How to slow down when landing in FAR?

[*Aqua*]

Hello pilots, Evil Knievels and Jebediahs out there!

When using FAR I have a lot of problems slowing down midair and on the runway. Especially bigger and heavier planes can't be stopped by using gear breaks before the runway ends.

I tried several things:

a) Adding more gears. More gears = more braking power, right? That only works on small planes but not the big ones.

Adding spoilers. They also don't have enough stopping power. I almost didn't feel any effect using them.

c) Add a drag chute. Stock chutes automatically get cut when the plane touches the ground. So they can only be used immediately before. But usually I am to busy correcting my glide slope and try to hit the runway at that point to think about using chutes.

d) Don't come down with hot engines. I reduced engine power to 0% several kilometers before the runway. My planes usually glide very well in FAR but I tend to mess up either by still being to fast or to slow or to low or to high. It's difficult for me to figure out for each plane how I have to do that.

e) Add a reverse engine in the nose. It just looks silly.

I thought about using the airbreaks of the B9 mod or the drag chutes of the RealChutes mod but my game is already heavyly modded. I'm at the point where adding only a few more parts and plugins will crash the game. I even had to remove some parts so the game won't crash that often because of memory issues.

Is there something other I can try?

Thanks in advance for your tips and tricks!

Edited January 16, 2015 by *Aqua*

[EdFred]

In real life, we fly an approach to landing at 1.3 times the stall speed. Find out your stall speed, and keep your velocity at 30% above that. When you know you've got the runway made (0.5-1.0km out or so), reduce the engine power slightly, raise the nose a little as you do, and you should have much better luck.

Edited January 15, 2015 by EdFred

[capi3101]

I don't use FAR myself, but I've heard of FAR users using banked turns to bleed off speed in the atmosphere. It's the same thing the shuttle used to do during re-entry (for the same reason). Something you might try. Other than that, I'm no help.

[Alshain]

Lots of tips. Some have been mentioned. Let's start with what you have.

a. Gears. Round about way of doing it, but don't add gears to be air brakes. That's not going to help you much.

b. Spoilers. Spoilers do slow you down quite a bit, but you can change them to deploy at a negative value. That means you can use a pair of spoilers to deflect in opposite directions and create air brakes. Spoilers will mess with your lift also, which may be desirable but not always. Air brakes create an equal drag in symmetry so it doesn't alter lift. You can also get air brake mods like in B9, but make sure you place them in symmetry too!

c. Real Chute mod, that's the only way to do it. It fixes not only the cutting of the chutes on touchdown, but you can configure for a drag chute so it pulls from behind you instead of slightly above. (In case you didn't know, drag chutes should only be used to slow down on the runway, not in the air)

d. This is the tricky part. The solution is Flaps. With Flaps being too slow is less of a problem. In case you don't know, Flaps create more lift than the wing would normally so this allows the plane to fly slower without falling out of the sky. Perfect for final approach. They simply reduce the minimum safe speed, bonus, they create drag to slow you down. If you land at a slower speed, your wheel brakes wont have to do so much work.

e. Technically possible, it's unnecessary though, personally I think it's silly.

Other tips:

*Don't be afraid to use the engines, unpowered landings from orbit like the Shuttles do is very hard, one of the last things you will learn to do with planes. If you come in too short, fire em up.

*Circle around. If you feel your going too fast, go past the runway and come back ocean side (assuming a typical equatorial approach), that gives you time to bleed off speed and personally I find approach from the ocean a little easier because you don't have to worry about staying high till you pass Mount Kerbal.

*Banking maneuvers automatically slow you down. Perform S curves.

*PAPI mods help. NavUtilities has a PAPI system that tells you if you are on the glide slope. When using it, position your plane so the pink arrows on the right and left are sitting on the center line. If the arrows go high, increase your altitude and if they go low decrease your altitude. (Sounds backward, but the arrows indicate the position of the glide slope relative to you so if the glide slope is below your plane the arrows will be down) It will also help you line up the runway.

Final Tip: PRACTICE. Don't get discouraged, you will get it in time. When you practice, do it with smaller planes, bigger planes that just barely fit on the runway will obviously be harder.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Alshain

[*Aqua*]

@EdFred

Thanks!

I didn't try to slow down to just above stall speed.

@capi3101

It is valid suggestion but won't help me when I hit the runway with about 150 m/s. Nevertheless thank you for your post!

