XR Flight Operations Manual Version 3.0
Copyright 2006-2018 Douglas Beachy. All Rights Reserved.
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The shortcut keys to set the ascent/descent rate are detailed in the
Custom Shortcut
Keys
section earlier in this document; for example
CTRL-NUMPAD2
will decrease the
descent rate by 0.1 m/s,
NUMPAD2
by itself will decrease it by 0.5 m/s, and
ALT-
NUMPAD2
will decrease it by 2.5 m/s. Refer to the
Custom Shortcut Keys
section
earlier in this document for a detailed list of autopilot mode keys.
Once you are hovering over your target landing site and you want to auto-land, you
can either land the ship yourself by setting the descent rate or you can engage auto-
land mode at any point to have the autopilot land the ship efficiently and smoothly.
Once the wheels touch down the autopilot will automatically disengage and shut
down the hover engines, whether or not auto-land mode is engaged. To auto-land,
click the
AUTO-LAND
button on the MDA screen or press
NUMPAD0
when the
autopilot is engaged. Press
NUMPAD0
again to disengage auto-land and revert to
hover mode. You can also use
NUMPAD.
(numpad-dot) to engage hover mode at
any time.
There are four values of interest displayed on the
Descent Hold
MDA screen:
V/S
Shows vertical speed in meters-per-second.
ALTITUDE
Shows altitude in meters with 1/10th-meter resolution.
HVR THRUST
Shows the current hover engine thrust level from 0% to 100%.
HVR MAXACC
Shows the maximum acceleration that the hover engines can
provide to the ship; i.e., it is the maximum braking force that the
hover engines can provide. If this is < 0 it means the ship is too
heavy to hover!
A NOTE ABOUT TIME ACCELERATION:
With a decent frame rate (~60 fps) you should be able to run the
DESCENT HOLD
autopilot at 100x in space and 10x in an atmosphere; you can even
AUTO-LAND
at
up to ~80x time acceleration (the exact value depends on your frame rate rate). If
you attempt to engage time acceleration at 1000x in space or 100x in at
atmosphere, the autopilot will switch to
SUSPENDED
status (this will be shown on
the MDA screen); it will automatically re-engage when you switch back to a lower
time acceleration setting.
Airspeed Hold Autopilot
XR vessels include a highly accurate and efficient
AIRSPEED HOLD
autopilot that can
hold a given airspeed to within 0.1 meter-per-second in atmospheric flight or while
taxiing. It is MDA mode 0; use the MDA arrows and click the
Engage
button, or use
ALT-S
to engage/disengage it via the keyboard.
