Sally-Hut launch woes

[EmanonP]

Is it me, or is the Sally Hut vehicle you send up to meet up with the "space station" almost completely unflyable?

Even with Sas and RCS on (actually, RCS makes the issue even worse) this ship is so prone to flipping I haven't even managed to get it into orbit after some 30 tires.

Do I just suck as a rocket jockey, or is anyone else banging their head against the wall?   I've tried partial throttle, full throttle, cutting throttle at booster separation...still no success!

Thanks for letting me vent, as well as any encouragement you might provide....

[StrandedonEarth]

I haven’t tried the mission, but have you tried flying mostly straight up out of the soup, then turning to the horizon at 30-40km? That’s the best way to get to orbit with unstable vehicles (aside from modifying the vehicle to be more stable). Throttling down if it threatens to flip may still be necessary 

[0111narwhalz]

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I haven’t tried the mission, but have you tried flying mostly straight up out of the soup, then turning to the horizon at 30-40km? That’s the best way to get to orbit with unstable vehicles (aside from modifying the vehicle to be more stable). Throttling down if it threatens to flip may still be necessary 

That sounds like it would've been good advice before the aero update.

However, the general practice for unstable vehicles these days is more or less this:
Keep your angle of attack low. If your angle of attack gets too high, the air will bite into the instabilities and overwhelm the controls.
Keep your airspeed low at low altitude. Aerodynamic effects can get way stronger than anything your controls can do if the lift is too high.
Pitch over smoothly. Sharp changes in attitude mean large angular velocities, and large angular velocities may be irrecoverable.
If your rocket flips, let it flip and then continue onwards. Most smallish rockets can handle a little flip or two, and carrying angular momentum through the flip may be instrumental to recovery.

Of course, if you can, modify the craft so it's more stable.

[StrandedonEarth]

7 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

That sounds like it would've been good advice before the aero update.

However, the general practice for unstable vehicles these days is more or less this:
Keep your angle of attack low. If your angle of attack gets too high, the air will bite into the instabilities and overwhelm the controls.
Keep your airspeed low at low altitude. Aerodynamic effects can get way stronger than anything your controls can do if the lift is too high.
Pitch over smoothly. Sharp changes in attitude mean large angular velocities, and large angular velocities may be irrecoverable.
If your rocket flips, let it flip and then continue onwards. Most smallish rockets can handle a little flip or two, and carrying angular momentum through the flip may be instrumental to recovery.

Of course, if you can, modify the craft so it's more stable.

Which is pretty much what I meant. By going pretty much straight up, you avoid high AoA's, and gets you into thin air before the speed builds up too much. By 40km, aerodynamic effects aren't very strong. Good warning about not pitching over too fast.

And the number of times I've flipped out and continued to orbit are too many to count. But come to think of it, I don't think I've recovered a flip lately. But then I tend to fly huge beasts these days...

[EmanonP]

Thanks!