only lose a tiny amount of speed without flaps.

In a real airplane if you are not nose down you lose airspeed SO FAST its not even funny. You cant just coast along the way I do.

Well anyway. Thank you for helping me figure out what I was doing wrong.

Also, thanks everyone else for helping too. much appreciated

[nekogod]

I can Coast my airplane at level flight for miles and miles and miles and it will only lose a tiny amount of speed without flaps.

In a real airplane if you are not nose down you lose airspeed SO FAST its not even funny.

Is it dead level flight? Because actually in real life even large passenger jets have managed to glide well over 50 miles after total engine failure maintaining a very slight descent path.

An explanation I found

I would like to add a bit of explanation. It is not the engines that keep aircraft in the air, it is the wings that generate lift as they move through the air. Whether the engines run or not does not affect the lift generation.

However as the aircraft moving through air and wings producing lift cause drag that slows the plane down. The engines compensate the drag so the plane can maintain speed. But when the aircraft flies, it also has potential energy due to it's altitude (that had to be provided by the engines during climb) and that can be exchanged for kinetic energy to maintain the speed instead.

The lift is significantly higher than the drag, so the plane only needs to descend quite slowly to keep flying. Glide ratio ranges from around 10 for small general aviation planes to around 60 for good sailplane. A typical value for airlines is around 18 which means from the typical cruise altitude of 10km they can glide about 180km.

[Vanamonde]

Moved to modded support.