Also, try this mod: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99660-0-25-Adjustable-Landing-Gear-v1-0-4%28doors-fixed%29-Nov-14 (still works in 0.90 if you get updated firespitter.dll). Also note that for maximum efficiency, you should make sure that your horizontal control surfaces are rotated to exactly the same pitch that you've rotated your wings. Secondly, it would suggest that your spaceplane's center of lift is too far forward compared to its center of gravity (causing the uncontrollable spin). Second try, speed over land reached over 210 m/s and it didn't flip. And, of course, try to take off and land as slow as possible. Pasted as rich text. Any ideas? Landing also often requires rapid deceleration to avoid running off the end of the runway or crashing into a slope when landing on open terrain. Here is your convenient solution to this problem! 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. Here is your convenient solution to this problem! Also avoid the basic fin for the same reason. Subscribe! Espaol - Latinoamrica (Spanish - Latin America), http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65638-Basic-Airplane-Space-Plane-Aero-Tutorial. 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. This aircraft handles smoothly, no matter how you turn, roll and flip this aircraft, it will never lose control. While having the same stock parts as in the VAB, spaceplane design is obviously quite different from pure rocket design. I was attaining high speeds on the runway without getting off the ground, which made the plane yaw back and forth. 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. Re-entry heating can destroy parts of your spaceplane, or destroy it entirely. All rights reserved. You want an elevon on each set of wings. This thread is quite old. Also, excessive use of the rudder usually causes the plane to spin out of control and crash. It is advised to place your control surfaces as far from your center of mass as possible. As lift increases you remove some strain on the gear, however you've just increased the amount of sag. LV-N has less than 25% of its full power at Kerbin sea level. and our https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/124380-wing-lift-amp-wing-lift-to-drag-ratio-charts/, https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:_Spaceplane_basics&oldid=100619. 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. 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. 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. You need to make sure that the Orange axis on the rotate sphere is parallel to your, nose-tail axis. For more information, please see our This helped immensely and if you haven't been doing this already, do it. To maximize lift, your aircraft should rest on the ground with the fuselage tilted upward at anywhere up to a 25-27 angle so that the wings will end up tilted back at up to 30. - KSP Matt Lowne 527K subscribers 1.3M views 2 years ago I've wanted. The most dangerous part of a spaceplane flight is returning from orbit. Note that most air intakes tend to produce less drag than aerodynamic nose cones and pointy cockpits, especially shock cone intakes. This would indicate two problems. Those and the fixed main gear are NOTORIOUSLY bouncy. Powered by Invision Community. Besides the good advice others have given, I would also be very careful with that little tailwheel. I'm making sure that I keep trying to get it up but it just wont go! ), Stable aircraft: "Untitled" (lost the file upon loading after aircraft), Stable jet car: "Untitled" (Lost the file), Speed over land > 350 m/s before veering off the runway, Sometimes Stable Spaceplane: "Hypersonic Experimental". The Kerbal Space Program subreddit. - SF. 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. Obviously jet engines are air-breathing, so you need to include air intakes in your spaceplane. Firstly you're going to want to make a short fuselage. I moved the back landing gear to right underneath the COM. My plane usually take off at a little over 120m/s. (Yes, you personally, you lucky thing! If you placed the main wings at the centre of mass and then added the smaller wings behind, this should be correct already. I checked my planes and I found the problem. When your jet engines stop working, it is time to ignite the old, reliable liquid fuel engine. To takeoff and land at low speed, it's helpful to rotate the wings so the leading edge is slightly above the trailing edge. * Gear not mounted to parts that will flex (e.g. You can resolve the emergency by transferring fuel from rear fuel tanks to forward fuel tanks, but you should alter your design to bring your wings further back to prevent such incidents in the future. Necessary for heavy/long spaceplane. Note that as you fly higher the air intakes will become less effective and you may come to a point when the engines will shut down due to the lack of air. I see absolutely no need to be traveling that fast down the runway. Such as not producing lift, which is not what you want with a plane. Keep your spaceplane pointed about 90 degrees above prograde so that the wings and body of your aircraft slow you down as much as possible. 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. There are multiple ways to place them: Ailerons control the roll of the aircraft, and are (almost) always placed on the wings, as far out as possible and as centered (compared to the center of mass) as could be. Either put more engines or reduce the amount of rocket fuel. . Landing speed (minimum speed for level flight) can be reduced by adding components to increase maneuverability, by using larger wings, by increasing wing angle of attack on the fuselage (3-5 degrees is the recommended range for a spaceplane to achieve the best lift-to-drag ratio [source]), and by decreasing the weight of the aircraft. 