How I found this:
My shuttle stack was rolling without input during the gravity turn. Naturally I turned to the orbiter's wings being the problem so I disconnected the orbiter from the ET + Boosters (still in the build though just disconnected and separated). Then I would have a few engines to give plenty of power to watch the lift vectors. Due to the high speed the vectors are easy to see and as well as seeing the drag vectors fall out the belly. The shuttle was built symmetrically and then maintained the balance as I added asymmetrical details using the Tinker Panel to eliminate mass. I also use the Tinker Panel to keep the CG balanced and maintain proper weight of the orbiter and ET and boosters. I also had to adjust the scale of a few parts aswell.
I have a location save about 5km above the airport I start from to then climb straight up to 10km. Once there I pull all the way back to pitch straight down keeping the throttle at 100. Once pointing straight down I pull the Pitch Slider all the way down so that it will induce continuous loops. I watch the vectors of the wings to see if they are symmetrical, which they are. I then noticed drag vectors falling from the belly of the orbiter, there are no wings or lift vectors there, and they seem to go on to infinite but I am not sure.
I don't know where the drag vectors are comming from. There are no wings on the belly of the orbiter. No objects are exploding or dettaching from eachother.
How to Reproduce:
- Start from the Shuttle Landing Test location (the program will automatically set the heading and pitch to 90 so it will jerk up the nose)
- Make sure AG 3 and 6 are ON/make sure AG 4 is off but turn the center main engine back ON/Don't touch AG 7 because it will run the unstoppable launch code that will change adjust the targeted pitch every few seconds after a displayed countdown
- Set throttle to 100
- Climb straight up to about 10km
- Pull all the way back to get the orbiter pointing straight down and keep the throttle full
- Make sure you will be wings level if you pitch up
- Pause
- Make sure attitude spheres are not locked on anything, now slide the pitch slider ot the bottom (this should induce continuous loops)
- Resume at 1/4 speed (otherwise the vectors are hard for me to see) and wait for a drag vector to fall out from the belly
- The atmoshpere should be dark enough to provide a nice contrast to see the red vectors but if not you can climb higher
Dev Notes: The red drag vectors are detaching and falling away from the craft.