Drop tests

[Reactordrone]

Since the drag and heating has changed in the latest version I thought I'd do some basic drop tests of the 1 man capsule with a mk16 parachute to check out the differences in the different aero/drag models. Using the 215km maximum safe altitude of 1.0.4 as a baseline drop height I ran comparisons between 0.90, 1.0.4 and 1.0.0 (demo) models. Upper atmosphere is pretty much the same as there's not enough drag to have much effect above 40km so I've recorded the results from 40km downwards as follows,

0.90 216.7km starting height. 1.0.0 216km starting height 1.0.4 216km starting height

40km 1552m/s__ 1550m/s__ 1546m/s

30km 1578m/s__ 1594m/s__ 1581m/s

25km 1568m/s__ 1617m/s__ 1582m/s

20km 1495m/s__ 1626m/s__ 1543m/s

15km 1286m/s__ 1597m/s__ 1401m/s

10km 830m/s ___1458m/s__ 1050m/s

5km _299m/s___ 1085m/s___ 558m/s

3km _172m/s____ 802m/s___ 285m/s

1km _116m/s______________ 226m/s

0km _113m/s____ 534m/s____ 204m/s

Impact is a respectable 407km/h in 0.90, 734km/h in 1.0.4 and a blistering 1922km/h in 1.0.0 aero.

If anyone still has 1.0.2 I'd be interested in seeing how much difference there between that and 1.0.4

[Reactordrone]

I realised I still had an installer for 1.0.2 on my computer so I was able to load that up and do the test. As expected the 1.0.2 results fall in between the 0.90 and 1.0.4 results.

40km__1553m/s

30km__1578m/s

25km__1576m/s

20km__1530m/s

15km__1386m/s

10km___975m/s

5km____279m/s

3km____226m/s

1km____184m/s

0km____170m/s

Graphed up the drop curves look like this,

The reduction in drag once the capsule goes subsonic is very noticeable in the new aero (except in 1.0.0 which never went subsonic) with the steeper drag curve of 1.0.2 giving similar velocities to 0.90 at 5km and 1.0.4 being about twice as fast at that height.

[Vanamonde]

Thank you for posting your results.

Also, moved to the subforum for this sort of nuts-and-bolts info.

[Superluminaut]

1.0.0 was my fav.

[Reactordrone]

And just for completeness I've done the test with FAR as well. It's surprisingly draggy especially in the upper atmosphere. I guess part occlusion is where FAR gets most of its drag benefit and since there's nothing to be occluded in a basic pod drop the drag is a little high. -(just to make sure the installation was correct I flew the test ship into orbit which took 3239m/s vacuum delta v so that looks fine).