Tips on landing SSTO's B9, NEAR.

[Secuas]

HCL-02 Fox:

Download: http://www.speedyshare.com/nKX6y/HCL-02-fox.craft

All mods I use:

Blizzy's toolbar

B9

DRE

Deepfreeze

KAS

KerbalJointReinforcement

Kethane

Kommit nucleonics

KSP-AVC

KSPlua (not really a mod i think)

KWrocketry

MJ2

Mechjeb embedded

MP_Nazari (for b9 effects)

NASAmission (stock ksp)

NEAR

Nearfuturesolar

Pilot Assistance

ProcFairings

Realchute

Planet Shine

Smokescreen (b9 effects)

Squad (stock KSP)

TAC life support

Mods used in Fox:

B9 Aerospace

I believe the Fox is B9 only.

[Voculus]

RainDreamer, I don't believe either mod is very memory intensive, but I can't swear to that. I would imagine if you can run NEAR, you should be able to run with FAR just fine.

[Voculus]

I'm not able to load your plane, Kaname. I have B9 and KW, so I'm not sure which other mod I'm missing.

Bah! It was the B9 SN struts and R1 ports, which I deleted, since I never use them. I'm sure you'll have pages of other analyses before I correct it.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Voculus

[Hodo]

Ok I can't tell you about NEAR because I don't use it, but I do use FAR.

This is one of my more recent craft, it is a fair bit smaller than yours but the re-entry profile is the same for all of my craft.

The re-entry starts around slide 25.

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As you can see, I take a pretty shallow approach from 100km orbit, but I also use a fair amount of airbrakes set to action group 8 for my slowing down. This creates a fair amount of drag which gets me down to less than 1800m/s pretty quick. Once I am below mach 5 I can drop down to 20km alt and really slow down.

[Voculus]

Kaname, I gave your latest ship a whirl in FAR, and you should be quite pleased with yourself! I removed all the gas from the fuselage, and only fueled up the outboard precoolers. I also reduced the wing mass to 36% all around, since that's a key difference between FAR and NEAR. I was able to get it into an 80km orbit, and land it twice. The first time was exactly the way you designed it, and the second was with a few tweaks.

The first thing I did was nuke all the external RCS tanks. You had a ton of it already, but if you really want it, I'd store them in the cargobay, where they're completely shielded. You have to pay for their weight, but you shouldn't have to pay for their drag, too! Speaking of drag, you can run from FAR, but you can't hide! The RTGs hidden inside the precoolers blew up during reentry, but putting them in the cargobay was a quick fix.

Your wheels were too far back to lift off the runway before reaching the end, so I scooted them up a bit further.

I replaced the SN struts with the invisible SNM struts. If there's one thing I despise more than anything else in KSP, it's planes that look like circus tents with miles of struts.

Since your engines are out on the wings, the elevators can no longer interfere, and I moved them off of the vertical stabilizer, put them on the tail, and slid them back for just a bit more pitch authority, which helped with landing.

As far as landing goes, your design has a smaller wing area than most (which is totally fine), so faster landing speeds were required. Nothing the speed brakes and drag chute couldn't handle, though.

Without going into all the FAR analysis, you've got a good design. I didn't have any issues with reentry, but again, I'm not using DRE. With a light touch, the plane goes where I point it, so I don't have any other reentry advice, other than what others have already offered up.

PS: The cockpit you're using has built in RCS thrusters, so I would say the two R1 ports below the nose are unnecessary. The R12 blocks on the top and bottom of the engines could be replaced with a single block on the side. Those larger thrusters are heavier, but produce a lot more thrust, so it doesn't take much to get the job done. You might also consider placing your aftmost RCS thrusters further back to leverage the leverage! Oh, I slay me!

Edited November 24, 2014 by Voculus

[Wanderfound]

I tried the suggestion... It just aerobrakes and orbits again. Over and over again and again. <insert refrence here>

Once you've arrested your initial descent, you need to pull the nose down to hold that altitude. If you're too high and too fast you may not be able to, but Mach 6 at 25,000m shouldn't present any problems.

[Secuas]

I tried again with FAR this time. Good news is I didn't go infinite aerobraking. But half my ship disintegrated only the small things outside the ship like RCS thrusters and airbrakes all burned up. And sometimes the cockpit detaches. I see no legit way to do this without dying, burning up or killed by G-forces.

