Signs You're In for a Short Flight

[Corona688]

When you hit 'Z' to correct your space station's orbit with its little spider engines, forgetting the mainsail you docked 3 minutes earlier.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Corona688

[The Optimist]

21 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...

"Alt-F12"

11 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

In that case:

When you get to Moho and you realize you forgot radiators

It actually isn't that hot at Moho. It's only around 700K which is fine for most ships.

[storm_soldier2377]

When your SAS gets turned off on the night side of Kerbin in the middle of a maneuver because you forgot to supplement your probe's tiny battery.

[Corona688]

When you fly at night and forgot to bring lights.

[something]

15 hours ago, THX1138 said:

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

Well, now that's cheating!

[kBob]

When your apoapsis starts going down before orbit even though the throttle is at full and you've moved your heading to about 75 degrees (and you think dv and twr readouts are a superfluous tool).

Edited July 7, 2016 by kBob

[severedsolo]

14 hours ago, Tourist said:

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. 

We call that "Aircraft Standard Design Protocol Number 1" at my Space Centre.

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, Munbro Kerman said:

Your rocket starts doing cartwheels during your gravity turn.

Once, I had a 3.75m diameter heavy launcher with a tall payload flip 3 times and still make it to orbit with fuel to spare.  

[Corona688]

 

54 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Once, I had a 3.75m diameter heavy launcher with a tall payload flip 3 times and still make it to orbit with fuel to spare.  

When that happens I shut off engines and wait for the atmosphere to stop.  You can regain control later with the loss of only 9.81 * number of seconds dv.

If that happens when your apogee is below 45km though you're in trouble

Edited July 7, 2016 by Corona688

[lasersword]

When you realize that gravity exists while being in orbit. 

After "launching" a "science vessel" by stacking science parts and a pod, your kerbonauts might need a mobility enhancer. 

Being on the Launchpad, setting throttle to 100, launching the engines, letting them heat up, deactivating the clamps, and you stay in a nearly perfect equilibrium of T/W until your Boosters have burned like the dream of you getting good in this game someday. 

The airplane engines destroy your landing gear whilst clocking up in parking position.

You try physwarp 4 and your pc can't handle it, your command pod flips after a 5 Irl-Hour mission whilst deorbiting... 

Your perfect rocket with enough DV the perfect TWR and also pure awesomeness is in the air. And your first ship to ever be in an orbit had some problems with debris you left in space and gets to visit Kerbin again. Burning. PERFECTLY CROSSING YOUR ORBIT. 

-Lasersword 

[Corona688]

When your mun lander has no ladders.

[linuxgurugamer]

You remember the parachutes, and forgot the engines 

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Corona688 said:

If that happens when your apogee is below 45km though you're in trouble

Pfft, this was at like 12 km. I lost all of my velocity and basically had to start my ascent over again 10 km higher. Still made it to orbit with a huge margin.

[Alchemist]

When your Eve ascent vehicle gets its gear stuck in the ground and collapses under its own weight once fully refueled.

When you forgot to account how much the thrust drops on the surface of Eve due to this kind of pressure.

 

When you load a plane designed in 1.1.2 into 1.1.3

[Munbro Kerman]

5 hours ago, cubinator said:

Once, I had a 3.75m diameter heavy launcher with a tall payload flip 3 times and still make it to orbit with fuel to spare. 

Why can't that ever happen to me...

[Slam_Jones]

When you reach 100m/s in your new plane and it still doesn't have enough lift to get off the runway...

[DualDesertEagle]

1 hour ago, Corona688 said:

When your mun lander has no ladders.

EVA jetpack.

 

It becomes more of a problem when the gravity gets too high for the EVA jetpack to overcome, like on Eve or Laythe.

 

On topic:

When u wanna activate the landing engine on a 2 stage lander and instead fire the decoupler that was supposed to drop it on take-off.

When u planned for Eve's high gravity but not its thick atmosphere

When u underestimated the gravity at ur destination and smash ur lander, either killing all ur kerbals aboard or leaving them stranded

When u didn't bring enough fuel to get back to ur mothership...

...and realize that on the way up

Edited July 7, 2016 by DualDesertEagle

[Curveball Anders]

When you hit space and only the boosters light up, slowly lifting your rocket off the pad.

In a flash you think that you've forgot to add the main engine to the booster ignition and hit space to light the mains.

Only to see your (firing) boosters get decoupled from the main rocket body and speed off like some very expensive fireworks.

And with the loss of the boosters the main rocket body falls back to the pad, causing first the main engine and then, bit by bit, the entire rocket to explode in a hailstorm of smoke, fire and debris.

Yet out of this fiery incarnation of techno-hell, the capsule with the brave kerbonauts onboard rolls out, bouncing a bit as it tumbles down to the crawler track.

You breathe a sigh of relief, only to watch a large bit a flaming debris come down and smash the capsule.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Curveball Anders

[Corona688]

When a staging accident decouples the cockpit in the middle of your gravity turn, removing control but still hauling it like a bug on a windshield.

[Daeridanii]

When your boosters burn longer than your main engine.

[Corona688]

When parts flying through the camera PoV make you flinch.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Due to standardised launchers, crew pods, satellite buses etc, my career save has a very good reliability percentage. The number of SSTOs I've burnt up on reentry in sandbox though... well, that's another story. Problem there is that a) poor choice of heat tolerant materials isn't visible once you've left the SPH and b) the flight isn't all that short yet still ends in disaster. Thankfully, one of my design rules is that all craft are capable of running autonomously, so no Kerbals are harmed in the making of my reentry firework displays. 

[RandomUser]

6 hours ago, Corona688 said:

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.

 

Fair enough.  To me it was a little more strange cause it was a shuttle strapped to a rocket, which I didn't think would work let alone on the first try (not exactly, I did the staging wrong the two previous attempts) but you got a point. 

[Signo]

When it rains fire.

[Kerbinchaser]

You send a probe to Ike...

And remember you forgot batteries.