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! In fact, nothing will happen at all, and that's probably bad, so put an air intake on your plane anyway. If rear landing gear are strutted together, or braced to a center point, they are less likely to torque in different directions. However, they do take a conventional mix of fuel and oxidizer, and thus require much more fuel mass than jet engines or LV-N Nerv. For spaceplanes, avoid the FAT parts (wing, tail fin, and control surface). Just like with rockets, get some courageous Kerbal in the cockpit and let's get started! Paste as plain text instead, Firstly, inadequate air intakes for the number and type of engines you're using (causing some engines to shut down before others). It is also advisable to add some control surfaces to your plane to have some control in the atmosphere: you can manually add them to the wings or choose winglets with effective control surfaces, like the Standard Canard. Also pay attention to your fuel balance, especially if you're using several tanks placed in parallel to each other. For your first flight, it may be easiest to ignore yaw altogether and just maneuver by rolling slightly and pitching. Be aware that while this angle will provide the lowest possible landing speed for your spaceplane, it will create problems if your center of gravity is too far ahead of your rear landing gears (causing a high-speed nose collision on touchdown) or if your rear landing gears are too far ahead of your engines, causing them to strike the runway first. What you ought to be using is the Swept Wings and Elevon 1s instead of the Delta-Deluxe Winglets. But regardless of that, try very hard to let the plane fly itself off the ground without you applying any controls. 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. All of them had one thing in common though. It is also common to add an Inline Clamp-O-Tron, which, unlike all the other docking ports, can be placed in the middle of the spacecraft (a handy solution, since there is not much space at either end of the craft) to allow your plane to dock with space stations or other spacecrafts. 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. It doesn't really matter if you angle them or not, there is not a single configuration for the wheels that can work on all plane parts. An alternative is making sure you have complete control of the craft. Cookie Notice 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. A control surface with 100% control surface portion will weigh twice as much as a wing with the same lift would weigh. 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. KSP handling death investigation High Winds Cause Widespread Power Outages Ohio . I also used Intake build aid to balance the intakes. First of all, since the launch happens horizontally, you will have to include landing gears, and you will most likely want to include jet engines for the first stage for excellent fuel and cost efficiency. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Here's a quick installment in to the. my planes keep flipping backwards on take off . A plane is any craft which flies horizontally in an atmosphere utilizing lift primarily generated by wings, winglets, or control surfaces. mods used are OPT for most of the body and the front canards and tail plane, B9 procedural wings for the wings, and mk4 . Wow, if you need 200 m\s to take off, you should think about adding more lift. Check out the following guide for some good info: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures Your plane is almost finished. You can either go with four "LY-O1 Fixed" or a tricycle of two LY-01 near the back and one "LY-05 Steerable" at the front; either is fine for now. Unfortunately, with only these basic parts, landing on the runway won't be easy; a viable alternative is to throttle down to nothing, then belly-flop in the ocean. That will align with the craft axis. Now put on center of mass and center of lift view, and move the delta wings until the center of lift is slightly behind of the center of mass - not in front, otherwise your aircraft will be able to easily flip out of control. Now I'll walk you through a basic aircraft; fancy stuff like science equipment can be added later. Symmetry placement should give you perfect symmetry, as far as the game is concerned. They all had landing gear placed at the front and at the back. To minimize the risk of such a situation, try to land on a large patch of flat open ground approaching a downhill slope. As such, don't use control surfaces as substitutes for wings, and don't use more control surfaces than you need. EDIT: It was the b9 procedural wings. I found biggest cause of this as well as not being able to possibly correct is having sas on during takeoff, make sure that is off during take off and should find problem is less likely to occur, but I too struggle to make working space planes even when center of lift, mass, thrust are all as needed. http://www.youtube.com/user/Cruzanak?. I can not get any aircraft-style spaceplane take off from the runway, they will stay on until the end, where the engines crash into the ground and explode. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. When flying straight the plane is pretty stable but pitching up causes a sharp roll and I cant figure out why. 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. 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 Temperature tolerance is the primary consideration for fuselage choice. 