Recent content by n0mad23

Ain't tongue tied, just don't got nothin' to say....

I'm a lucky one - I get that silly grin every time a new animation or even successful fairing jettison happens for me. The other, and one I imagine all who have made any kind of addon with modeling involved, is that moment of awe with the audible, "wow, it's really beautiful...." Proud...

I knew it was big, but seeing it beside the obsolete shuttle really got it across to me. This is a HUGE craft! I can see many uses for such a thing. Nice.

Hooray for the Aerial Launchers! Nice one Sputnik! :thumbup: Downloading at once.

I think the AoA has a lot to do with it - at 40 deg. I suspect you're pretty well committed to a direct descent without any atmospheric skipping involved. Back it off to below that magical 20 degree mark and you'll get more lift instead of pure friction. I posted a link to the PDF that is...

It's the same for heading when using Multistage2's guidance files. Ninety degrees is always off by your 0.3 deg. But Mulitstage2 is so buggy on 2010 (guidance files fail in running probably 60% of the time for me) I hadn't noticed the parallels with the built in autopilots. Good observation.

Mass vs. lift? The shuttle is huge compared to X37B. I'm guessing it's along the same lines of why it's easier to skip a small stone a dozen or more times across a pond while a stone bigger than your hand is lucky to skip 3 times before sinking. Same principle.

For those of us playing with little shuttles: "Footprint Problem with Angle of Attack Optimization for High Lifting Reentry Vehicles" - Li, Zhang, et. al...

Funny you should ask this - I think I have a pdf just for you (fellow micro-shuttle fan). I've got "Footprint Problem with AoA Optimization for High Lifting Reentry Vehicle" open in another window. Quick answer as per the text - lowest boundary for initial descent is 18.656 deg. At 20 deg. it...

Are you drafting this with Spacecraft3 then? I've got one of those funny "tickling memory" things going on about a thread from several years ago regarding gimbaling, but haven't been able to find it yet. Obviously such things are outside of Spacecraft3. Love that screen shot of the craft in...

She's a cute lil' thang. Kocmolyf's response rings like a bell, doesn't it? I can actually visualize that area of instability and the problem with yaw movement. I'm guessing this is why the X-37B has it's tail fins positioned diagonally the way they are and at the angle. I'm thinking your...

Congrats Tex! Here's wishing you years of domestic bliss. Those of us who get to marry our best friends truly are the blessed ones. All the best to the two of you. :cheers:

Thanks Interceptor and Pipcard. I'm really hoping for feedback for improvement here. Two "poor" votes on OH Mods without any feedback as to what's poorly done isn't terribly helpful. I've been contemplating stripping out the RMS meshes I picked up from NASA's site and replacing them with...

Not exactly - a normalized vector has one axis that's 1 m. long. ar81's tool really is made to be used in conjunction with his Mesh Wizard. From his Mesh Wizard tutorial - "When you need to state the DIR and ROT vectors for docking ports, attachment and grapple points, finding a ROT vector...

ZanTar Cheetah Transportation Technoligies and Titan Werks Unlimited Joint Venture.  The Obelix Heavy Lifter uses an Energia inspired rocket system to lift newly commissioned Lockheed Martin EFTs into LEO for conversion into the first Orbital vacuum vapor depostion factory. Includes the 3...