Tutorial DG-IV: Detailed Earth runway landing; with safety net.

Burnrate

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I made this mini-tutorial due to my repeated experience of traveling long distances throughout the solar system only to end up damaged or destroyed at the very last moment by an unsteady landing.

This does not cover any reentry or aerobraking and I tried to cover all details of landing.

My goal for this style of landing is to have a maximum of safety and use a minimum of fuel. What I do is use the 200 Spec 7 program for the Delta Glider IV to maintain a safe vertical speed during a normal runway approach. (Much less fuel than stopping while hovering then landing.)

I also put everything needed for preparation to be done well in advance so you don't get overwhelmed at the end.

So here I start coming down from the moon and having done most of my aerobraking already and I am close to base.
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See this tutorial for an excellent guide on how to get this far.

The first stage is preparation and it is important so you do not have to mess around with stuff while trying to line up and land. Before anything (while still aerobraking a few million meters away) I entered the base com channels in the com/nav panel for use with the HSI.
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The channel 113.00 is for the base Wideawake I am going to and 113.4 is for the west facing middle runway. The other runway channels for this base are .1, .2 and .3.

Then I opened my HSI and set the left one to one channel and the right one to another. The main base channel can be seen from far away while the one for the runway only works close but shows if you are lined up to the runway.
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I also entered the base as a target on the regular map so I would always have another nice direction indicator as to where it is.
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Now this next image shows me overshooting the base. This is why it is good to be prepared so you can just worry about turning around.
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(The different panels used here can be found by pressing CTRL and the up or down arrows.)

Now the second stage of setup to do AFTER you have slowed down below about 500 m/s is to enable the landing gear,
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set the hover doors to auto,
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and set the elevon controls (which also allow you to steer with the landing gear when landed).
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A good tip for these is to have the 'Kill Rotation' constantly enabled to help dampen your inputs so you don't swing back and forth, especially when it gets exciting!

The reason we waited for these is because we used different controls to aerobrake and if the dynamic pressure is to high the landing gear (38 kPa) or the hover jets (~55 kPa) will rip off and break. Dynamic pressure can be seen in the default mini HUD on the right of the main screen.
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After everything was setup I had finished circling back around and was lining up for the runway. You can see in the lower left how the right HSI corresponds to the center runway by showing you how far off angle you are and how far to the side. It will be a straight arrow pointing up when you are right on.
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(Useful tip: You can slide the control panels out of the way by simply pushing the up or down arrows to get a better view.)

Now comes the safety net. I advise pressing R to slow time down when entering a program this close to the ground, and the press T to speed back up when you are done.

When you are getting close and nearly lined up you will hit C a couple of times to clear the program window. You will then press P 200 S 7 on your keyboard to load Program 200 Spec 7. It should look like this:
3824658876_65cb70dd70_o.png


After that press enter to store it then press E to execute the program. You will probably want to immediately adjust your vertical speed. The program directions are in the program (2 is +1 m/s 8 is -1 m/s)

Now you just steer yourself in slowly lowering your vertical speed as you approach the ground. You can hit B while in the air to open the air brake (max dynamic pressure of 45 kPa) and once you are on the ground you can use the comma and period keys ( , . ) to activate the wheel brakes.

Important!! If your speed goes below ~100m/s switch back to RCS Rotation as the atmospheric controls will not have enough of an effect.

Here is a little video of the last few moments of another landing. (My HSI is off because I installed a different KSC base and didnt update the configs)


Another video which shows the process in a much more controlled manner and exactly how the hover helps.


Notice how the vertical speed and program speed match. It's not instant so be careful when making large changes!
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Here you can see me floating along just above the surface.
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And in case anyone wants to know I used http://camstudio.org/ to get the video capture. (it's free!)

Any feedback would be appreciated : )
 
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Arrowstar

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So strictly speaking you missed the runway, but nice work otherwise! :)
 

Burnrate

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So strictly speaking you missed the runway, but nice work otherwise! :)

:p
That was probably the best thing to do though. Attempting to bank and course correct while using the auto hover will usually result in to steep of a roll which will cause the hover jets to go offline. Then the only thing that was holding you up is suddenly shut off.

I guess its in important thing to know. Do not try to bank when auto hovering!
 
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