I have built lots of spaceplanes. To survive re-entry, it's recommended to start your approach back into the atmosphere at a shallow angle, ideally with a periapsis of around 30-35 km. Finally you need to make sure it's all balanced, this means the centre of lift marker needs to be very slightly behind the centre of mass marker. First, I'm sure this is WAY overengineered, but I haven't gotten to the point of caring about that yet. Display as a link instead, If you plan on either dropping off cargo or picking up cargo and traveling with it, you'll generally want to locate your cargo bay at the middle of your center of gravity. 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're going to have a bad time. If the problem has to do with lift then travelling very slowly, possibly even slower than that, should counteract the effects of lift and you won't drift nearly as much. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. However it's huge size can make it tricky to take off from the runway without destroying the engine. It is also said that a good landing is one you can walk away from. Beyond that, you're going to get some wobble once you get close to take off speed. Take the large delta wings and place them on the aircraft. * Gear not mounted to parts that will flex (e.g. As with everything in KSP, experiment, experiment, experiment. For myself, it always was the position of landing gear in terms of pitch. To takeoff and land at low speed, it's helpful to rotate the wings so the leading edge is slightly above the trailing edge. Do you have a screenshot of the craft? 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. if its too far behind plane cannot lift. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Try not to place your gears to wings, especially wingtips - if they wobble even slightly, your plane lose the balance. Bit late i know, but i had the same problem. This helps to keep the performance of your spaceplane stable with any amount of fuel. A Ravenspear Mk3 taking off from the Runway in version 1.0.5. In subsequent missions, you may want to launch with less fuel to cut down on cost and make landing a quicker and easier process. Though, I use the FAR mod which will change things, so I can't guarantee the results will be useful, but it might be interesting. You want to get up to get the gear tucked away and reduce drag. The issue is my plane rolls very sharply to the left any time I pitch up. KSC's runway is slightly north of Kerbin's equator and perfectly flat. The only drawback to the reduced friction is reduced steering control, so this setting may need to be adjusted when taxiing to/from a runway, but should otherwise be kept minimal for takeoff and landing. If you're planning on landing on a somewhat uneven surface, like an open grassland somewhere on Kerbin or an island on Laythe, consider packing some parachutes for deceleration. Note: This tutorial was last updated for version 1.7.2. 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? 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 . While all other cargo bays are fine for making spaceplanes, the Mk3 Cargo Ramp produces obscene amounts of drag, which can easily prevent reaching orbital velocities by itself. FOX 56 News Video More Videos I also used Intake build aid to balance the intakes. If you can give a craft file and a mod list I could take a look. Hit the launch button and watch your magnificent bird fly! 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 is advised to place your control surfaces as far from your center of mass as possible. KSP 2 speculation: I believe terraforming will be a feature of the game. While having the same stock parts as in the VAB, spaceplane design is obviously quite different from pure rocket design. 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. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/13851-The-woes-of-building-a-space-plane?highlight=woes+spaceplane. 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. Then this tutorial is for you. One final point to consider is the mass you're planning to store in the fuselage. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. As such, you will need various control surfaces. Note that dropping off cargo from the back with a Mk3 Cargo Ramp is bad for more than one reason. 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. Any plane needs speed - so you need thrust (usually). If that's not an option, you can still recover some value by landing at any suitable flat place on Kerbin. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:_Basic_Plane_Design&oldid=97453, In the front of the plane - In this position, the control surfaces are also known as , In the back of the plane, on the tail - The most usual position; usually, close to the rudder. While it's true that jet engines don't work in space, they offer one large advantage over rocket engines while inside the atmosphere: fuel efficiency. (However, it must be noted that it is bad practice to use ailerons as elevators since it makes it hard to control the aircraft), The rudder moves the tip of the plane left and right; it is rarely used, since it is hard to put it both up and down due to the possibility of hitting the ground. 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). 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). 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. 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. Go on, and take the plane capsule which looks like a converted fuel storage device Contents 1 Making a fuselage 2 Understanding Lift 3 Control Surfaces 3.1 Elevator 3.2 Aileron 3.3 Rudder 4 Landing gear Making a fuselage Any plane needs speed - so you need thrust (usually). The issue is my plane rolls very sharply to the left any time I pitch up. I was wrong. So if I start encountering wobble it's time to pull back on the stick and get in the air. Nothing bad will happen. Necessary for heavy/long spaceplane. 1. make sure your main gear is not wobbling (ie. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:_Your_First_Plane&oldid=103052. Cookie Notice Brakes in the back keep you stable. Firstly, inadequate air intakes for the number and type of engines you're using (causing some engines to shut down before others). Similar principles apply when finding suitable landing sites away from the KSC. Hello, I am having a small problem with a plane I have built. 