Crazy experiences.

[gompasta]

I have just had the most nuttiest experience i have had on KSP for a LONG time.

Basically, i was testing out a new plane design, and strapped a parachute to the side of it that should have deployed and destroyed the rear section of the plane, to simulate catastrophic emergencies.

When I took off, the parachute deployed long before i wanted it to, even though it was not on any active stages. What i did was, turned on the avionics, and let the plane fly itself, and mid-flight, i got Jeb to climb out of the plane, and make his way back to the tail section of the craft to repack the chute. However, he managed to make it to the engine block (Where the parachute was), but got himself wedged between the engine and the fuselage. Now there was no pilot. Mechjeb was on-board, but i was not going to use it for these tests. Luckily the engines cut out when i EVA'd, and the avionics was holding a steady angle, so all jeb could do was hold on and hope.

All jeb had control of was the parachutes. Deploying and cutting it when needed to slow the plane down. Slowly, but surely, the plane was descending and at a nice angle. Eventually, the ground was in reaching distance, and the plane made a bit of a hard contact with the ground, making it bounce slightly, but fully intact. Eventually, the plane slowed and made it to a stop. Jeb is one lucky thrillseeker.

Unfortunately, i had no pictures of the actual incident. The only witnesses were the Kerbal Live Feed community. Jeb made these recreations after landing for his AAR.

Jeb doing his publicity pose.

Have any of you had anything crazy that happened to you? Anything that you had difficulty believing actually happened?

[SmallChange]

The getting wedged part is pretty common, but the landing?

WOW! I would have been rolling on the floor!

[Deadpangod3]

Very Kerbal,

Let me guess, he was laughing the hole way down?

[tstehler1]

This is making me wish so hard that you could record video from the first-person view of a Kerbal...

[dr_jt]

Consider Kerbals

Edited June 6, 2013 by dr_jt

[CaptinKornflake]

That's amazing

the amount of skill like omg

[Spatzimaus]

It's for reasons like this that I add an unmanned probe controller to all manned vessels. That way, if the pilot goes EVA, I'll still have full control of the vehicle. The new squashed controller is really handy for this, although I prefer the appearance of the BOMP mod's stack controllers; their energy costs are small (and I put an RTG on my designs on general principle), the extra torque is handy, and they don't take up much room or weight. It's also allowed me to do things like send an empty spaceplane to meet up with Jeb over Eve, so he can fly it down and back up instead of having to find a way to get my normal interplanetary rocket to make the ascent.

But yeah, if you put enough wing area on a design, it's amazing how easy it is to land, even uncontrolled. The aerodynamic model in KSP needs to be overhauled, but for now it makes it really easy to build something that can glide in unpowered and mostly uncontrolled. Still impressive that everything worked, though.

[gompasta]

Very Kerbal,

Let me guess, he was laughing the hole way down?

Yup. He looked at this as a challenge for his intelligence... Forgetting the fact that he got himself stuck in the first place.

[Merinsan]

The only way this would have been more impressive would be if Jeb somehow got that plane into orbit while stuck there.

I had a similar experience, but with a rover on the Mun. I had dropped it off with a sky crane and it started rolling away. I quickly got a Kerbal flying after it to gain control. He somehow tripped up on it and got stuck on the rover, going about 4km away. It got some decent speed up too, I was surprised it didn't roll and kill him.

[dr_jt]

Nice ballistic flight.

Edited June 6, 2013 by dr_jt