MK16 burning

[jackboy900]

If you have a heat shield and a Mk1 capsule with a basic parachute plus 2 radial you can go up to 250 Km + and land on water or low lying land fine. You just cut it close with the parachutes, however a bit of lean (5 - 10 east) and facing retro on entry (fins can help) make it quite viable for a newbie. With a Sci Jnr a bit more lean (20-35 degrees) and a very straight (5 degrees deviation) retrograde entry you can do it to 250 Km+.

[Wemb]

I'm pretty sure that my rpoblem is that my rentry speed is way too fast, about 1200 m/s . It burn my chute before i even got a chance to open it. All the rocket i made go way too high. I seem to be stuck at that point in career mode. Cant explore the map, to create the arc needed to go some place take me too high then burning my chutes.

1200 m/s is absolutely fine - assuming the parachute isn't on the 'front' of the ship is it re-enters - ensure you can keep your ship on the pro or retrograde marker as needed to keep your parachute away from the side of the craft that's getting the re-entry heat and you'll be fine. Very early ships won't have the battery power needed to power the reaction wheels and/or won't have enough reaction wheels to keep the ship orientated correctly - there's where adding something large and heavy (like the heatshield) to the opposite end of the ship from the parachute is useful.

Wemb

[LN400]

In my current game I found a good use for the smallest stock fins. I have a 2 pod (Mk I with 2 radial chutes) rocket for single tourist + pilot and by placing 4 fins on the small nosecone the ship went straight as an arrow bottom first all the way through the atmosphere with SAS off and no steering from me. It added negligible drag if any on the way up and saved me all that e-power.

Apo was 70100m and with a burn at apo to smooth out the return the peri was at around -350.000 which made for a somewhat hot but perfectly safe (if landing over water) return. The fins never even heated up enough to protest and the reduced (40 ablator points) heat shield shedded off some 7-8 points.

Speed dropped below 1000 at around 10km and the rest was standard return to deployment at around 2500-3000m

Edited August 14, 2015 by LN400
typo