[Sushi]

Just finished an orbital mission... with Bob Kerman hanging onto a ladder on the outside of the rocket the entire time.

EVA stuff is a lot more fun than I had expected it to be. Way better than the space planes update.

Up next: figuring out how to keep kerbals on the outside of the ship from gradually sliding down the ladder whenever I try to accelerate...

[Colonol Dekker]

I've not managed to reach orbit yet...... Some AMAZING explosions though.

[Nuke]

i was trying to expand my mun base. i landed 3 more lunar habitat modules and crashed 2 more. the game is starting to slow down a lot due to all the space junk floating around, so i used the laser plugin and designed a fast intercept ship to hunt and kill all the space debris i dont want floating around anymore. im getting good at rendezvous manuvers. ive been using mechjeb but only for holding orientations, but ive mostluy been pulling it off by eyeball. ive intercepted 5 or 6 spent boosters already. some of them still have fuel on board, i kinda whished there was a fuel transfer plugin that allowed in-space refueling from abandoned tankage.

[Herra Tohtori]

i was trying to expand my mun base. i landed 3 more lunar habitat modules and crashed 2 more. the game is starting to slow down a lot due to all the space junk floating around, so i used the laser plugin and designed a fast intercept ship to hunt and kill all the space debris i dont want floating around anymore. im getting good at rendezvous manuvers. ive been using mechjeb but only for holding orientations, but ive mostluy been pulling it off by eyeball. ive intercepted 5 or 6 spent boosters already. some of them still have fuel on board, i kinda whished there was a fuel transfer plugin that allowed in-space refueling from abandoned tankage.

DEBRIS SECTION GO

DIVE IN THE SKY

[NGTM-1R]

You get a gold star, sir.

[Mongoose]

Yes yes.

[Ravenholme]

Do people have any absolutely essential mod recommendations for the latest commercial release? (0.16)

[Nuke]

get mechjeb. it gives you all that instrumentation i have up there. carts is a nice little plugin too, gives you the mun buggy chassis. theres a first person camera plugin as well which comes in handy for flying.

[Sushi]

get mechjeb. it gives you all that instrumentation i have up there. carts is a nice little plugin too, gives you the mun buggy chassis. theres a first person camera plugin as well which comes in handy for flying.

Of course, mechjeb is for sissies. First person camera sounds neat, though, that would make orbital rendezvous a lot easier.

[Nuke]

get mechjeb. it gives you all that instrumentation i have up there. carts is a nice little plugin too, gives you the mun buggy chassis. theres a first person camera plugin as well which comes in handy for flying.

Of course, mechjeb is for sissies. First person camera sounds neat, though, that would make orbital rendezvous a lot easier.

are you kidding? its lost more ships than i have flying manual.

[Ravenholme]

Cheers, will grab Mechjeb and the Carts then. Anything else?

[Scourge of Ages]

The first-person thing would certainly help landing aircraft. I built a few spaceplanes to fly around and train in, but crashed every time.

[pecenipicek]

anyone have a decent spaceplane tutorial for me to follow or something?

[Thaeris]

Center of pressure ahead of center of gravity - unstable.
Center of pressure aft of center of gravity - stable.

The center of pressure is where the net lifting force of a wing occurs, and the farther forward the center of gravity is (the location of the net weight downwards) in relation to the center of pressure, the faster the aerospacecraft will have to fly to land safely. The center of gravity of a conventional rocket as we have today will shift significantly over the course of a lauch, as fuel is burned up, etc., etc. You want a stable craft rather than an unstabe one, and the more unstable a craft, the harder it is to control.

...That's basically the basics of figuring out the design of an aircraft or aerospacecraft in a nutshell. I hope that should do.

[pecenipicek]

Center of pressure ahead of center of gravity - unstable.
Center of pressure aft of center of gravity - stable.

The center of pressure is where the net lifting force of a wing occurs, and the farther forward the center of gravity is (the location of the net weight downwards) in relation to the center of pressure, the faster the aerospacecraft will have to fly to land safely. The center of gravity of a conventional rocket as we have today will shift significantly over the course of a lauch, as fuel is burned up, etc., etc. You want a stable craft rather than an unstabe one, and the more unstable a craft, the harder it is to control.

