Flight Question Landing on the Pad at Brighton Beach

[Krishnan]

Hey y'all!
So whenever I try to land at Brighton Beach on one of the Pads, I find it difficult to land on the actual pad.
I usually panic and land on the soil next to the pad, then I have to taxi over onto the pad.
I am especially getting this problem with the XR5.
Is there some MFD /tips that might help?
I have Glideslope MFD, don't know how to use it for the moon.
Also, is there a way to check what pad is in what direction? So that I don't have to drift my XR5 10 metres off the ground on hover engines and do a 360 spin around the other pads.
Thanks!

 

[4throck]

Level you ship to the horizon. Use altitude hold autopilot to hover about 10 meters high.
Null your horizontal speeds using linear RCS.
Move slowly over the pad using linear RCS.
Null again, disengage altitude hold and lower hover thrust to land slowly.

For a more automated approach you can use PursuitMFD. As long as your orbit passes over the pad, landing is fully automated.

PursuitMFD 2016 - Orbit Hangar Mods

 

[Marijn]

You can use the VOR/VTOL MFD for guidance. And HoverMFD can land the vessel for you with an autopilot. I use these all the time for landing on pads. Have a look at these landings

 

[Arvil]

I also like HoverMFD in both hover mode and heli mode. But, whether it be Pursuit or Hover, make sure your trajectory clears the nearby mountains. In a low approach, they don’t know the mountains are there. If you’re sticky about realism, you may want to go to manual as they will pass right over the buildings, other pads, etc., allowing your hover exhaust to impinge.

 

[Sbb1413]

I have already said in another thread to use either HoverMFD or PursuitMFD for fully automated vertical reentry and landing. Manual landing is OK as long as you carefully follow the "DG to the moon" playback scenario under the "Tutorials" folder.

 

[N_Molson]

Also XR5 is real big. Not the kind of thing you would eyeball in real life, needs computer assist for landing on such a small target.

 

[Krishnan]

So I tried using hover MFD and read some of the documentation..... I would like to try and test it by taking off and landing on an adjacent pad. Could anyone provide directions?

 

[Arvil]

I can tonight unless someone does sooner.

 

[Marijn]

You have to take the time to learn the XR vessels and the MFD's. For practice, it's best to fly the DG-XR1. The XR5 needs a bigger landing pad. The catch with HoverMFD is to engage and disengage various settings at the right time. For example, you don't engage the settings which affects the heading while the wheels are still on the ground:

 

[Krishnan]

You have to take the time to learn the XR vessels and the MFD's. For practice, it's best to fly the DG-XR1. The XR5 needs a bigger landing pad. The catch with HoverMFD is to engage and disengage various settings at the right time. For example, you don't engage the settings which affects the heading while the wheels are still on the ground:

I was flying the default dg for this. Thanks for the video, I noticed you were pressing the eng button several times, what does it do?

 

[Marijn]

You can follow along with the stock DG. But since you are interested in flying the XR5, it makes sense to start with the DG-XR1 and skip the stock DG.
'eng' stands for 'engage', meaning you can set some parameter to 'on' (purple text) or off (white text). Text in light blue means HoverMFD is executing the request. So you first set two values for the vertical movement, which are altitude and vertical speed to reach that altitude. Once the wheels are off the ground, you engage the orientation, meaning the vessel turns heading towards the set landing pad. Then you set a horizontal speed and the desired distance to the landing pad, which is zero.

 

[Arvil]

Good suggestions above, good video. I thought I'd throw in a checklist I made in Notepad++ for this (all good pilots have checklists, don't they?). I have a second monitor I have it up on, you should be able to use ChecklistMFD.
As you change each of the parameters, the craft rises to altitude, turns to target, flies to target, lands.
For up to a hundred to two km, I use the HoverMFD to fly at an altitude, high enough to clear mountains, but for much further than that, I use SuborbMFD to burn a trajectory to the target, then after Apoapsis, on the downleg, I'll quit SubOrb and use Hover to fly in.

 

[Krishnan]

Thanks y'all, but I have a question. I am in a 20*20 km orbit, aligned perfectly with Brighton Beach opposite side of the moon. How can I use hover MFD for this?

 

[Arvil]

