Note that the lift rating does not mean that the wings will automatically lift a spaceplane into the air when it's moving forward. (For test purposes, all aircraft are not pitched up and SAS is turned off. All of them had one thing in common though. (Yes, you personally, you lucky thing! A Mk1 Cockpit, two Mk 1 Liquid Fuel Tanks, and then cap the back with a round nose cone (use the A/D keys to rotate it as necessary). I have also thought about a wider base. It's said that takeoffs are optional but landings are mandatory. Your previous content has been restored. (Idea is moot, if you haven't unlocked them yet.) It is due to the spinning up of the engines. Note that most air intakes tend to produce less drag than aerodynamic nose cones and pointy cockpits, especially shock cone intakes. I removed them and it works fine now. I don't have any mods but sometimes a problem may be a simple bug. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99660-0-25-Adjustable-Landing-Gear-v1-0-4%28doors-fixed%29-Nov-14. If your spaceplane is able to fly and land steadily at low speeds but just you're having difficulty slowing down as you approach the runway, try to reach your desired speed first and then approach the runway in almost level flight. and our This would indicate two problems. They all had landing gear placed at the front and at the back. Canards and horizontal tail fins should be placed as far towards the front and back of your aircraft as possible, respectively. 6.4K Downloads Updated Jun 7, 2017 Created Jun 7, 2017. . 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. If you pull up and cause the tailwheel etiher to hit the ground if it was already up or push it into the ground if it was still in contact, you will create bounciness. To minimize drag, vertical tail fins can be kept minimal, since aircraft can be maneuvered adequately by roll and pitch alone. At around . All lift-rating means is that the wing section will resist motion perpendicular to its plane. Hit the launch button and watch your magnificent bird fly! To recover the most value from your spaceplane, you should try to land on the runway at the Space Center (this tutorial, although it has been written for spacecraft and not spaceplanes, is a great help). Necessary for heavy/long spaceplane. Subscribe! The problem could be about the angle of wheels, though there could be more problems with the COM and wheels placement. Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. Mk2 aircraft may be able to get away with it, but even then it's often best to space them further out. This aircraft handles smoothly, no matter how you turn, roll and flip this aircraft, it will never lose control. Conversely, if you keep all of the fuel in the back, you may find that your center of mass gradually drifts so far in front of your center of lift that you can't keep your nose up anymore, also potentially resulting in a fatal scenario. If you keep all of the fuel in the front, you may find that your center of mass drifts backwards as your fuel drains. Try getting the wings to deflect the air down, either by lifting the front end up using canards or by mounting them at an angle using shift + wasdqe. In subsequent missions, you may want to launch with less fuel to cut down on cost and make landing a quicker and easier process. Obviously jet engines are air-breathing, so you need to include air intakes in your spaceplane. Managed to fix it with some different wings; idk what was going on with the other ones but I was just thr FAT aeroplane wings. Thanks for the help guys. After externsive testing and bloodpressure rise, results: it doesnt matter where you place the wheels, as long as they are not angled on the X (nose-tail) axis. Congratulations! The most dangerous part of a spaceplane flight is returning from orbit. Need to move them up. All rights reserved. It's strongly recommended to keep your landing gears well-spaced from each other to ensure that the aircraft will be difficult to roll into a collision. It's a prolem enough I have sever differen gear subassemblies that are stable (un wobbly) I can then position depending on COM. Check out the following guide for some good info: Your wheel base is the problem. As with everything in KSP, experiment, experiment, experiment. All you need to do is add landing gear (one right before the cockpit, and two on the tips or middle of the wings), and you're done! LV-N "Nerv" nuclear thermal rockets are commonly used on SSTOs for the rocket stage if Rapiers are not used. * Unlock steering and disable brakes on front gear. So I have played the game for 200 hours and I love it. This allows you to takeoff at lower speeds and on shorter runways, and likewise for landing. * Gear not mounted to parts that will flex (e.g. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. 1. make sure your main gear is not wobbling (ie. Nothing bad will happen. 