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. Note that the lift rating does not mean that the wings will automatically lift a spaceplane into the air when it's moving forward. KSP Stock Space Shuttle by _ForgeUser18393701. 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. Your previous content has been restored. - SF. I have done everything imaginable to try to remedy this problem. After a successful touchdown, high-speed motion on the runway (let alone uneven ground) can be unstable, causing the aircraft to careen to one side or the other, potentially resulting in loss of a wing and sometimes the entire aircraft. Your very own tutorial.). 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 center of Kerbin than the middle (because it's totally flat), the runway is a valley from a gravitational frame of reference. My Space Plane Keeps Flipping Backwards On The Runway. 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. As lift increases you remove some strain on the gear, however you've just increased the amount of sag. Geometric shape of the body you attach the landing gear to. 3. angle of the wheels. They could go up to 120 m/s on the runway and still not lift up. This is an important distinction; a plane with great lift rating but without any control surfaces will fly easily but will be almost uncontrollable. More mass will mean it takes more drag to slow down on reentry, which will mean you go faster at lower altitudes and experience more reentry heating. The centre of mass was between the 2 landing gears. You cannot paste images directly. Set up for a long glide path, and watch rate of climb indicator at top of screen, aim for -5 m/s. Check out the following guide for some good info: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures This is starting to get really frustrating. These have an ISP of 800 in a vacuum which is significantly better than all other rocket motors except the very weak IX-6315 ion rocket. I made this aircraft based on real life commercial jet design. . At around . Either put more engines or reduce the amount of rocket fuel. Need to move them up. 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. 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! This aircraft handles smoothly, no matter how you turn, roll and flip this aircraft, it will never lose control. (Source). I scoured the entire web for a solution, but found no working solution or at least dont work every time. The Kerbal Space Program subreddit. S5 moon rocket by lightbreaker_64. Thank you and happy landings. Here is your convenient solution to this problem! For your first flight, it may be easiest to ignore yaw altogether and just maneuver by rolling slightly and pitching. This page was last edited on 17 December 2021, at 13:14. This page was last edited on 19 February 2020, at 07:08. Because of how small Kerbin is and how high its gravity is, a perfectly flat surface just north of the equator will cause planes taking off to bias to the right of the runway, as if they were rolling downhill. You can also use parachutes on landing, but care must be taken to ensure that an adequate length of runway remains since you'll only get one chance to use them. Or adding a RATO boosters. After placing wheels I always use the rotate gizmo on snap with absolute orientation. A relatively low-drag alternative is to use an inverted cargo bay and some hydraulic cylinders with structural panels as a cargo elevator. So I have played the game for 200 hours and I love it. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Having said all that, these are the issues you must contend with. LV-N engines also have the advantage of using the same liquid for propellant that jet engines use for fuel. 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). Your previous content has been restored. I have doubled the max stress value for aerodynamics failure in FAR for every category. 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. 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. This is either a collider or design issue, if the craft doesn't have enough lift initially to get off the ground it will bounce a bit before taking off. Thermal turbulence, caused by convection, happens below clouds and typically only impacts planes during takeoff and landing. Such as not producing lift, which is not what you want with a plane. 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). They could go up to 120 m/s on the runway and still not lift up. Aircraft in this game is almost unfeasible, especially in career mode, you will lose all your money before you finally design an aircraft that can even takeoff. Descending greater than -10 m/s usually makes a mess. This thread is archived . 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. Here, the. Wow, if you need 200 m\s to take off, you should think about adding more lift. When I Start Why Engine, It Goes Straight But As Soon As I Takeoff. If you have a very short length of runway remaining and your parachutes can't slow you down fast enough, you'll be forced to cut the chutes and attempt a second landing without them. Even with a stable landing, you may find that you don't have enough room on your desired landing area to come to a stop before you reach the end. I have created planes that have landing gears place right under the wing tips but they still won't work. A plane is any craft which flies horizontally in an atmosphere utilizing lift primarily generated by wings, winglets, or control surfaces. For heavy rockets, it might be required to use structure to space the gears away from the body to allow more pitch. These have extremely poor temperature tolerance and will almost inevitably break up during atmospheric reentry. This thread is quite old. symmetry building makes them face slightly towards (or away from) each other, with wobbly results. That will align with the craft axis. And, of course, try to take off and land as slow as possible. 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. I just thought my planes were too heavy or not enough control surfaces. The most dangerous part of a spaceplane flight is returning from orbit. In fact, nothing will happen at all, and that's probably bad, so put an air intake on your plane anyway. 