Signs You're In for a Short Flight

[XB-70A]

When you tear your hairs out while looking at the uncompleted checklist of your first contract asking to place a satellite with a "material bay" in orbit, until you realize its the codename for the Science Jr. pod and NOT the Service Bay you put instead.

[EliasDanger]

you start your gravity turn and your payload starts clipping through your fairing.

Edited July 6, 2016 by EliasDanger

[Brownhair2]

1 hour ago, EliasDanger said:

you start your gravity turn and your payload starts clipping through your fairing.

You start your gravity turn and your rocket folds in half

[ag3nt108]

Your first stage launches with parachutes.

 

You take the launch clamps with you

 

You forgot to add a control module to unmanned craft leaving a 60t rocket useless on the pad

[helcustom]

The craft is flipping in midair until it's pointing towards the ground.

[DChurchill]

The pitch needle pegs as soon as you start the gravity turn.

[THX1138]

6 hours ago, something said:

You time warp with solar panels retracted just to find out all energy is consumed so you cannot fire the engine anymore which leaves you with the doubtable options of reverting or adjusting the electricity in the persistent file...

You could just press Alt + F12 and choose infinite electricity, deploy the panels and turn off infinite electricity.

[Dman979]

You've built a fully-fueled jetliner using stock parts, and now you can't pull up.

[cubinator]

When your ship starts going faster during reentry and starts pulling 10 gees prograde.

[Guest]

You forget to double check the fuel levels on the procedural tanks after slapping your R-7 subassembly under the payload and going for launch.

[Tourist]

Take off is not what your spaceplane does. Rather it falls off the end of the runnway. But don't worry, it will start climbing before it hits the water... probably. 

[Madrias]

The runway explodes under the weight of your SSTO.

Your aircraft starts tap-dancing down the runway because the gear aren't aligned properly.

You're playing an older version (0.90 or earlier) and used a few too many control surfaces.

You've used Ant or Dawn engines to try getting your cargo plane in the air.

You've used a Rockomax Mainsail on your light sport plane.

The aircraft you're flying needs those Thumper solid rocket motors for additional takeoff thrust.

[eddiew]

When the first thing in your staging is ignite and detach radial boosters.

They go further than you think when they don't have a payload  

[Vaporized Steel]

I made a stock first stage engine mount plate by using cubic octagonal struts in 8 way symmetry on the bottom tank with 1 swivel in the center and 8 lv t30 engines attached to the struts.

You forgot to 8way symmetry a fuel duct between the tanks and the lv t30, and only one lv t30 and the center swivel fires. Result: rocket falls over.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Vaporized Steel

[DunaRocketeer]

You start to see serious heating effects at 12km altitude, and your pitch is at less than 30 degrees.

I never learn.

Edited July 7, 2016 by DunaRocketeer

[genericeventhandler]

• You realise that the sepratrons are pointing inwards instead of outwards on your boosters.
• That warm glow in the middle of your rocket appears just after take off. 
• Releasing the launch clamps and seeing TWR 0.99 

 

[RandomUser]

When you think this is a good idea. 

funny thing is it actually worked amazingly well... 

[Warzouz]

17 hours ago, Randazzo said:

Your capsule is pointing one way, and your boosters are pointing another.

Don't use rubber in your rocket design, you fool

Mine :

• You do the perfect burn, but realize you aren't on the projected orbit at all : You forgot to change the "control from here" to a prograde part...
• You decouple your interplanetary stage and see your docking port leaving with the debris : you plugged it backward.
• You plan a "school bus" mission to jool and notice in LKO the 16x passenger cabin is empty of Kerbals...
• You prepare a Eve probe lander mission to get some juicy science. You select a polar landing site. Reentry OK, chutes OK. Until you realize, the landing area is always in the shade due to surrounding mountains...
• You proudly set a perfectly circular orbital probe into Duna SOI. Then returning later to it, you realize it has be swung into Kerbol orbit (non circular, of course...) by Ike.
• and the ultra classic : you are preparing for a nicely tuned interplanetary manoeuvre node in LKO and press the space bar instead of the map/navigation key, thus trashing your entire unused interplanetary stage.

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by Warzouz

[Corona688]

2 hours ago, RandomUser said:

When you think this is a good idea.

I see nothing failing or even strange in that series of pics.  What am I supposed to be looking at?

Next one:

...when your boosters leave without the stage above them.

...and they weren't even mounted radially.

 

[Munbro Kerman]

Your rocket starts doing cartwheels during your gravity turn.

You forget to add ailerons.

Your plane is too heavy and you use the entire runway only getting 50 meters in the air before crashing into the ocean.

You're time-warp happy and crash into the Mun.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Munbro Kerman

[swjr-swis]

When you "Cannot activate when stowed"

When your plane decides mid-takeoff that the grass looks greener at the left side of the runway.

When you stage for launch and immediately hear the sound of deploying parachutes.

When physics 'kick in' and your massive interplanetary rocket decides to spontaneously shed parts. (plot twist: you over-engineered it so much that it still made orbit).

When you realize this launch is the premiere of Holiwheel on Ice.

Perfect launch, stage to release boosters... and the inflating heat shield starts to make your rocket look like a flying mushroom.

When the navball prograde indicator decides to tell you at 15km up that it likes orange better than blue.

[Zild]

Bill or Bob has sneaked into the pilot seat and you notice this just after lift-off.

[worir4]

When your rocket blows up as soon as it loads

When your game crashes during loading of your rocket.

When you realize the wrong kerbal has taken over your ship

When your rocket has a thrust to weight ratio of less than one

When you finally finished your ultimate design and your little brother runs in the room and mashes the space bar....

 

 

As a side note, a lot of my points and other people actually may be realized after the flight has been going for a while which makes them even more painful. 

[Brownhair2]

2 minutes ago, worir4 said:

As a side note, a lot of my points and other people actually may be realized after the flight has been going for a while

In that case:

When you get to Moho and you realize you forgot radiators

[adsii1970]

When you realize you forgot to put air intakes on your jet...