[Wabbit]

Also, if you have the vanguard parachute mod and ejection module, DON'T BE AFRAID TO DITCH! There's also a mod somewhere that makes it possible to land in the water without instantly splooshing.

[Panzerbeard]

Lots of tips. Some have been mentioned. Let's start with what you have.

a. Gears. Round about way of doing it, but don't add gears to be air brakes. That's not going to help you much.

.

I think he was referring to the actual wheel brakes, so he can stop the aircraft on the runway without having to slow down as much on approach.

[Alshain]

I think he was referring to the actual wheel brakes, so he can stop the aircraft on the runway without having to slow down as much on approach.

Ah, well I covered that as well. The key thing is to simply be slower before your wheels touch the ground. With FAR, Flaps make that easy.

[Panzerbeard]

There's also a mod somewhere that makes it possible to land in the water without instantly splooshing.

If you mean Ferram's Better Buoyancy it still seems to have some problems. Whenever I put a kerbal in the water he sinks to the bottom and can't swim up.

[Hodo]

The best advice I can give is the real chutes mod with airbrakes and control surfaces setup as spoilers. I have my spoilers and airbrakes set to an action group so I am not worried about my wheel brakes are not set.

[WhiteKnuckle]

If you have Verner engines or even RCS on your aircraft you can use them to push you down into the runway which I believe helps with braking performance, and even if it doesn't you can use them to keep from bouncing up if you hit the runway a little too hard.

[Kerba Fett]

WhiteKnuckle's idea is pretty good. You could also just point them forward to use them for braking. Just use an action group to toggle them off or on.

[foamyesque]

As a matter of general principle, what you should do is flare; pull your AoA up as you come in for final approach. Be a little bit above the runway, and pull the nose up enough to keep your vertical speed at 0. You'll bleed horizontal speed in a big hurry if you have your engines off (or at low power); once you're either at maximum AoA or you start losing altitude, nose back down again a bit to avoid smashing bits off your tail and let your rear gear touch down.

What happens next depends a bit on the plane design. Generally you want to let the plane rotate forward and put the nose gear down. Some planes will do this by themselves, sometimes you need to command a pitch down. Once you've got all the gear on the ground, hit the brakes. On light craft it's possible for this to result in the nose biting and the whole thing flipping on you because of how strong the brakes are, so I usually either disable the nose gear's brakes or ensure that it's far enough forward that the plane won't do a somersault.

[Wanderfound]

Most of it has already been covered; when you hit the runway you should be flying at just above stall speed. Use S-turns, stall-climbs and such to bleed off speed in the air. And try to hit the runway at the start of it, not halfway down:

See the yellow circle on the end of the runway? Kerbal Flight Indicators.

However, on the point of retrothrusters: with monoprop engines or Vernors, it's easy to make them weightless and pretty much invisible. For example...

Retrothrusters turned on so you can see 'em:

Retrothrusters off (look for,the nozzles at the front of the canards):

They're unnecessary on most ships, but they do come in handy occasionally. Especially when landing on Duna/Minmus/etc.

Even without them, just using your normal RCS in translate-back (N) helps. Translate down (I) helps your wheelbrakes, too. And you can do airbrakes in FAR by setting pairs of opposed maximised spoilers:

Edited January 15, 2015 by Wanderfound

[SAI Peregrinus]

Most large aircraft IRL have thrust reversers.

Eg

It's used a lot for landing safely in wet conditions.

[Voculus]

I feel your pain, when it comes to too many parts causing out of memory issues. I'd recommend installing B9 and deleting everything but the speed brakes. They're worth their weight in gold. Another thing you can do is to go through all the squad parts and delete some of the engines and fuel tanks you know you'll never use. This will free up a bit of room for RealChutes, which is another must-have mod when using FAR, in my opinion.

- - - Updated - - -

Most large aircraft IRL have thrust reversers.

I wish American airshows were like that. As in, no crappy music blaring and drowning out the sound of the airplanes!

[Hodo]

Most large aircraft IRL have thrust reversers.

Eg

It's used a lot for landing safely in wet conditions.

Thats funny because that is how this craft stops... Thrust reverser.

Really another useful item from B9.