3. angle of the wheels. Tell ya what, I'm gonna try to recreate that thing in my sandbox and see what I get. Slowly pitch up to avoid overheating. In subsequent missions, you may want to launch with less fuel to cut down on cost and make landing a quicker and easier process. Just after having taken off, the plane will immediately start rolling to the right, and completely uncontrollably. Any plane needs speed - so you need thrust (usually). I have also thought about a wider base. 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. Espaol - Latinoamrica (Spanish - Latin America), http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484107795, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484107807, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484107735, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484107761, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484119427, http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=484137556, http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/443953434412162923/42B3BB54A6A524CCC2E5C102AD88C8E521790F55/. If you have trouble pitching up enough to land at a reasonable speed, you can increase your maneuverability by toggling your flaps, canards and ailerons to greater than 100% control authority. Be aware that landing on water is an option if your spaceplane can fly level at less than ~40-50 m/s. This makes design easier, eliminating all concern for balancing jet fuel against rocket fuel. To do this, take a few barrels of your jet fuel, stick them on the back of your aircraft. if mounted on not struted part) 2. put your main gear slightly behind center of mass. For myself, it always was the position of landing gear in terms of pitch. They all had to use the runway drop to take off. Having said all that, these are the issues you must contend with. And above all: have fun! [KSP 2] I'm trying really hard to make a Mun capable ship but this rocket . I made this aircraft based on real life commercial jet design. 4. This is also the same reason why planes start rolling toward the middle of the runway; because both ends of the runway are further from . The tutorial below explains everything very well. When gear is placed, it has just one point of attachment. For some reason, when the plane is trying to take off and pulling up, the plane begins to bounce on it's front wheels (the back wheel kicks up), which hinders the plane taking off. These occur at their worst when your center of gravity is far ahead of your rear landing gears and you have a heavy plane at high speeds and a high angle of attack on landing, resulting in your front landing gear rapidly striking the runway after your rear landing gears touchdown. You can post now and register later. Keep your nose pointed prograde as you descend through the atmosphere. #2 DaSkippa Mar 14, 2014 @ 2:56am as Shkeec said check gear check gear check gear. Thanks for all the help. Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. Keep at around 15 degrees to allow the plane to accelerate past 1000m/s. I dunno why but this picture makes the one side look like it is tipped in but I know they are straight, I believe it just the angle that the picture was taken that is causing it to look like this. Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. DO NOT ANGLE THEM! You main problem is your landing gear. I believe the issue is there is not enough control surfaces to offset this issue, but it comes up very easy so it is not a very big deal. Do you have a screenshot of the craft? 2. For all your gaming related, space exploration needs. See if there is still a problem when only travelling slowly, say <20m/s. I just thought my planes were too heavy or not enough control surfaces. If you're tired of big rockets that use tons of fuel and disintegrate in the atmosphere when coming back to Kerbin, this tutorial is perfect for you! Your link has been automatically embedded. If you can maintain level flight at about 30-40 m/s, you should be able to perform an ocean landing if needed. 1. make sure your main gear is not wobbling (ie. 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. - Have enough lift, either by a big wing area or high speed. 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? Quick context, I am a software engineer. * Unlock steering and disable brakes on front gear. You're going to have a bad time. 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. Remember how you want your center of lift/drag to be behind the center of gravity? You want to start by attaching a Mk 0 Liquid Fuel Tank under the wings, making sure you're mirrored so it goes under both wings. You can also angle the wings themselves slightly upwards (using WASDQE) in order to make them generate more lift when horizontal. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. The same principle applies here. This page was last edited on 17 December 2021, at 13:14. A relatively low-drag alternative is to use an inverted cargo bay and some hydraulic cylinders with structural panels as a cargo elevator. However, it's not a matter of "atmosphere or not", just a matter of air pressure which decreases rapidly with altitude. Note that the lift rating does not mean that the wings will automatically lift a spaceplane into the air when it's moving forward. So if I start encountering wobble it's time to pull back on the stick and get in the air. As with everything in KSP, experiment, experiment, experiment. Aim to get your speed below 50m/s, and have plenty of water ahead of you; keep the plane level, and pitch up to shed velocity. 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.