[1.3.1] Ferram Aerospace Research: v0.15.9.1 "Liepmann" 4/2/18

[ferram4]

Your crafts aren't totally symmetrical going into the loop. That's why they get roll forces; the lift on the wings is different and applied in different places. Either you're sideslipping, or it's flexing out of symmetrical.

[VentZer0]

Your crafts aren't totally symmetrical going into the loop. That's why they get roll forces; the lift on the wings is different and applied in different places. Either you're sideslipping, or it's flexing out of symmetrical.

I see, thanks for the response!

I will check sideslip

[Xgkkp]

You have less pitch authority on the rectangular wing. Why? Because you're relying on the control surfaces attached to the wing to take off, rather than a separate canard or horizontal tail. So when you switch to the rectangular wing, you have the control surfaces closer to the CoM, so they can't act on it as well. This is also the reason why you have trouble landing. Make the plane longer, add a separate surface for pitch control, make sure that the main gear are only just behind the CoM so that it can rotate well. The fact that you need a lower lift coefficient for flight at the same speed indicates that the wing is behaving as it should, but that the issue is elsewhere.

Thanks - it took me a while to work out exactly what you meant - with the swept wings the control surfaces are literally being placed further backwards from the CoM - with the rectangular wing, they are almost in line with the axis which they are trying to turn on. Adding a set of delta deluxe winglets right at the tail works much better (and the wheels back so that it can tip, also). I haven't worked out exactly why this affected Landing yet, but it's certainly easier now (I managed to land - stopping beyond the end of the runway, but with Jeb in one piece at least)

For turning, I'm assuming that you're rolling and then pitching up to turn; in that case, the problem is almost certainly that your vertical tail is too close to the CoM, so you have basically no yaw stability or damping at all. It's a good thing you haven't tried to take this thing into high supersonic speeds, because it'll reach some point where it'll just go completely sideways.

Basically, make your design look more conventional, less like a mini-plane.

This makes sense, and helps with turning, indeed.

The problem is, I'm starting from scratch and wasn't really sure what conventional looked like, really!

[mikegarrison]

The problem is, I'm starting from scratch and wasn't really sure what conventional looked like, really!

You've seen real life airplanes, right? I believe that's what the reference to "conventional" meant.

[Azimech]

And I thank you here as well, Ferram.

This is my Big Utility Flying Friend. It cruises Mach 0.84 @ 33% throttle, able to circumnavigate Kerbin 12 times with tanks full/empty cargo. Able to fit 3.75m/MK3 parts with ease. Max allowed cargo: 100t. Stock parts, only FAR.

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And the previous version, more focused on parachuting cargo over target area's.

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I have a stock aero version. It's slow speed characteristics are admirable. Fuel consumption and cruise speed are not.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Azimech

[mikegarrison]

This is my Big Utility Flying Friend. It cruises Mach 0.84 @ 33% throttle, able to circumvent Kerbin 12 times with tanks full/empty cargo.

I'm guessing you meant "circumnavigate".

Edited July 17, 2015 by mikegarrison

[Azimech]

Oops ... yeah. Need. More. Coffee.

[kcs123]

Nice plane, great usage of stock parts, I don't know if I ever have patience to make something similar with stock parts only.

[Cairol]

Can someone confirm that FAR 0.15.4 does no longer make the spontaneous overheating bug worse than stock?

I've not had this issue since deinstalling FAR 0.15.3.1 at all, so I still believe it's a FAR bug.

But I may not have enough game hours since then to be sure about that.

I really want to use FAR again as soon as I'm no longer running into self-inducted exploding parts. (and I'm never clipping parts deliberately, btw)

[Prasiatko]

Having a bug when using procedural parts where drag does not seem to be applying to fuel tanks nose cones and decouplers. (Possibly other parts haven't tested)

Originally thought it was DRE related as skin temp wouldn't change on only the procedural parts. Further testing involving sending a tank through the atmosphere using hyper edit indicates it's FAR related possibly.

I used hyperedit to put a tank r=3.5m L=4m in orbit with AP 1Mm PE 22km and it flew through the atmosphere barely altering its orbit.

