Educating Ed - in formation flying - at Beagle Point… [Sign-up]

Training #1

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Lessons learnt:
1) Anaconda inertia is a pain. Keeping constant throttle of 93m/s the 6D thrusters cannot slow the Anaconda on it's decent and speed increases to ~120m/s. With 7A thrusters speed increases to ~100m/s.
2) Trying to correct this with directional thrusters is a bad idea. The best method is for the flight lead (and following ships) to adjust throttle manually to try and remain as close to the wing speed as possible.
3) Manually adjusting throttle makes it very difficult to focus on anything else other than the speed, so fast glances at your position and distance are required whilst playing with speeds.

Asps have an inertia but it is tiny compared with the Anaconda.
This only affects loops where the Anaconda's go nose down towards the ground. Other manoeuvres can be done without manual throttle variation.
 
Training #1


Lessons learnt:
1) Anaconda inertia is a pain. Keeping constant throttle of 93m/s the 6D thrusters cannot slow the Anaconda on it's decent and speed increases to ~120m/s. With 7A thrusters speed increases to ~100m/s.
2) Trying to correct this with directional thrusters is a bad idea. The best method is for the flight lead (and following ships) to adjust throttle manually to try and remain as close to the wing speed as possible.
3) Manually adjusting throttle makes it very difficult to focus on anything else other than the speed, so fast glances at your position and distance are required whilst playing with speeds.

Asps have an inertia but it is tiny compared with the Anaconda.
This only affects loops where the Anaconda's go nose down towards the ground. Other manoeuvres can be done without manual throttle variation.
Yep, this inertia is evident from the videos of the formation flying at the end of Distant Worlds ceremony. In training for that event one Anaconda had too much inertia and couldn't pull up, belly-flopped, lost shields and 20% hull. We should do what we can to avoid this, but if anyone thinks they're going to impact the ground then I suggest pulling up and hitting boost immediately whilst shouting "BOOST!" on the radio to warn other pilots to pull up and hopefully avoid being rammed. Or maybe you all think this is too risky. An alternative is flying with 4 pips to engines so the retro thrusters are more able to counteract the inertia, and if anyone sees the ground coming send 4 pips to shields to lessen the impact effect.

See you tonight!
 
Yep, this inertia is evident from the videos of the formation flying at the end of Distant Worlds ceremony. In training for that event one Anaconda had too much inertia and couldn't pull up, belly-flopped, lost shields and 20% hull. We should do what we can to avoid this, but if anyone thinks they're going to impact the ground then I suggest pulling up and hitting boost immediately whilst shouting "BOOST!" on the radio to warn other pilots to pull up and hopefully avoid being rammed. Or maybe you all think this is too risky. An alternative is flying with 4 pips to engines so the retro thrusters are more able to counteract the inertia, and if anyone sees the ground coming send 4 pips to shields to lessen the impact effect.

See you tonight!

We should fly with four pips to engines at all times for maximum control of the ships.

But even so there is the issue of the Anacondas building up speed when flying down in a loop. The training and experiments yesterday showed that with some training this can be partially mitigated.

When coming out of the downward turn of a loop (from pointing directly towards the ground and until flying level), use a slight bit of reverse thruster to keep speed close to the designated wing speed. This should be done without changing your throttle settings - so it is important to have the single use of forward and reverse thrusters mapped to individual keys that does not change your overall throttle.

In addition Anaconda pilots basically have to train to get used to point the nose slightly further up than the direction they intend to travel (this will allow the powerful belly thrusters of the Anaconda to help mitigate the inertia).
 
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If anyone involved is in the UK, please could they let me know when the next training session is
Thank you :)
 
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If anyone involved is in the UK, please could they let me know when the next training session is either by email
Thank you :)

Would strongly advise against putting details like that online. Training is tonight at 21:00 UK time and tomorrow at 18:00 UK time. Livestream is on Thursday I believe at 19:00pm UK time.
(N.B. Uk is 1 hour ahead of in-game time)
 
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Pictures from practice #2
Instancing hit us, there were really more of us there than it shows.

Image 1 is one of the instancing problems that presented itself. Ship fully visible but no details shown. Corbin was also present in the instance and flying around, he could see me but I could not see him and he manifested as a moving wing signal which had position & direction updated on the targeted signal once every ~3 seconds.
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Image 2 and 3 are bits of the training, one thing of note, they all look a lot closer when you are in the cockpit. Hopefully Ed Lewis won't get too scared on Thursday.
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No more sneak peeks from me as I can't make tomorrow's training, see you all on the stream on Thursday hopefully without any explosions and tears :)
 
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I am happy to announce that Felix Macedonica will be joining us for the livestream - or more precisely, we will be joining him.

The Flying Circus grew out of the FGE exploration wings of Distant Worlds, doing a flyby to honor Felix Macedonia in his (insane) quest to travel from one pole of Beagle Point 2 to the other in his SRV. As such it is really quite fitting that we converge on his current location once more for the livestream.

In other news, Disorganize might be able to join us as well. We will see on the day - for now I have tentatively added him to the OP list of participants.
 
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Thanks for the invite - and the wild idea to join me as I trundle, bump, and grind my way up to the equator (and then onwards to the north pole . . .)! I must admit to feeling excited at the coming event - driving this SRV is beginning to take its toil on my sanity - so I am looking forward to the arrivals on Thursday!
 
What ship will Ed be in? I guess he'll be using the Intern account so can choose what he brings. Since most of us have weak shields and damaged hulls can we suggest he brings an equivalent AspX so he understands the risks we're taking?! Also, we don't want him in anything much smaller in case he gets friendly with the Anacondas!
 
What ship will Ed be in? I guess he'll be using the Intern account so can choose what he brings. Since most of us have weak shields and damaged hulls can we suggest he brings an equivalent AspX so he understands the risks we're taking?! Also, we don't want him in anything much smaller in case he gets friendly with the Anacondas!

I have suggested he brings an Asp Explorer.
 
Public safety warning - always know the altitude of the wing before you arrive!

A little video from my arrival at the practice tonight showing a very nice close-up of a loop-the-loop in action...a little too close!
[video=youtube_share;pW0EQ-OGhNc]https://youtu.be/pW0EQ-OGhNc[/video]
Sorry everyone, I could probably have killed three of us. I'll be MUCH more careful next time.
Lesson learnt, don't try and arrive too close!
 
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