Deadly Re-entry with Ferram

[Wanderfound]

BTW, I'd recommended grabbing something like the Evangelist II TJ (the plane shown in that pic, all stock) and doing some atmospheric flying to get practice at pushing the limits of exactly what you can get away with in terms of heat, dynamic pressure and G forces. Fine Print aerial survey contracts are good if you want some targets to aim for.

That one's a pure jet jobbie, but you can easily convert it to a spaceplane by swapping the two rear tanks for an FLT-800 and the turbojet for a RAPIER.

Edited September 18, 2014 by Wanderfound

[Alshain]

You strut your basic wings? The only time I use struts on a wing is if it's a complex modular one like this (struts are on the bottom). Even then I only strut the front to back side where there is no attachment node. If it's a single piece wing, the attachment node is usually enough for me.

[Wanderfound]

You strut your basic wings? The only time I use struts on a wing is if it's a complex modular one like this (struts are on the bottom). Even then I only strut the front to back side where there is no attachment node. If it's a single piece wing, the attachment node is usually enough for me.

http://i.imgur.com/ndaGSRe.png

Yup, struts pretty much all the time; from wingtip to fuselage, usually along the leading and trailing edges of each wing piece, hidden underneath to keep them out of sight. Most of my planes use SP+ wings, which are notorious eggshells because of this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80796-0-24-Spaceplane-Plus-1-3?p=1377054&viewfull=1#post1377054

I'd be more likely to go strutless on a stock-wing plane like the Evangelist, but I designed that specifically as an aerobatic trainer so I wanted to toughen it up a bit.

[Alshain]

Yup, struts pretty much all the time; from wingtip to fuselage, usually along the leading and trailing edges of each wing piece, hidden underneath to keep them out of sight. Most of my planes use SP+ wings, which are notorious eggshells because of this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80796-0-24-Spaceplane-Plus-1-3?p=1377054&viewfull=1#post1377054

I'd be more likely to go strutless on a stock-wing plane like the Evangelist, but I designed that specifically as an aerobatic trainer so I wanted to toughen it up a bit.

Yep, that's the wing fix I'm hoping they do in 0.25. The moment they announced the buyout I was concerned they would replace the current stock wings with the SP+ once which are broken in my opinion.

[John FX]

I use FAR and DRE and I found that FAR made DRE a bit easier, sometimes I don`t even need a heatshield for minor aerobraking and I use the DRE settings from BTSM...

I would suggest having a 30km Pe. This may mean you need another aerobraking attempt but you`ll not burn up. It`s totally possible to land from Minmus in a single burn but it`s a bit more tricky.

One thing I would advise is to have Realchutes as well. This means you can set a doublechute to act as a stabilizer drogue during reentry and then have the main chute for landing. I set mine to be a drogue that will slow the craft to about 150m/s by 10km at which point it autocuts and the main predeploys at 10.5km and starts to open at 700m (taking 10s to aim for a 3m/s landing)

It works really well and also reduces the braking needed by the heatshield. I can arm the chutes in orbit and then it does not matter if I run out of power during descent, I`ll stay aligned and land OK.

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On this craft I have made a small re-entry capsule with a heatshield (highlighted) in the assumption that most of the craft will burn away during re-entry. From Mun the whole thing lands OK not even losing a solar panel...