[Van Disaster]

Don't think it was explicitly mentioned, but FAR has built in airbrake support - just enable Spoiler for any control surface. The answer to having an easier time slowing down is to not be in a rush to land, simply - just don't descend as steeply, plan your descent around it not being as steep and fly a longer approach. From space I usuallly don't exceed 30m/s vertical speed downwards and probably more like 20, and I've done it enough to know what altitude to fly at what distance to run to get the right deceleration, to the point where it's really rare to use engines at all for any of the descent - but it's usually at least half an orbit if not more to slow down and at KSC I'll land on 27 ( from the sea ) despite re-entering from the west. For terrestrial aircraft I just fly over and land using the furthest approach if I'm going too fast for the nearest.

Stopping on the runway has been covered, I think.

[RainDreamer]

If all else fail, some chutes at the end of the craft wouldn't hurt to help bringing you to a complete stop on runway.

[LethalDose]

I had exact same problem when I was (re)learning to fly after switching over to FAR.

To slow down, what I find works well is flying into the lower atmosphere (< 5km) with a downward velocity vector, then pulling up. The increased atmospheric density starts you slowing down, and then the directional change bleeds off more speed. If you can get an initial dive that steep enough, you can pull up without even breaking into level flight, maintaining descent into thicker air.

Basically, the idea is to keep your nose above the direction of travel, but keeping the direction of travel downward. Just an extension of flaring to slow down during landing.

Edited January 16, 2015 by LethalDose

[Streetwind]

I've also had issues with slowing down, and eventually resorted to using the matched pairs of spoilers trick.

Problem is, the spoilers stall when they reach full deployment angle - and when this happens, the plane immediately becomes excessively unstable. Almost feels as if the main wing stalls too (but FAR's visualization confirms this is not the case, it's only the spoilers that stall). It's gone to the point where I lost control and crashed despite still being above 100 m/s - and the plane in question has a takeoff speed of about 60!

So I can only use the spoilers by tapping the brake key instead of holding it, trying to judge how close the spoilers are to stalling and dancing around it. This of course means I have a lot less airbraking force than I'd like, and I need to devote my full attention to it... which means I don't have that attention for things like trying to line up with the runway, checking my altitude and speed, and other such things you generally do while landing. I've in fact taken to intentionally avoiding the runway by a large margin, landing on the flat green ground beside the space center, and then taxiing back onto the runway for 100% recovery. It's retarded and exploity, but it's the only way I can safely land this thing without needing 4-5 approach attempts and still occasionally killing a pilot.

Spoilers just seem like a really poor solution to airbraking.

[match]

I like to place a flag at the end of the runway to assist on approach. It provides bearing and distance, and if you target it, it provides alignment to the runway. If I am coming in too fast, I'll kill the descent, veer off and do a long, lazy turn or two.

[Wanderfound]

I've also had issues with slowing down, and eventually resorted to using the matched pairs of spoilers trick.

Problem is, the spoilers stall when they reach full deployment angle - and when this happens, the plane immediately becomes excessively unstable. Almost feels as if the main wing stalls too (but FAR's visualization confirms this is not the case, it's only the spoilers that stall). It's gone to the point where I lost control and crashed despite still being above 100 m/s - and the plane in question has a takeoff speed of about 60!

So I can only use the spoilers by tapping the brake key instead of holding it, trying to judge how close the spoilers are to stalling and dancing around it. This of course means I have a lot less airbraking force than I'd like, and I need to devote my full attention to it... which means I don't have that attention for things like trying to line up with the runway, checking my altitude and speed, and other such things you generally do while landing. I've in fact taken to intentionally avoiding the runway by a large margin, landing on the flat green ground beside the space center, and then taxiing back onto the runway for 100% recovery. It's retarded and exploity, but it's the only way I can safely land this thing without needing 4-5 approach attempts and still occasionally killing a pilot.

Spoilers just seem like a really poor solution to airbraking.

Are these mid-wing or tailplane spoilers? Too far forward and you'll unbalance things. You can set spoilers on in the FAR analysis screens to check.

[cicatrix]

Technically, many atmospheric engines in real life have thrust reversal systems like this:

or this:

I wonder if there are mods that can do thrust reversal in KSP?

[*Aqua*]

I managed to land this plane yesterday. I used ~5/6 of the runway. During the first 1/6 I brought it down gently, at the last 4/6 I just used the wheel brakes and it worked! \o/

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You guys mention flaps. I didn't used them. Should I dedicate control surfaces just for this function or is it okay to activate that for the pitch control surfaces?

I thank you all. You guys are really helpful!

I guess you brought up all tips and tricks there are. I'll mark this thread as answered but will continue posting here if I have some other question about it.