I tried it tonight, it seemed to really get cranky to fly in from 20 km altitude. I tried it again at 50 km, seemed to like that better. Try raising y our ApA to 50 or even 100km about 90° from BB. Retro burn until the end of your trajectory is right on BB. Try to get your left/right as close as you can. Hover can't do much correction with RCS. Set your horizontal speed a bit below orbital speed, say about 1600 m/s. Set Brake Rate at 90% for hover mode, 65% for Heli mode. Ahead of time, open COM/NAV, set NAV1 at 116.3, BB transponder freq, NAV2 to the freq of the pad you want to land on. Set Hdg Target to Base-Brighton Beach. (Select HdgTarget, SET, Enter Brighton Beach, ENG. Watch your Brake Now rate, it should start to retro and let the craft start coming down in altitude to approach right about or a bit over what you have the Brake Rate set (65 or 90). Watch the Navigation Radio circle, at 500km a yellow or green numbers will appear at the top of the circle, that's the distance to the transponder, turn AP off, Change Hdg Target (with +/-) to NAV1, AP back on, Hover will now home in on that beacon. At a few km from BB, numbers will appear at the bottom of the circle, that the distance to the pad, switch the
Hdg Target to NAV2, it will now home in on the pad. If you see the mountains get in the way, AP off, retro down a bit since Hover is not in control, Hold Altitude until you get over them, reengage the AP in Hover. Hover doesn't know about mountains.
All the time, you'll probably be scrolling through the 4 pages monitoring progress. I do.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot, don't forget to open your retro doors and don't forget your gear before touchdown. Been there, done that!!
I just tried Heli mode from 50 km, seems to like 60% brake rate better.
Good luck.

 

[Krishnan]

I tried it tonight, it seemed to really get cranky to fly in from 20 km altitude. I tried it again at 50 km, seemed to like that better. Try raising y our ApA to 50 or even 100km about 90° from BB. Retro burn until the end of your trajectory is right on BB. Try to get your left/right as close as you can. Hover can't do much correction with RCS. Set your horizontal speed a bit below orbital speed, say about 1600 m/s. Set Brake Rate at 90% for hover mode, 65% for Heli mode. Ahead of time, open COM/NAV, set NAV1 at 116.3, BB transponder freq, NAV2 to the freq of the pad you want to land on. Set Hdg Target to Base-Brighton Beach. (Select HdgTarget, SET, Enter Brighton Beach, ENG. Watch your Brake Now rate, it should start to retro and let the craft start coming down in altitude to approach right about or a bit over what you have the Brake Rate set (65 or 90). Watch the Navigation Radio circle, at 500km a yellow or green numbers will appear at the top of the circle, that's the distance to the transponder, turn AP off, Change Hdg Target (with +/-) to NAV1, AP back on, Hover will now home in on that beacon. At a few km from BB, numbers will appear at the bottom of the circle, that the distance to the pad, switch the
Hdg Target to NAV2, it will now home in on the pad. If you see the mountains get in the way, AP off, retro down a bit since Hover is not in control, Hold Altitude until you get over them, reengage the AP in Hover. Hover doesn't know about mountains.
All the time, you'll probably be scrolling through the 4 pages monitoring progress. I do.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot, don't forget to open your retro doors and don't forget your gear before touchdown. Been there, done that!!
I just tried Heli mode from 50 km, seems to like 60% brake rate better.
Good luck.

I tried that but I always pass by the base at 1600m/s and the ship spins around like crazy and uses hover engines and wastes fuel. What am I doing wrong here....?

 

[Arvil]

I got that when I was flying it in both hover and heli. Seems if the aim is off left or right, it can’t correct much. When it misses, it’s trying to figure out how to come about. I kept a QuickSave at about 2500 km to retry. In heli, if the aim is off, it acts like a drunken sailor. If the aim is off, I rolled left or right and used full hover engines to align so the green trajectory is dead nuts on BB in MapMFD. If the Brake Rate gets over the set point, nose straight up and full hovers to get rate maybe 10% below setpoint, then both modes seemed to work. After touchdown, when AP auto disengages, one time the DG started rolling off the pad (use ,. To stop).

 

[Arvil]

If the Brake Rate gets more than about 5% over your programmed limit, it didn’t work, try AP off, the nose up thing to reduce velocity, then try again. You can re-engage the AP from nose up, it’ll bring the nose where it wants it.

 

[Krishnan]

Am I supposed to reduce the horizontal velocity? I am kinda lost here......Could you upload a video of the steps please?
Also, for checklist MFD, how do I load your checklist?

 

[Arvil]

Don’t know how to take a video let alone how to send it, never did it before. I don’t use ChecklistMFD (I have a second monitor using Notepad++ and OrbiterWiki), but I believe place a .txt file in a certain folder and you can open it. When hover is working well, when the actual Brake Rate reaches the programmed rate you set or a few % more, the retros should kick in (hover mode) or the ship will nose way up and the hovers kick in (heli mode) and your horizontal velocity and altitude should start bleeding off.

 

[Krishnan]

Don’t know how to take a video let alone how to send it, never did it before. I don’t use ChecklistMFD (I have a second monitor using Notepad++ and OrbiterWiki), but I believe place a .txt file in a certain folder and you can open it. When hover is working well, when the actual Brake Rate reaches the programmed rate you set or a few % more, the retros should kick in (hover mode) or the ship will nose way up and the hovers kick in (heli mode) and your horizontal velocity and altitude should start bleeding off.

Yeah Hover MFD is a bit confusing for me without video guidance. Do you have a checklist for landing on the moon with hover mfd? I also don't know when to engage the autopilot and things. Does it automatically land you on the pad, or is it simply for controlling speed/altitude?