First Successful Flight

[ElectricCube]

I've finally made my first successful flight with the DGIV.

Took off from Cape Canaveral and ended up with a Rinc of 0.8 to the ISS. Docked with it shortly afterwards (all manually) and stayed with it for a few orbits.

Undocked and did a quick run through of the deorbit checklist. Lined myself up with basesync over Wideawake International and did a perfect deorbit to within a few km's over it.

Finally, I managed to land without firing the main engines once. Nice smooth touchdown only about a meter off of the center line of the runway.

None of this could be possible without all the tutorials and help sections that everyone has posted on these forums. So I just want to say a big thanks to everyone who posted tutorials and of course to Martin himself.

Cheers.

 

[MJR]

Good job. I remember similar flights like that. I haven't been playing Orbiter that much so I hope to have more.

 

[ar81]

I know the feeling. The first time I reached ISS and the first time I did a successful entry I felt great. It also happens when you reach other worlds...

 

[Robsoie]

Congratulations on your first success in the Earth-ISS-Earth mission.

Personnally, even if my first time is far behind me, it always feel great for me to manage successfully a mission from KCS to ISS and to manage to come back to either KCS or Wideawke International (i love this base), each time i don't end into the sea it feels like some kind of miracle.

 

[ar81]

By the time I started with Orbiter there were almost no tools to make a successful entry and landing. I used to be happy when I ended up 1000 km away from base...

 

[Robsoie]

Originally, i always tried to avoid Aerobrake MFD as much as possible, some tutorial i read in english (not my native language) made me scratching my head more than once.

So i was doing my attempts very approximatively using the map MFD and trying to keep the dots on my target, it was extremely rare that i landed +/- on spot, often several hundred of kilometers away if not more.

But once i found a simple but very well done Aerobrake tutorial in a forum of my language (OKO, if you read this, i can't thank you enough for it ), i was amazed how Aerobrake was easy to use for re-entry a very lot easier than what my reading lead me to believe, and then i began to make more and more precise re-entry.

I was very happy on my first landing using Aerobrake, it was with the DGIV though, as the stock delta glider even with the Attitude Hold MFD from Orbit Hanger was often not able to keep the AoE as soon as you dared to accelerate time only to x10.

But with the XR-2 Ravenstar now and sometime the XR-1, i have really plenty of fun doing it.