...That's basically the basics of figuring out the design of an aircraft or aerospacecraft in a nutshell. I hope that should do.

so, in short, engines behind, wings forward?

[Scourge of Ages]

Dear log,

Today, I landed on the Mun, and then hopped back to Kerbin. It was surprisingly simple once they built a launch vehicle capable of actually getting to the Mun and back.

First step was to just turn west after the launch, that put me into a nice ellipse that would carry me right through Mun's orbit. After my ship got captured by the Mun's gravity, all I had to do was plot a course that would put me right onto the back side of it.



After I had a good course, I burnt up the last of the main drive's fuel to decelerate.



Drop that module, and continue to the surface using the landing rocket.



Came in niiiiiice and easy... easy... eaaaaaasy... dang, too much lateral movement, and me without any RCS.



Well, I'm on the surface, and everything is still intact. I wonder... yep. Extending the landing gear popped the module right-side-up. Time for a munwalk!



OK, same plan as before. Take off, head East(?), hit orbit, transfer to Kerbin.



Meh, I'm tired. I'm going to just go straight in. Orbit Kerbin, degrade orbit, drop in and land (safely!)



Entry point calculated... and burn!



Deploy chute! Hope it holds up, those guys who pick these up on the side of the road aren't always the most reliable...



Hey, what do you know. It held together, and I didn't die on impact! And I'm only 20 km from the launchpad! Hope somebody invents the truck soon, or it'll be a looooong walk back.

[Colonol Dekker]

Well done mate
My projects results so far wed-Fri
- A shuttle lost heading off into deep space
- An unmanned orbital vehicle orbiting Kerbin with a full tank
- A pod orbiting the sun with three Kerbalnauts. ... Orbit rapidly degrading


- A lot of VTOL wreckage on my runway

[Nuke]

Center of pressure ahead of center of gravity - unstable.
Center of pressure aft of center of gravity - stable.

The center of pressure is where the net lifting force of a wing occurs, and the farther forward the center of gravity is (the location of the net weight downwards) in relation to the center of pressure, the faster the aerospacecraft will have to fly to land safely. The center of gravity of a conventional rocket as we have today will shift significantly over the course of a lauch, as fuel is burned up, etc., etc. You want a stable craft rather than an unstabe one, and the more unstable a craft, the harder it is to control.

...That's basically the basics of figuring out the design of an aircraft or aerospacecraft in a nutshell. I hope that should do.

so, in short, engines behind, wings forward?

center of lift preferebly above the center of gravity, center of drag behind, and center of thrust should be in perfect alignment and balance along the z axis. the higher a wing is the more roll and pitch stability you will have. the cost here is that it puts a source of high drag above the cg giving you a nose up tendency. this is not really a bad thing though, as the nose often drops on its own rather than rising. remember that wings are very draggy so it pays to put them slightly behind the cg. if you get a flip happy plane, try moving the wings back a hair. atmospheric craft give you some play in the tolerances, you can always use control surfaces to handle trim (your joystick/profile software needs to support this as theres no trim axis in ksp) to gain stability if the aircraft has any self steering tendencies.  if building a space plane things are more critical you cannot rely on the control surfaces during all flight phases. the sas and rcs stystems are often nor very powerful or too dependent on fuel, respectively, to be used in this regard, so engine placement is critical. gimbals engines might save you from slight imbalances but avoid major ones.

- A lot of VTOL wreckage on my runway

i played around with vtols, they are kinda tough to get right. biggest problem is the lack of throttle trim. you often have a setting where everything is balenced, but if you raise or lower the throttle you can shift the balance of the whole ship. its quite hard to get the center of thrust centered.

[Iss Mneur]

atmospheric craft give you some play in the tolerances, you can always use control surfaces to handle trim (your joystick/profile software needs to support this as theres no trim axis in ksp) to gain stability if the aircraft has any self steering tendencies

Unless I misunderstood what you are saying, KSP has had trim for all three axis for a couple of releases now (though the demo does not, IIRC).  The default keys are the same as normal flight except for holding the alt key down.

[Nuke]

good to know, but ive been using the hardware trim on my joystick since the first c7 packs came out. i was under the impression that the game had no trim controls.