200 m/s runway stability just doesn't seem to have a worthwhile purpose to me, and is inducing counter productive engineering challenges. I do add a strut to each wheel out of habit since my earlier versions use to roll, better safe than sorry. Angled landing gear create rotational force for whatever reason. They all had to use the runway drop to take off. Suggest a Correction Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. if mounted on not struted part) 2. put your main gear slightly behind center of mass. #2 DaSkippa Mar 14, 2014 @ 2:56am as Shkeec said check gear check gear check gear. I started investigating why this was happening. Consider placing your rear landing gears close to the spaceplane's center of mass, but be careful to avoid an engine collision with the runway. Tips aplenty in this thread: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/13851-The-woes-of-building-a-space-plane?highlight=woes+spaceplane It taught me everything I know, except for the stuff I learned elsewhere. Kerbal Space Program 2's simulation is a lot more in-depth than its predecessor, where it was feasible for any wannabe Goddard to punch through the atmosphere with overwhelming thrust. This is all right if their high efficiency saves enough fuel, but that may not be the case in small spaceplanes with limited fuel capacity. An active front brake can cause your aircraft to rapidly and uncontrollably pivot left or right during landing, and high friction from the front wheel can potentially cause your plane to swerve violently both in landing and takeoff. (Sorry For Poor Image Quality) : r/KerbalAcademy 385 votes, 49 comments. A good example of this is at the KSC runway when landing on a 90 degree bearing. Powered by Invision Community. See the tutorial below. the I place on the wing and attach landing gear on those, it sometimes takes a few tries to find the right spot but well worth it. Alright, it's late where I live so I'm gonna hit the hay and come back to it tommorrow, I read on the guide someone sent me and I think it is taht it doesn't have any way of pointing the up, so I'll tinker with some of the wings and see what I can do. One idea I haven't noticed here yet: "wire up" the landing gear, with strut connectors. The tutorial below explains everything very well. Maybe ;making the tailwheel less stiff would help, too. You've just unlocked "Aviation" tech, you have a bunch of contracts that require you to stay at low altitude, and you want to build your first plane? Unstable Aircraft: "FAR Firehound" (Stock). You can post now and register later. 5.whether the body you anchor the landing gears to are firm. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. In vanilla KSP, wings have a predefined lift factor. Vice versa a plane with lots of control surfaces will be perfectly controllable (maybe even too much) but may have big difficulties with taking off and landing at reasonable speeds. Thanks for all the help. A relatively low-drag alternative is to use an inverted cargo bay and some hydraulic cylinders with structural panels as a cargo elevator. Spaceplanes generally ascend best on a 10-30 degree incline, often leveling out towards higher altitudes to pick up the maximum horizontal velocity before switching to rocket motors. - SF. The Whiplash's ridiculous fuel efficiency allows a spaceplane to climb high into the atmosphere and gain a lot of speed while barely using any fuel at all. You probably won't have much luck landing the fuselage intact if your Mk3 plane gets its wings scorched off on reentry. You need to make sure that the Orange axis on the rotate sphere is parallel to your, nose-tail axis. Description: "Originally called the Cockpit-plus-two, the 5 seat "Cockatoo" is a second-generation command pod that provides both safety and comfort It is rumored to have enough room to pack several days of emergency snack rations and board games" Useful stats: As the description states this large command pod holds 5 kerbals Drive gently off the runway and use the huge grassy field to take off, without care in the world about the plane veering to a side. I managed to successfully takeoff and land this aircraft at least 20 times in a roll now and I haven't even lost a single pilot flying this. As long as you're in space, your spaceplane won't differ from any spacecraft: you will probably want to add batteries and generators to prevent the command pod from running out of power. All of them had one thing in common though. You want an elevon on each set of wings. Let it get good and clear of the ground before applying any control to it. What you ought to be using is the Swept Wings and Elevon 1s instead of the Delta-Deluxe Winglets. KSP Stock Space Shuttle by _ForgeUser18393701. All rights reserved. So you want to make a plane but all your contraptions explode on the runway, crash into the runway a few seconds after taking off, crash into the side of the runway, crash into the ocean after doing a tight turn or otherwise fail to do what you intended? http://www.youtube.com/user/Cruzanak?. To avoid swerving on takeoff and landing, it is strongly recommended to turn off or reduce the strength of the front brake on your aircraft, as well as to reduce the friction control. If you forget to put an air intake on your airplane, don't worry! You can even try refueling it before recovering your spaceplane further increasing your recovering value. The issue is my plane rolls very sharply to the left any time I pitch up. This page was last edited on 19 February 2020, at 07:08. When gear is placed, it has just one point of attachment. It is also said that a good landing is one you can walk away from. They could go up to 120 m/s on the runway and still not lift up. Now for the engines. Note: Some high-efficiency rocket engines lose most of their power and efficiency in low atmosphere. Any ideas? I have doubled the max stress value for aerodynamics failure in FAR for every category. I moved the back landing gear to right underneath the COM. Depending on which surface you place them on, they might not be parallel to the axis in which case. I have built lots of spaceplanes. Also, lift is usually placed in the middle-to-back of the wing, depending on the shape. The design I used is similar to what I normally used for planes but I had to swap out parts and make it smaller to compensate for Career mode changes. Balanced fuel saves Kerbal lives. The reverse also happens. You cannot paste images directly. This tutorial was created primarily based on a Reddit post by the incredibly helpful u/AnArgonianSpellsword. Although I usually only need 50 m/s for most planes to wobble out of control. It is usually placed back because it can be placed further back than it is possible in the front (if it is placed in the front, it can obstruct the view of the pilot, which is undesired) as well as making the plane unstable (by the same effect that you would get if the center of lift (horizontal lifting surfaces) were in front of the center of mass, but with vertical surfaces). This page was last edited on 14 April 2021, at 01:04. I see absolutely no need to be traveling that fast down the runway. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. However it's huge size can make it tricky to take off from the runway without destroying the engine. For spaceplanes, avoid the FAT parts (wing, tail fin, and control surface). Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. I'm trying to do some of the surveying and taxi-ing missions because now that's all the games giving me but flying with a regular rockets just not working for me. First thing you're going to want to do in the SPH is turn on your centre of mass indicator (this is the point that the plane will rotate around when rolling, pitching, or yawing) and your centre of lift indicator (the Aerodynamic Overlay). Here is your convenient solution to this problem! Re-entry heating can destroy parts of your spaceplane, or destroy it entirely. Powered by Invision Community. A control surface with 100% control surface portion will weigh twice as much as a wing with the same lift would weigh. Display as a link instead, The centre of mass was between the 2 landing gears. Your wings provide the lift, and they cant provide lift if your wheels are too far back because then your base is to stable and the craft wont pivot upwards. Valve Corporation. Note: This tutorial was last updated for version 1.7.2. Ailerons to roll your aircraft should be placed as far off to the edges of your wings as possible. LV-N exceeds 75% of its full power at just 7700m altitude on Kerbin. If you've been able to successfully re-enter on previous low orbit test runs, you should be able to use this method to achieve similar rates of success once you've slowed down sufficiently. . This allows you to avoid the extra weight and mass of additional fuselage parts, so you only have to deal with the extra weight of the fuel itself. Here, the. But, likely guess is your craft is not producing enough lift. For heavy rockets, it might be required to use structure to space the gears away from the body to allow more pitch. 67K subscribers in the KerbalAcademy community. I just thought my planes were too heavy or not enough control surfaces. here are some images and a gif. Symmetry placement should give you perfect symmetry, as far as the game is concerned. Even if you can takeoff, landing will usually destroy tat aircraft so survival rate on an aircraft for a typical kerbal is nearly zero. The SSTO I took to Laythe recently has only one minor flaw using this design, I have to raise the landing gear and pull back slightly to take off. Plane spins/lurches to the side during takeoff? As lift increases you remove some strain on the gear, however you've just increased the amount of sag. However, it's not a matter of "atmosphere or not", just a matter of air pressure which decreases rapidly with altitude. Similar principles apply when finding suitable landing sites away from the KSC. Install S5 moon rocket By lightbreaker_64. Try not to place your gears to wings, especially wingtips - if they wobble even slightly, your plane lose the balance. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. A FedEx cargo plane in Austin nearly landed on a runway where a Southwest flight was preparing to take off. This helped immensely and if you haven't been doing this already, do it. Thermal turbulence, caused by convection, happens below clouds and typically only impacts planes during takeoff and landing. To slow down faster, you can increase the braking strength of your rear wheels. FAR says it would take an Angle of Attack of 24.3 degrees at 119 m/s to generate enough lift to get it to take off. Sometimes taking things off and re-attaching them does it, or you may have to go so far as to scrap the design and rebuild. [KSP 2] I'm trying really hard to make a Mun capable ship but this rocket . This tutorial will help you with the basics of spaceplane flight, and will help you avoid the most common errors that could ruin your day as a spaceplane pilot! 1. tilt of the plane. Basic structure Firstly you're going to want to make a short fuselage. Do agree that the rear wheels either need to be brought closer or or the Nenter of mass needs to be move closer to the rear wheels. Be warned that if you do not provide sufficient air intakes for the engines you've placed, you may find that some of your engines shut down before others. I was wrong. "Type E" is the smallest you should have, and you want a set of those connected at the back of the fuselage. If rear landing gear are strutted together, or braced to a center point, they are less likely to torque in different directions. As you reach 100m/s, hold S to pull the stick back, and you should be in the air! If there is, I would have found it long ago. S5 moon rocket by lightbreaker_64. Also, excessive use of the rudder usually causes the plane to spin out of control and crash. You may also want to deploy your landing gears to increase your drag, as well as airbrakes if you have them. This page was last edited on 17 December 2021, at 13:14. If your Mk3 design jam-packed full of heavy gear can't seem to survive reentry, one option might be to reduce the payload a bit. Upload or insert images from URL. KSC's runway is slightly north of Kerbin's equator and perfectly flat. Real planes do this as well. The default max stress value is just ridiculous, its like flying in hair gel, everything gets torn apart so easily, like that will ever happen in real life. You could do it the kerbal way by attaching two SRBs to the nose of the plane pointing upwards. