A reverse switch for airbrakes

[Black-Two-]

Just a little, blue toggle that lets you switch between reverse and normal for airbrakes, like the one wheels have for steering. "Normal" means the airbrake is working exactly as it does now, and "Reverse" means the yaw and pitch controls are inverted.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I don't see why not, but at the same time; Airbrakes are really sub-optimal as control surfaces in the first place, you should avoid using them like that.

[MaximumThrust]

@Black-Two-Why would you want to invert pitch and control surfaces? Just curious.

@Rocket In My Pocket well, it depends, for general crafts spending fuel is usually a big no. When doing reentries or landings, were you want to decrease your speed and increase the surface area in some points, it's very useful.

[lunardog15]

or if you made a hyper sonic car that needs steering and you don't want a tail fin 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

On 12/13/2018 at 11:55 AM, MaximumThrust said:

@Rocket In My Pocket well, it depends, for general crafts spending fuel is usually a big no. When doing reentries or landings, were you want to decrease your speed and increase the surface area in some points, it's very useful.

If you're using it to decrease your speed and increase surface area, you aren't using it as a control surface, but a brake; which is what it is designed for. As far as spending fuel, I'm not sure what you mean?

12 hours ago, lunardog15 said:

or if you made a hyper sonic car that needs steering and you don't want a tail fin 

My point more-so is that it turns you by applying A LOT of drag which will slow you down, unlike the regular control surfaces which hardly slow you down at all. I realize there may be some edge case uses for slowing down and turning at the same time, but it's sub-optimal for the majority of uses compared to traditional control surfaces.

That said, I don't see any harm in letting people reverse them, and it should be easy enough to add.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[MaximumThrust]

6 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

If you're using it to decrease your speed and increase surface area, you aren't using it as a control surface, but a brake; which is what it is designed for. As far as spending fuel, I'm not sure what you mean?

But you can do that asymmetrically when enabling the control surfaces in them, opening the brakes more in one side than the other, providing great pitch and yaw control, while you slow down and increase the surface area. Spending fuel = when you don't want something slowing you down.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

57 minutes ago, MaximumThrust said:

But you can do that asymmetrically when enabling the control surfaces in them, opening the brakes more in one side than the other, providing great pitch and yaw control, while you slow down and increase the surface area. Spending fuel = when you don't want something slowing you down.

A semi-steerable atmo lander is a pretty rare use case to be fair.

Not something I would typically employ.

Anyways, I was more warning against their use in the most common use cases for control surfaces like planes, or ascending rockets.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Black-Two-]

On 12/13/2018 at 3:58 PM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I don't see why not, but at the same time; Airbrakes are really sub-optimal as control surfaces in the first place, you should avoid using them like that.

 

On 12/13/2018 at 5:55 PM, MaximumThrust said:

@Black-Two-Why would you want to invert pitch and control surfaces? Just curious.

I use kOS quite a bit, for landings especially, and when you're travelling backwards the steering is messed up. For canards it's not a big problem, as you can just invert the authority limiter, but airbrakes don't have that option so they steer the wrong way, which is why I want the reverse option. It's not a big, important thing, but it's also not that complicated (I think) so I thought I'd suggest it.