Yo-Yo ride Redux (oooops!)

[Bendarr]

Continuing the adventures of someone who really shouldn't be behind the joystick.

As some of you may have figured out by now, I'm a sort of fly by the "seat of the pants" and "That looks about right." type of pilot. Sort of instinct. Well, instinct can be very wrong at times especially when the mind wanders.

OK, there I was sitting at KSC just like before. Remember the Turbos this time!!! I told myself. Never mind that the runway vanished as a result of the new Hi Res KSC texture pack. The ground will do fine. Last minute checks. DGIV? Go. Flat Terrain ahead? Go. View inside of the cockpit? Check. Brain of the pilot operating correctly? About as good as it's gonna get. ISS monitoring launch and flight? Boris and Charlie signal go. (I'll later on switch to their viewpoint of what happened.)

Boris: "Hey Charlie look! He's gonna try it again!"

Charlie: "He's gonna try to make orbit? 50 Kopeks says he doesn't make it."

Boris: "You're on!"

Sensing the great confidence that the ISS crew had for me this time I decided to go for it. I slammed the throttle forwards, waited for the word "Rotate" and pulled back on the Joystick. The DGIV climbed smoothly and I rapidly retracted the landing gear. Turning to roughly 42 degrees I leveled myself out. "Remember Backspace to turn on and off the Turbos." The moment of truth arrived. I pulled the nose up and lit the Turbos! 65 degrees vertical I climbed. Using the joystick I held it roughly there. I climbed, and I climbed and climbed. "OK, the ISS is about 340 some K up, I'll want to level out at roughly 200K up. " I told myself. I mentally was plotting my next moves after that. I then looked at my altitude. 250! 300! 350! I frantically shut off the Turbos and nosed it to a little about a 10 degree climb. I watched the altitude keep climbing. Desperate measures were needed.

Charlie: "Hey look! He went right past us!"

Boris: "That's odd. Most beginning pilots shoot past us in the horizontal position. This guy did it vertically!"

Charlie: "let's see how he tries to get out of this mess."

I proceeded to fire the Retros to slow myself down. I watched the vertical velocity slow down. More. More. Still yet more. By this point I was about 575K up. Then the vertical velocity went into the negatives. Slowly at first and then faster and faster. I needed to drop altitude! I then watched my altitude drop. 550. 500. 475. I then decided I needed forwards momentum. Turning off the retro I set myself up prograde and slammed forwards the main engines.

Boris: "He's got the main engines firing. The big question is can he get enough momentum going before he hits the atmosphere?"

Charlie: "There he goes again past us going down instead of up."

Boris: "He must be really worried since he's kicked in the Turbo again."

Charlie: "Isn't that what got him into this mess to begin with?"

Boris: "Da. This time though, he's got them pointed in the right direction. He's also got his nose up at about a 45 degree angle."

Charlie: "I read him at 325, 300, his descent rate is slowing.... 275, 250, ....... 200."

Boris: "oh look! He's kicked into full blown panic mode! He's activated the Hover jets!!"

Charlie: "On a wing and a prayer Boris, on a wing and a prayer."

(a couple minutes later)

Charlie: "I don't believe it! It looks like he's gonna make it into orbit! If he keeps this up it looks like......... yep. Just barely made it!"

Boris: "Uh oh."

Charlie: "yeah, I see him. He's got an orbit but had so much built up velocity that he's yo-yoing between 500K and 675K. So now what?"

Boris: "Let's watch and see .... what was that?"

Charlie: "Time warp, he's activated it. You get used to such things like that here after a little while. I've tried complaining to NASA but it doesn't do any good. Besides, if he's time warping he's gonna try something."

Boris: "ah ha! He's trying to circularize the orbit and slowly drop down in altitude as he does so."

Charlie: "it's taking more orbits than I really like to think about it but he seems to be almost pulling it off! ooopss!! He hit the main engines instead of the retros that time. ok, he's compensating.... steady .... steady.... you've almost go it."

Boris: "I agree, it looks like he's done it and a nicely circular orbit it is at roughly our altitude. Looks like he might make it here after all. Assuming that he's smart and saved at this point (yes, I did)."

(Boris looks at Charlie and extends his hand)

Boris: "50 Kopeks. He made it into orbit. By one of the wildest flights imaginable but he did."

 

[Deltafang]

Wow, that was hilarious! Congrats on making it into orbit. I still can't do it, but that might be because I'm using my keyboard. It'll take me a while before I can get a joystick.

 

[Bendarr]

Thanks! For me that's a major achievement! What you can do even using a keyboard is what I did. I fired up the auto-ascent tutorial for the DGIV. Type in the programming code, (PRO903SPEC42 I believe) and sit there with a piece of paper and take notes as far as when the Turbo gets kicked in (Manually with the Backspace Key), the initial climb angle and when (altitude wise) you pitch the nose downwards. Do this a few times and you'll have a feel for what you need to do. It can be done with a keyboard you'll need to practice. Maybe practice taking off, and just flying around to get a feel for how it handles.

I truly wish that I had record running for this so that I could share this insanity with others. As is I'm glad though is that I have the final orbit saved. I still need to match the planes and final height so there's plenty of room for "What the hey is he trying to do now?" in the future.

 

[Izack]

You've made more progress than me, man. I've crashed into every major continent so far, but I've yet to hit the ISS. Great stories!

 

[Quick_Nick]

lol I have a joystick but I MUCH prefer to use a keyboard for Orbiter due to the precision of it.