May also effect wings as i noticed no skin temp change on B9 procedural wings while re entering a space plane but as they still work otherwise not sure if that may be by design.

[Nansuchao]

Can someone confirm that FAR 0.15.4 does no longer make the spontaneous overheating bug worse than stock?

I've not had this issue since deinstalling FAR 0.15.3.1 at all, so I still believe it's a FAR bug.

But I may not have enough game hours since then to be sure about that.

I really want to use FAR again as soon as I'm no longer running into self-inducted exploding parts. (and I'm never clipping parts deliberately, btw)

It's definitely a stock bug. BTW, with the new version of FAR, this issue seems more or less solved. You can avoid most of the problem avoiding to use stock batteries.

[larkvi]

It's definitely a stock bug. BTW, with the new version of FAR, this issue seems more or less solved. You can avoid most of the problem avoiding to use stock batteries.

Right after my first ship with the new FAR exploded spectacularly on the launchpad. Removing far fixed the issue. I was not aware that it was linked to the stock batteries--I will experiment some more.

[blowfish]

It seems to primarily affect parts which are stack attached inside cargo bays - radial attachment seems to generally keep things intact.

[Nansuchao]

I use KW Rocketry, which has the radial batteries, very useful. Using those, never had overheating issues in every flight. Using the stock ones, everyone of them, usually I lost them before I reach orbit...

[ferram4]

@Prasiatko: I cannot reproduce the issue, I am watching a procedural nosecone fall at terminal velocity, with no other parts attached to it to confound the effects. There must be some other issue here.

@larkvi: If there is an issue, it's on the stock end. FAR isn't applying any heating, so any heating-related stupidity must come from the poor stock implementation of heat transfer between parts. I'm not going to go out of my way to try and fix a bug in code that I can't reach, especially not when the same bug can be reproduced in stock.

[larkvi]

With the suggestions above, I figured it out--I had some procedural parts attached to the wrong node, and it was clipping, with FAR somehow exacerbating the problem. I tested it with an empty service bay, and it seems to work great. Now that I know what the issue was, it should be easy to avoid. My main career plane uses some part clipping, and seems unaffected, but flies well.

Thanks, ferram, for all your hard work!

[Castun]

Trying out FAR again, and for some reason I'm not getting any graph data in the SPH, and all the stats are blank. Any ideas?

Edited July 18, 2015 by Castun

[dlrk]

I just replicated Prasiatko's issue using the stock mk1 pod, with nothing attached.

[softweir]

That's interesting, but I am sure Ferram would like more info, such as a complete list of the mods you have - or at least, the statement that you don't use mods!

[dlrk]

DRE , 64k, RealFuels

[Prasiatko]

Interesting mine only occurs with the procedural parts.

Big mod list coming up: Collision FX 3.2, Better AtmospheresV5, Stock Bug fix module

and as you can see quite are few were installed with CKAN if that could be causing issues?

EDIT: It appears the lifting body effect on the procedural parts is still working, just the drag that is not applied.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Prasiatko

[dlrk]

I'm having the problem after taking out DRE, FAR and 64k.

[ferram4]

First, if you're using CKAN, go to the CKAN-support thread linked in the first post, not here. I don't want to hear about any CKAN installs, CKAN has borked up FAR installations enough in the past that CKAN installs are no longer supported here.

Second, reproduction steps beyond, "launch X, cause issue," that's just unhelpful, considering I've done that about 50 times already testing the current stable.

[dlrk]

This looks like a stock bug, probably induced by weird mod combinations. I fixed it by removing the the physics file, and replacing it with one from a different KSP installation, rather than letting it rebuild itself.

[davidy12]

Ferram. For some reason, whenever I install FAR it causes my craft to randomly overheat and explode. I try heat editor, doesn't take it down. Don't believe me, whenever I fly this shuttle, the oms section explodes.

http://kerbalx.com/Naito/KSP1-Shuttle (Courtesy of Naito)

I really don't mean to offend you, I want this mod to work for me, but this always happens with me.