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:_Your_First_Plane&oldid=103052. mods used are OPT for most of the body and the front canards and tail plane, B9 procedural wings for the wings, and mk4 . It can be helpful to use a slightly taller front landing gear and slightly shorter rear landing gears so that your fuselage points slightly upward on the ground, thereby increasing the angle of attack of your wings while on the ground. Otherwise, you can either shift your wings till it's right (though this may crowd them near the back), or you can very slightly rotate the big wings so they're slightly higher near the front of the plane. Note that a Wheesley or Goliath engine can reverse its thrust to allow rapid deceleration during landing, but these are not recommended for a spaceplane due to being unreasonably heavy and inducing excessive drag when attempting to transition to orbital velocities. Your very own tutorial.). Notice how the landing gears are placed out on the wings. If you use an Advanced SAS, and raise your front landing wheel so that it is higher than the rear wheels, by just turning the SAS on and going full throttle, due to the 10 degree angle of the plane, it should eventually take off by itself. Powered by Invision Community. You can slow down either by deploying landing gears (and airbrakes if you have them) or by repeatedly pitching up and then back down to increase your drag. Also note that shock cone intakes appear to provide the best air supply at all mach speeds, and unlike other air intakes, they do not decline in performance beyond certain mach speeds. Also pay attention to your fuel balance, especially if you're using several tanks placed in parallel to each other. For all your gaming related, space exploration needs. Display as a link instead, Cure: Draw a mental axis from the nose to the tail of the plane and use the rotate tool (summetry on), on one of the wheels. The rudder is mostly used when landing and when attempting to line up a shot (in a fighter plane). Now stick a jet engine on the back, and don't forget to put an air intake or other air-sucking device (you can find them in aerodynamics) on the airplane. Your link has been automatically embedded. mods used are OPT for most of the body and the front canards and tail plane, B9 procedural wings for the wings, and mk4 spaceplane parts for the engines. Now imagine what happens like that. Rapiers generally provide less thrust than a Whiplash at speeds below mach 2, but provide more thrust at higher speeds. Remember how you want your center of lift/drag to be behind the center of gravity? Note that canards are somewhat more efficient than horizontal tail fins since canards provide an upward force with upward rotation, and downward force with downward rotation. Ideally, you ought to test landing the spaceplane with full fuel tanks and with nearly empty fuel tanks prior to taking your spaceplane to orbit. - Have enough lift, either by a big wing area or high speed. As the title says, my plane dips and turns to the side, clips its wing on the runway and loses it, does the same on the other side, then crashes and explodes, without even getting airborne. Saves a lot of headache in wheels placement. And above all: have fun! I dont really need 200m/s for take off. This aircraft can takeoff at just above 50 m/s and can glide for a few minutes without engine. I am definitely aware that there are multiple reasons as to why the plane flips. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. It Flips Up And Towards The Opposite Direction. Another trick is to move the rear landing gear forward, closer to the center of gravity. One FL-T100 tank can't power any rocket into space, yet a Shock Cone Intake, a Mk1 Inline Cockpit, a half-filled FL-T100 and a J-X4 "Whiplash" Turbo Ramjet Engine aimed in the general direction of "up" will let you laugh your way past the 70km mark at nearly 1200m/s. This is starting to get really frustrating. - Make sure you have enough control authority to lift the nose up. Your plane is almost finished. Now right click each elevon and the tail fin and set what movement each controls; the ones on the large wings control roll only, the ones on the back wings control pitch only, and the tail fin controls yaw only. symmetry building makes them face slightly towards (or away from) each other, with wobbly results. This is for the same reason that you keep your fuel balanced. 2. KSP v.22 Takeoff Troubleshooting Guide/Tutorial Lots of info to help get your plane off the runway! Flying a Space Station through a GAS GIANT! I am accelerating it to over 200m/s on the runway just to test the stability of those wheels since the faster you go, the more likely the plane will wobble and flip on the runway. Clear editor. Keep in mind that lift rating and control surfaces are not connected: lift rating is basically the capacity of your wings to sustain the weight of your spaceplane, while control surfaces are parts of wing that can be moved to change the flow of the air around the plane and through this change a plane's direction, angle of attack or inclination.