Cupola-based 1st-person lander

[Saaur]

No more do you have to guess at whether you're landing on a flat surface. Now you have perfect visibility of the WHOLE landing area!

Here we are getting ready to make a test flight. In its current configuration it has more than enough power to land in Kerbin's gravity well and enough delta-V to act as its own ascent stage for testing.

You don't get vertigo, do you?

Legs deployed, lights on, ready to land.

I can see my house from here!

The view is slightly less interesting when on the ground.

Safe!

[allmappedout]

What a clever idea! I like it!

[Fleb]

Awesome Idea.

[Pursuedtank]

Did not think of that, very clever. You could do something similar for landing in water and have a look at what is going on down there. Probably nothing intresting but you might see the SEA Kraken

[PolecatEZ]

How does it play with docking clamps? Any way we could get a 1st-person view of a docking procedure?

[Tallinu]

Ingenious!

I notice that one drawback of this is that the navball is inverted. You could probably solve that by adding a small remote guidance unit, right-side-up, to the 1 meter stuff on top and using 'control from here' on that, then switch to IVA view. Not sure if it would reset the control location when going IVA...

[Vanamonde]

When you switch to IVA view, the navball resets to the orientation of the capsule in which the Kerbal resides.

[Saaur]

Ingenious!

I notice that one drawback of this is that the navball is inverted. You could probably solve that by adding a small remote guidance unit, right-side-up, to the 1 meter stuff on top and using 'control from here' on that, then switch to IVA view. Not sure if it would reset the control location when going IVA...

That's what the docking port on top is for. Works fine when looking at the craft externally, but like Vanamonde said, IVA is always inverted. *shrug* not that big a deal really. It's easy enough to keep aligned for landing.

[Saaur]

How does it play with docking clamps? Any way we could get a 1st-person view of a docking procedure?

You could, but the docking port would obscure the round window in the center so once you get close you're still blind. B9 has a better cockpit for 1st-person docking.

[weeble]

That is a fantastic idea. If you want to watch your docking via IVA then why not use camera's + RPM, just set the different monitors to all the angles... Then it doesn't matter that you need a docking port on top to control it from

For landing however this is the best idea I've seen yet, how did I not even consider this? Adding some stadium lights that came w/ one of the mods and this idea would make landing child's play.

[Captain_Party]

Reported - MediNecro