Has anyone ever pondered the feasability of a powered re-entry with the DG-III? And not the 'oops I screwed up and
my hull is getting too hot, I had better fire up the hover engines so I don't overheat' method that I am sure we have
all used, but instead actually firing the engines on purpose for large amounts to slow yourself down gradually so you
keep low heat. I just did it, going into the gliders normal re-entry attitude shortly before re-entry interface and firing
hover and retro for long periods of time, right down to about 1500 m/s speed on the atmospheric hud. My interface
was about 2 million meters before the target, an equatorial port, and I overshot by about 300 kilometers, did a hard
turn and descended to land. I still had 40.8 percent main fuel. I departed from the ISS, did a plane change to put my
inclination at zero, and then retrofired until my orbit was a circular 110 km (yes, I know, in the atmosphere). I then
came to be at about 100 km when I reached my de-orbit point, and started firing retro to a 1.2 descent slope. I then
Engaged Autopilot and started firing hover and retro constantly. I then decided to switch to 50 degree angle of
attack, and then let it sit, leaving the engines firing and autopilot on. I was not constantly checking my dynamic
pressure, but It was usually very low. I got into low level plasma glow only once, at which point I increased my hover
output.
The only reason I crashed was due to the fact that I switched it to 10x time compression after landing to taxi to the
tarmac. sorta silly, eh? Even then, all that happened was I popped into the air, then crashed and destroyed most of
the ship. The crew lived though
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