Easily manage heat load without air brakes

[Archgeek]

Heh, I remember the night 1.0 came out I took the Aeris IV upstairs, and quite afraid of the new atmospheric effects, came in at a roughly 90 degree AoA, treating the plane like a sail, desperate to purge as much speed as I could before things got thick and nasty. I eased my way down as the gs started to mount, but never got over 5gs, and only subtle little flare effects, with not a thing exploding.

Would the aero forces really tear off wings of a pancaking craft at the very top of the atmosphere? I'm not sure it's thick enough to produce that kind of force until at least 56km or so.

[Kryxal]

This sort of thing makes sense, really ... after all, induced drag is drag caused by generating lift (doing work) while parasitic drag doesn't really give somewhere for the energy to go except for heat...