landing

[Dan M]

In dg III I ALWAYS crash because the nose wont go up I tried the re-entry autopilot, but that did'nt work



Post Edited ( 09-13-05 01:35 )

[StarLost]

Did you follow the advice you were given about doing Trevor Johns tutorial in a lower powered craft? As for re-entry and
landing check the threads in this forum for michelle megan's tutorial.

And the key to it all is: PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. You will crash and burn many times until you come up with the
combination that works for you.

Orbiter is NOT about instant gratification.

[brodie]

do u mean the re-entry or the acual landing?? u need to carry at least 165 m/s i wud say to be able to flare to less
than -5m/s, cos ur in a gilder keep ur altitude and drop quickly wen u need to, to make sure u have enough speed
wen u cross the threshold! otherwise u will just stall trying to keep the nose above -10 deg and fall like a stone :d

[Mole]

I noticed quite a few people have trouble landing even after a succesful de-orbit. Here's my two cents worth to land
without any power (Space-shuttle like):

1. Starting position: about 20-30 km altitude, within 50 km of base, speed < 1000 m/s, RCS atmospheric
2. Hold altitude until speed is 200-250 m/s and manoeuver to align with runway
3. Pitch down about 20 degrees. Ideally, you should be lined up with the runway and the start of the runway should
be aligned with the 20 degrees pitch-down line in your HUD. Put the HUD velocity vector (the circle with the + in it) on
the beginning of the runway or slightly before that among the approach lights.
4. If you need to dive steeper, use speedbrakes to keep spped around 200 m/s. If the runway start is shallower than
20 degrees, ehr, well, use some power (if you have fuel left)
5. Hold this all the way down to 300 meters altitude. Make sure hydraulics are on.
6. Then very quickly: extend gear, and immediatelypull up so the velocity vector points to about halfway up the
runway. Don't wait with the pull-up for the gear to extend!
7. At about 30 meters altitude, pull up further so the velocity vector points to the end of the runway
8. Land!

Timing is everything. Pull up too soon and you run out of speed. Too late and, well, you can guess. But the above
gets me a greaser about all the time. The hardest part is de-orbiting in such a way that you wind up in the proper
starting position (point 1).