Winglets Making My Rocket Fly?

[BananaLee]

Not sure if this should go in the General Discussion thread or the Ferram Aerospace thread. I was just running through a simple sub-orbital flight and taking my rocket back in. As can be seen from the sequence of pictures below, things seem good and hunky-dory at first (normal fast descent)

However, as I get deeper into the atmosphere, the rocket slows down perceptibly (down to <10m/s at 2000m)

And things get weirder as it drops, the vertical speed actually goes above zero!

I'm running Ferram Aerospace but I'm wondering if this is just an effect of that mod or if this is normal for standard KSP aerodynamics as well? If it is the former, the only thing I can think of is that my winglets are actually generating significant amounts of lift. Would this be correct?

[Motokid600]

Not sure when it comes to that mod, but its a known bug. Winglets tend to have phantom lift.

[rryy]

This occurs in stock KSP and it is a bug with control surfaces, known as the infiniglide bug. I would have thought FAR would fix this, but I guess not. Maybe you didn't install it correctly.

[ferram4]

I'm not seeing the FAR GUI anywhere on your screen; this implies that you didn't install it properly. Also, the fact that you were able to flip the rocket around like that implies that the winglet code hasn't been overridden since that would prevent the rocket from being turned around like that.

[rhoark]

Note that a short period of positive vertical velocity is normal entering an atmosphere - it was part of the Apollo flight plan even. I wouldn't have expected it with the vehicle and orientation show in the screenshots, though.

[SRV Ron]

With Apollo, it's orientation would give it a slight lift on reentry. The same should happen in KSP. Now, for the rocket shown, it should streamline into the ground given that the center of pressure is to the rear of the center of mass. Definitely a bug.

[BananaLee]

Thanks for the help guys. I've installed FAR properly now and it looks to be working, though I'll need to relearn how to fly these spacecraft properly. I'm losing control extremely easily in spite of low inputs on the joysticks and maintaining a relatively low thrust.