Good practices during flight?

[ar81]

There are times when you make horrible mistakes when flying in Orbiter that result in a crash. But there are also some things that do not destroy or harm your craft that could be considered "mistakes".

Real plane piloting has a series of good practices. What do you think good practices should be in Orbiter?

 

[Izack]

Perform thorough equipment checks (IE your joystick and throttle settings, check keyboard, etc.) before blasting off. I've learned that the hard way, with several crashes, one of which was in SSU!

Also, when piloting craft like the DGIV, I know it's easy to just leave everything on and not worry, but I like to leave off any equipment I don't need. Examples: Leave GEN2 off and run on GEN1, deactivate backup ECLSS subsystems except during critical times (launch, reentry).
Also, another thing that has no negative effect in Orbiter is looking at the Sun. I like to orient my craft so that the windows and any astronauts on EVA are protected from glare, as well as raising my UMMU's visors when looking at the Sun, and polarising the DGIV's windows.

 

[Fabri91]

If your craft has reentry checks like the DGIV or the XR vessels, use it! To date I still have to burn up due to forgetting some radiator or hatch open!

---------- Post added at 19:17 ---------- Previous post was at 19:14 ----------

Other things: setup all NAV equipment before reentry, you'll be busy flying after that.

 

[ar81]

For atmospheric flight, there are some nice videos on YouTube on how to fly a plane. This is a good starting point.

But again this thread is not only about atmospheric flight but about space flight, as if we were piloting spaceliners. So you may continue posting what you have learned about what not to do and good practices.

In my case I use to set rendezvous point at dawn when trying to dock. Orbiter does not have flood lights and no radar MFD that would be useful assist in night dockings.

Never eject DGIV crew in a suborbital flight or MMUs may burn or suffer lithobraking (ouch!). You need a circularized orbit to consider ejecting in case of emergency.

Also, be sure you hire a good pilot for your spaceliner. Your craft is a very expensive equipment and may not like to suffer things like this...

 

[garyw]

Checklists & practise, practise, PRACTISE. ever flight should be a lesson so you do slightly better in the next one.

 

[Izack]

Checklists & practise, practise, PRACTISE. ever flight should be a lesson so you do slightly better in the next one.

Yes, Orbiter has given me an uncanny love of checklists. I use them for everything, to make sure it's done right every time (although I still occasionally frack up my nosecone, etc.)

 

[ar81]

Also, for the sake of realism do not forget to check alien weather conditions against your propulsion system.

Volcano ashes could damage an airplane. Imagine what a volcano on Io could do. Imagine what sulphur acid or reaching liquified atmosphere levels could do to your craft on Venus (you better buy a submarine with a good painting if you plan to get there).

Do not forget your armored umbrella against meteors on Mars or the Moon if you plan to stay on the surface for a long time. On Earth you may have water drops falling, but right there you may have rocks falling.

From time to time, each base should conduct a debris survey to check the presence of small debris that could harm vessels. Small debris could not be observed by surface stations due to a matter of distance and resolutioin of the detection system. You are likely to spend lots of fuel. Inspect objects and debris and send an MMU. If there are loose pieces, tell your MMU to use crazy glue to stick it. If the object contains flammable or explosive materials (like a piece of rocket), alert the recovery team so a salvage mission is send to retrieve and get rid of such dangerous junk.

 

[flyer]

Interesting thread...

I put some thought into this a little while back and started to look at applying real world requirements into orbiter. Specifically I was hoping to look at take-off performance requirements with things like V speed calculations from the aviation industry (obviously your shiny spaceplane will need to take-off or land and fit in with terrestrial aviation!).

I got as far as being able to produce some V1 speeds based purely on braking and runway distance available. I also produced some approach speeds by determining the stall speeds for the XR2 and DG. My ultimate aim was to calculate some minimum control speeds in the case of an engine failure (obviously for two engine craft) to determine safe climb speeds.

The problem with alot of this is that the modeling of aerodynamics within orbiter is not as advanced as something like FSX/XPlane (no offence to Martin!) so it makes it difficult. Also I found being able to extract the various values I need from the source code was tricky.