Also FAR sucks. Tried getting the jumbo-64 tank in orbit again after adjustments and I hit the end of the runway, lift off a bit and crash down. I liked NEAR better but those fools made it too hard to re-enter. (scratch that, I found did bring said tank into orbit. Just took some adapting)

Next, I did some adjusting to my design to make even lift said fuel tank. And suddenly I doesn't drain oxidizer from the fuselage and doesn't even feed it to the engine anymore. I even tried fuel ducts but it doesn't use it.

Another little tiny issue is with the action groups each time I assign some sometimes they only deploy "only the left side" like with airbrakes.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Kaname

[Secuas]

One time I did survive it for the first time ever...... wings broke off...

[Alshain]

I tried again with FAR this time. Good news is I didn't go infinite aerobraking. But half my ship disintegrated only the small things outside the ship like RCS thrusters and airbrakes all burned up. And sometimes the cockpit detaches. I see no legit way to do this without dying, burning up or killed by G-forces.

Also FAR sucks. Tried getting the jumbo-64 tank in orbit again after adjustments and I hit the end of the runway, lift off a bit and crash down. I liked NEAR better but those fools made it too hard to re-enter. (scratch that, I found did bring said tank into orbit. Just took some adapting)

Next, I did some adjusting to my design to make even lift said fuel tank. And suddenly I doesn't drain oxidizer from the fuselage and doesn't even feed it to the engine anymore. I even tried fuel ducts but it doesn't use it.

Another little tiny issue is with the action groups each time I assign some sometimes they only deploy "only the left side" like with airbrakes.

Go to the space center screen, click the FAR button. Turn off aerodynamic dissasembly. You now have NEAR with Mach Effects and GUI analysis tools. Practice like that until your more comfortable with it and then you can turn it back on.

Dissassembly is awesome for realists but it's hard on beginners. Having to learn it all at once can be the most challenging part, breaking it up into "baby steps" makes it a lot more fun. You might consider dropping DRE for now as well, until you get used to FAR.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Alshain

[Voculus]

A few things, Kaname. When you switched to FAR, did you adjust your wing weights, or just launch it straight away? I like to reduce my weights to between .3 and .4. Do that for every wing section and control surface, and watch the MJ vessel info. You can easily cut the weight of your ship in half.

Secondly, you're trying to do a whole lot at once, making the switch to a new flight model, and adding DRE on top of that. Drop DRE for now. Just for now, and get more familiar with the way planes fly under FAR.

Lastly, your plane, while a sound design, is also not a novice plane. The sheer size, small wing area, and outboard engines requires some real piloting, even with a full-on HOTAS & Rudder Pedal setup.

I flew your plane twice last night, and know it's up to the job. Hodo has B9 planes that'll lift 100 tons into orbit! Don't get frustrated! Try to take things one step at a time. For example, flying your ship with an empty hold, and just reentering after one orbit. And also, in case you missed my last post, you've got too much MonoPro aboard! Ditch the external tanks, and lighten it up a bit.

With regards to the action groups: Say you have speed brakes on both wings, and have assigned them to a key. Now you move the left wing to reposition it better, and in flight, you find the right side brakes no longer work. It's a KSP quirk, and you need to physically click on the right side brake, and reassign it. Same goes for flaps, intakes, etc.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Voculus

[Secuas]

Yeah, you are right sometimes I ask too much off everything and I demand it works. My apologies for this. Thanks for all the help I deleted DRE for now so let's get onto another plane I made. (I know the Fox isn't a really beginners plane but hey! I flew a jumbo tank into orbit with FAR. )

[Hodo]

I found there are tricks to FAR.

Here are some of my best tips and advice.

-Leave the FAR box open, if you see "High Dynamic Pressure" or the air pressure is over 40kpa you should avoid doing any sharp maneuvers.

-On Re-Entry, long and shallow is your best friend. It gives you time to burn off excess speed at above 25km.

- Look at how real aircraft are designed, what works in the real world WILL work in FAR.

Last but not least

- TEST FLIGHTS, TEST FLIGHTS, TEST FLIGHTS! Always do test flights before you put it into service. Sometimes a design works great until it is low on fuel. Or handles like a dream till it hits hypersonic speeds, then it becomes a mach 5 lawn dart.

[Alshain]

For re-entry, your easiest, least heat generating method is to lower your periapsis while on the opposite side of the planet. It's going to take some practice but once I've de-orbited I try to place the end of my arc right on the mountain range outside of KSC. You don't have to get it there on the initial de-orbit, your wings will let you glide, so you can move it afterward by using small pitch maneuvers. That usually brings me down so I have time to level off and cross over them at 7 to 8km just barely east of the highest peak (which is about 6km, so don't go too much lower) and be straight on to the runway. Probably not the only way but it works for me.

