Stock Aircraft Speedbrakes

[FleshJeb]

Disclaimer: I have NOT played with any modded speedbrakes, but I think it would be user-friendly to implement in stock.

My suggestion is to have an additional tweakable/toggle for control surfaces that says "Speedbrake Up/Down/Off". Upon selecting it in the VAB/SPH, it would show a preview of the control surface at maximum deflection in a highlight/see-through style. This would be shown whenever the tweak palette is open. Alternately a the standard method of animating parts in the VAB/SPH may work. As long as the part returns to the default deflection when the tweak palette closes.

Obviously wording is an issue for left/right/diagonal cases, but up/down may be good enough.

The speedbrake function would activate along with the wheel brakes by pressing 'B' or through the GUI. It would be interesting if they deployed faster than current control surface deflection rate.

From a functional standpoint, it would be the same as setting maximum trim for that control surface. I just checked, and counter-inputs are still effective when trimmed. However, SAS seems to override the trim--Potentially a conflict.

PROS:

Doesn't require new, dedicated parts.

Seems relatively easy to implement (preview implementation of unknown difficulty).

Meshes well with existing control scheme and general functionality.

I'm sure some crazy idiot player will find a use for this functionality that I can't possibly imagine. (Such as using control surfaces as landing legs and making a low-grav hopper lander.)

CONS:

Up/down/left/right depends on part orientation, hence the need for a preview.

Preview implementation may not be practical (EDIT: may not be even necessary) in flight.

It would look like this in action:

I tried searching to see if this has been suggested before, but didn't find anything. Feedback is most welcome.

Edited November 13, 2014 by FleshJeb

[prophet_01]

Airbreaks are indeed something that would help a lot with bigger aircrafts or shuttles. But with the current aerodynamics it's not that usefull, since gliding is somewhat limited. I use airbreaks from b9 for most of my winged crafts. It is rly nice to have the capability of unpowered landings, which is one of the reasons I have FAR, b9 and the trajectories mod installed.

However, I rly support that suggestion as I consider airbreaks as a must have with the improved aerodynamics that will hopefully be implemented rather sooner than later

[MKI]

Can come with updated areodynamics. As said above its not really needed as of right now. Personally airbrakes are a very niche part to have in the game.

You first need a plane, then wings, then for it to take off, fly around, and then come in to land, THEN and only THEN would you use the airbrakes.

Functionality wise you could use some speratrons to get your ship to stop just as well.

[Alshain]

If your going to put air brakes in, do it right. Air brakes are very seldom found on the trailing edge of the wing and they definitely do not deploy like the picture above.

Air brakes are designed to create drag without creating lift (flaps) or stall (spoilers). In your image above, that configuration would most certainly modify lift because the surfaces are not equal size and not in the same positions. The best way to be certain they do not is to have symmetrical deployment and positioned in a place where they would not alter the lifting properties of the wing. While this may or may not affect it that way in the current stock, we know better aerodynamics are coming, so it's better to do it right.

For this reason air brakes are most commonly found on the tail, deploying left and right of the plane is a lot easier to do without creating lift. The best example of this in space travel is NASA's Space Shuttle of course, which uses a split control surface type air brake. Other plane designs have the air brake built into the tail boom, rather than the vertical stabilizer like the shuttle. Some do in fact have them wing mounted, it is less common from what I've seen (most the examples of this I've seen are on fighters), but even in that case it has to be aerodynamically equal on both sides from the direction it extends and great caution must be taken to prevent altering the lift.

In closing, I support this idea provided it is done correctly.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Alshain

[chaos_forge]

So, basically, what you are asking for is exactly the airbrake functionality to control surfaces that comes with FAR/NEAR, correct? In that case, I'm all for it.

Edited November 13, 2014 by chaos_forge

[Javster]

Maybe not airbrakes, but flaps which increase lift as well as drag.

[prophet_01]

Using most of your pitch and roll authority for airbreaking might be tricky. Even if you keep the plane balanced and stable you will still affect your speed/breaking capability when roling or pitching. If you have to do some last minute corrections you aren't rly better of with that kind of airbreake since any control input will reduce the effectiveness of your breking attempts. I consider this as being not predictable enough for the majority of my missions. When landing 50t+ shuttles/spaceplanes I usually don't have enough room for error. If I don't have constant and reliable airbreaks and controls during those delicate maneuvers I am srsly screwed

Edited November 14, 2014 by prophet_01