DGIV auto reentry

[4weeksholiday]

when ever i try to use the auto reentry scn i just burn up so how far altitude do you need although it says in the
tutorial that you need to be 17.20m isn't that a but high untill you are above the cape.

[sunshine135]

17.20 FROM the Cape not ABOVE the Cape. Look at your Map MFD and you will see when you are 17.20 from the Cape.

[MattNW]

Yeah that's horizontal distance from KSC not altitude. That'd be one heck of a fall. 8o

Remember that orbit is more a factor of speed than altitude. You can orbit just a few meters off the ground if there's no air
to slow you down (try it on the Moon sometime). For reentry you burn until your flight path puts you down into the atmosphere
which then slows you through friction. The trick is to find the right angle so that you down go too low and burn up or stay
too high and bounce off. Look at the slope in the DGIV reentry display in the heat shield scenario. That's about what you want.