But anyway, I think that good discipline and adherence to procedures is key. You might have to make up your own procedures as there are a million ways to skin a cat upon which no two people will agree!!

My guess is that for a real life spaceplane the best place to look to would be aircraft operators such as airlines for standard procedures and philosphies.


Flyer

 

[krashkart]

Don't drink and fly. :nono:

One too many hoppy beers combined with some of the more unusual craft rotations possible in Orbiter may induce vomiting. :blink:

 

[ar81]

But anyway, I think that good discipline and adherence to procedures is key. You might have to make up your own procedures as there are a million ways to skin a cat upon which no two people will agree!!

My guess is that for a real life spaceplane the best place to look to would be aircraft operators such as airlines for standard procedures and philosphies

In space normal concepts applicable to atmospheric fly are useless. For example, dropping water from the air may not seem to serious, but even letting a drop of painting or a toolbox to float in orbit may cause an accident.

I am not sure air traffic people may be good for space protocols. Space is way too different. That's exactly why I posted this thread.

Do I have to make up my own procedures? I can imagine FAA saying "ok pilots you may fly your planes as long as you make up your own procedures". :lol::lol:

 

[N_Molson]

Always be aware of the other spacecrafts or debris orbiting near your orbital plane... A "collision course warning" MFD could be interesting !

 

[flyer]

Hi ar81, I just thought I would explain my comments before as I may not have explained myself all that well!

I don't mean copying procedures used in aircraft etc. I mean that the philosophies and concepts of operation are a good firm basis to start with (not forgetting existing space agency procedures)...things like checklists, adherence to standard operating procedures (whatever they may be), multi-crew cooperation, crew resource management etc etc

Obviously taking a "standard" airline pilot or a "standard" air traffic controller and throwing them into a spacecraft/mission control centre would probably not be the safest thing and the required training would need to be undertaken!

Also, with the procedures I was really referring to your own personal practises when you use orbiter at home, not real world procedures as they may be developed in the future. In the real world there would be regulations to follow and any procedures would need to be approved. I was really trying to say that it would be difficult to produce a set of procedures for use in orbiter at home that everyone would agree on!


It's certainly interesting to think of these things though

:thumbup:

 

[guitarist473]

would be cool if someone could make up a test (just for fun) too mimic a kinda test a new space pilot would have to take.
mabye a practical part and theory. then a prinable space liscence lol. with your grade.
that would be pretty neat.

 

[statickid]

I turn off the engine valves on the DG-IV sometimes when I am cruising long distances, or before I am going to start really big time accelerations. I also turn them off when I land on a pad and am messing around with bases and junk.

 

[Kevon Daye]

YouTube- crash airplane

1:05 OH-DAK!

 

[insanity]

A few essential standard practices:
1. Always check the RCS mode before you make an RCS burn.

2. Think about why you're going to do something before you do it.

3. Never time accelerate without having a finger on 'r'

 

[Quick_Nick]

Also, another thing that has no negative effect in Orbiter is looking at the Sun. I like to orient my craft so that the windows and any astronauts on EVA are protected from glare, as well as raising my UMMU's visors when looking at the Sun, and polarising the DGIV's windows.

Sometimes, when I start to think about it, I have to do a "Barbeque Roll" (especially with Apollo for realism, idk if many other spacecraft do it)

 

[krashkart]

One thing I prefer to do especially with the Space Tugs, is to make manual attitude changes (pro/retro-grade, both normals, etc) before pressing the appropriate key to lock it in. Left to their own guidance, the loaded-down tugs tend to apply liberal amounts of thrust, then more fuel is burned to correct for the excess of angular(?) momentum. What takes me a matter of seconds might take a DM2/MIR2 stack several minutes (and a lot of fuel) to accomplish on its own.

By performing the majority of the rotation maneuvers on my own I can conserve a lot of RCS propellant, and time.

Hail


EDIT

Thought I better add this, for my own reference at least:
before launching the Energia, be sure to have the desired launch azimuth worked out ahead of time. And double-check the target altitude, too. :lol: