Kerbal space program detective

[carneyvich]

im going to give picture and you figure out what happened.

[HoloYolo]

Plane crash with the battery being launched into the air. I can tell from the battery being in the air, and a damaged plane near the bottom right.

[carneyvich]

yes but how and why and what happened to the command pod and the kerbal inside and why is it in the water?

[TrainEngie]

Plane rolled off the runway at around 20 m/s and into the water at a high angle.

[carneyvich]

almost!

[HoloYolo]

Crash Landing?

[carneyvich]

duh but why when where what?

[carneyvich]

Ok so i will tell you what happened now. i was going in for a landing and i started braking once i landed but i tilted forward and my cockpit broke off (you can see it in the top right hand corner) but the the plane kept rolling and eventually crashed into the water sending the battery flying.

[problemecium]

My turn! Guess what happened:

[carneyvich]

you landed a car on the roof?

[ComradeWolfe]

This game could benefit from a bit more structure. Usually mystery-solver puzzles give a lot more background from which to derive what happened. Maybe do before and after pics and ask what caused the crash based on visible evidence... Or ask what part failing/being misadjusted might cause the the 'after' picture to have occurred.

[Noname117]

This game could benefit from a bit more structure. Usually mystery-solver puzzles give a lot more background from which to derive what happened. Maybe do before and after pics and ask what caused the crash based on visible evidence... Or ask what part failing/being misadjusted might cause the the 'after' picture to have occurred.

Well, if that is the case then I might have a good picture for this. I'll go and get it real quickly.

(Hopefully this should be more entertaining than the previous entries).

This is a NAFA-18-E1 Caracal, a still unreleased update to my older NAFA-18-C model. It is a VTOL fighter which uses 2 turbojets to hover and another turbojet for forward flight. It can hover quite well, and even zip around the space center quite well just hovering (it is quite fun). The aircraft does feature an ejection seat, which works by detaching the sides of the cockpit and then launching the pilot and his seat out of the aircraft.

One day, I was test flying the aircraft over the space center in VTOL mode, at an altitude maybe 2/3rds of the way up the VAB, fairly close to the research center. I decide to switch to forward flight mode. After a sequence of events, this happens:

Can you figure out what happened?

Hint: the incident can be attributed to pilot error.

Hint 2: I highly recommend paying close attention to the picture rather than taking a quick glance at it.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Noname117

[FireFaced]

Looks like you crashed into one of the buildings due to your switch to forward flight mode, then tried going VTOL to save yourself but it was too late.

[Noname117]

Not really what happened. The crash into the building happened after my recovery attempt, which means the error was something different.

[megatiger78]

you did a barrel roll

[K3achas]

you did a barrel roll

In VTOL mode.

[ComradeWolfe]

Did you perhaps get your roll/yaw mixed up during recovery? ... Or alternately, were you controlling from the wrong part (incorrect navball orientation)?

[Noname117]

I was controlling from the correct part, and didn't screw up roll or yaw. I made an even more stupid mistake (Let's just say involving action groups). There was more than one collision, not just one.

[ComradeWolfe]

You ejected instead of entering flight mode, didn't you?