Don't be afraid to wave off and go around. Your flying an SSTO, not a shuttle for now so don't think you have to land on the first pass. You can fly past the center and turn the jets on and turn around and land coming it at 270. If your going too fast, this may be required. When you get more experience, you might be able to build a shuttle without jets, that is quite challenging.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Alshain

[Secuas]

Thanks for the help you guys! I dropped DRE for now and I start to enjoy flying planes with FAR a little better. But there are two pesky little things that annoy me when building cargo for my Fox ship. 1: Placing a docking port inside, the way I do it makes parts of the fuselage unavaible so my engines can't acces the oxidizer. 2: Placing the initial cargo inside. I would like to know how everyone else is doing this.

Thanks in Advance.

[Wanderfound]

Thanks for the help you guys! I dropped DRE for now and I start to enjoy flying planes with FAR a little better. But there are two pesky little things that annoy me when building cargo for my Fox ship. 1: Placing a docking port inside, the way I do it makes parts of the fuselage unavaible so my engines can't acces the oxidizer. 2: Placing the initial cargo inside. I would like to know how everyone else is doing this.

Thanks in Advance.

Placing cargo: disable radial attachment while you're doing it.

Fuel flow issues: yeah, sometimes the ship refuses to flow fuel through the cargo bay, especially if you've got some fuel tankage inside the bay. You can route around it by running fuel lines, but the simpler solution is to just use Goodspeed or TAC Fuel Balancer to automate your fuel pumping.

[Secuas]

And with Radial attachment you mean angle snap? or?

[Wanderfound]

And with Radial attachment you mean angle snap? or?

Sorry, surface attachment. Hold alt to disable in stock.

[Hodo]

I use TAC fuel balancer for all of my fueling issues cant stand by it enough.

As for placing cargo in the cargo bay, I use a large docking port for my larger SSTOs and a regular one for all others.

[Alshain]

Placing cargo tips:

• Disable radial attachment by holding Alt (Windows version)
  
• Place only 1 docking port, your probably not going to re-dock, docking ports can always undock from what they are attached to even if it isn't a docking port. (this is a space saving tip). Alternatively you can use a decoupler but they eject pretty harshly so you have to be careful with that.
  
• Build the cargo from the piece you want to attach to the docking port (so it is the root part) and create a subassembly. Don't try to build it in the plane. Don't forget to hold Alt when you go to put it in the plane.
  
• TEST! Check your Center of mass/Center of Lift relationship with cargo and full fuel, and again with no cargo and little to no fuel as this will be your likely scenarios. You aren't likely to be flying around without cargo and a full tank of fuel, nor will you likely be bringing cargo back into the atmosphere with no fuel.
  

Edited November 26, 2014 by Alshain

[Hodo]

The best bit of advice with cargo haulers is to make sure your CoM is centered in your cargo bay. This way if your cargo is balanced correctly you wont have an issue with the CoM moving.

I often use light weight parts to center my cargo in large bays.

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This monster is a great example of how I would design the cargo around the CoM of the craft that is going to haul it, or adjust the length of the cargo to move the cargos CoM forward or backward in relation to the cargo hauler.

So ultimately the CoM will not move more than .5m front or back on the craft with or without cargo.

[Secuas]

I managed to land the Fox on the runway. Without DRE tho it's going great. I'm really prachtising the landing, but I know how my own plane works so it's becoming less of a problem. I set a new cargo record. 51 tons to orbit .

[Taki117]

I managed to land the Fox on the runway. Without DRE tho it's going great. I'm really prachtising the landing, but I know how my own plane works so it's becoming less of a problem. I set a new cargo record. 51 tons to orbit .

Congrats, but I will say this. Practice like you have DRE installed. If you can come down nice and shallow, as well as slow, install it again and you should be fine.

[Alshain]

Congrats, but I will say this. Practice like you have DRE installed. If you can come down nice and shallow, as well as slow, install it again and you should be fine.

I concur. I don't use DRE right now but I always try to re-enter as if I do.

[Hodo]

I use DRE, and I can say it is a bit frustrating at times bringing a craft in and having to slow down half way around the world just to land at KSC.

[BrotatoSalad]

When it comes to actually landing, prepare for 30 minutes (with physwarp) of coasting in and out of the atmosphere to slow down from mach 7 without tearing your craft into many small pieces.