Bug? Unstaged Heat Shield being spent by the engines?

[X-SR71]

My craft when returning from Duna was very simple. Command pod, heat shield, decoupler, fuel tank, Nerv engine.

After some time firing the Nerv engine for the trip back to kerbin, I noticed most of my craft was overheating. The fuel tank, exposed solar panels, and the engine itself were all pretty hot. They didn't blow up though so I'm glad.

Thing is, when getting ready for reentry, I decoupled, leaving only the command pod, a chute, and the heat shield. I noticed the heat shield was more than half spent. Luckily I still had enough for reentry.

Is this intended behavior? Unstaged heat shields having its ablator spent from engine's heat? You could be in for a surprise when getting ready for reentry..

[nekogod]

I do believe it's intended

[THX1138]

Definitely not a bug.

[SlabGizor117]

Interesting that it would do that. Slow, radiant heat(I would think) is not near enough to take half of your heat shield, sounds like that needs to be nerfed. Whatever, Reentry heating isn't that bad, I'm sure it won't affect your reentry much.

[Poofer]

i don't even use heat shields anymore, nor do it get rid of the last engine. Airbrakes comrade, airbrakes.

[TheXRuler]

Hmmmmm I was wondering whether it would be worth suggesting to something like an insulator part to squad, to keep heat from the NERVA from killing my science equipment. Looks like squad already took care of that though(in a way).

Sounds like the new stock airbrakes are just a teensy weeny bit OP, much like they were with B9. I don't know a huge amount about hypersonic fluid mechanics, but shouldn't airbrakes be limited in a similar way as control surfaces in that they either do almost nothing or are just torn apart when deployed at mach 5+? Oo