3. make sure your center of mass is slightly in front of center of lift force. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. For this to happen, I'm assuming you're using rocket fuel tanks. An alternative is making sure you have complete control of the craft. All of these problems can be exacerbated or reduced by adjusting the amount of fuel in your tanks during landing. Flying a Space Station through a GAS GIANT! 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. So I started a new career file after not really playing for a long time and I'm now at the point where I just dropped 45 Science to unlocked Aviation to get some of the plane parts that I need. It is due to the spinning up of the engines. 5.whether the body you anchor the landing gears to are firm. When landing, you can achieve the highest lift for a given speed by raising the total angle of attack of your wings to 30 degrees (although this induces a great deal of drag). T-1 "Dart" engines are unique amongst conventionally-fuelled rocket engines: They have close to the highest efficiency in both vacuum and low atmosphere. Go on, and take the plane capsule which looks like a converted fuel storage device. Thanks for the help guys. To do this, take a few barrels of your jet fuel, stick them on the back of your aircraft. Just after having taken off, the plane will immediately start rolling to the right, and completely uncontrollably. 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. Elevators are usually places in the front or back of an aircraft, and their function, as the name implies, is to change the pitch of the nose up and down. A good example of this is at the KSC runway when landing on a 90 degree bearing. 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. 6.4K Downloads Updated Jun 7, 2017 Created Jun 7, 2017. . Hot ground causes air to rise, cooling as it moves away from the heat, which leads to increased density and a resulting fall back down. 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 Obviously jet engines are air-breathing, so you need to include air intakes in your spaceplane. How to Fly a Plane - KSP Beginner's Tutorial - YouTube 0:00 / 25:53 How to Fly a Plane - KSP Beginner's Tutorial Mike Aben 30.6K subscribers 78K views 2 years ago KSP - Absolute Beginner's. Doesnt make sense so just do this: Nope that didn't solve anything, even when the plane is past the runway and gliding on the little bit of space before the ocean it will slowly lower to the ocean, what am I doing wrong? For example, having your landing gears located near the ends of the wings is an easy way to ensure that you don't roll and shred your wings when landing or taking off. If you placed the main wings at the centre of mass and then added the smaller wings behind, this should be correct already. Lift maxes out at 30 and declines beyond that point, so avoid excessive fuselage tilt.[1]. This is most likely the standard jitterbugging problem. 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. Alternatively, you can try landing at higher speeds with your nose pointed further down, but this increases challenges with stability and deceleration while on the runway. Ideally, the wings should be tilted upward at an angle about 3-5 from the fuselage for optimal lift-to-drag ratio.[1]. Easier just to bring the rear wheels closer as well as a in line reacton wheel. EDIT: It was the b9 procedural wings. If your rear wheels are too far back the aircraft will not be able to pivot on the wheels and lift its nose up. Second try, speed over land reached over 210 m/s and it didn't flip. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Landing is hard. This aircraft can takeoff at just above 50 m/s and can glide for a few minutes without engine. The rudder is mostly used when landing and when attempting to line up a shot (in a fighter plane). They all had landing gear placed at the front and at the back. It helps to have a center of gravity which is close to your engines so that the landing gears can be close to both. Also avoid the basic fin for the same reason. When flying straight the plane is pretty stable but pitching up causes a sharp roll and I cant figure out why. This plane will be able to take off, travel somewhere, perform a crew report, and then land. 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. 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. The problem could be due to several issues. Display as a link instead, I just thought my planes were too heavy or not enough control surfaces. However, it's not a matter of "atmosphere or not", just a matter of air pressure which decreases rapidly with altitude. 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. For more information, please see our I checked my planes and I found the problem. Another trick is to move the rear landing gear forward, closer to the center of gravity. Powered by Invision Community. With initial passes, you start off with a periapsis at 50-60 km and gradually lower your apoapsis until you're in an almost circularized low orbit and then transition to your usual re-entry approach. I made a KSP replica of the Horten Ho 229 while trying to make a short takeoff plane.If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know in the comments.My. DO NOT ANGLE THEM! Subscribe! My plane usually take off at a little over 120m/s. Whether you're storing your fuel in fuselage sections, wing sections, or attached inside of cargo bays, it's generally a good idea to keep equal amounts of fuel at equal distances from your center of mass. In vanilla KSP, wings have a predefined lift factor. Balanced fuel saves Kerbal lives. Mechjeb Spaceplane Guidance. 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). The tutorial below explains everything very well. This makes design easier, eliminating all concern for balancing jet fuel against rocket fuel. Mods needed for this aircraft to work: Procedural wings, Adjustable Landing Gear, FAR. Yours is a very light plane, and the standard suspension settings are for a medium heavy plane -- so your suspension is too stiff. While I am not a great plane builder there is a part in the structural (I think it is a pylon?) Try disabling friction control with on the front landing gears. 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. In an aircraft with two or more engines, this can potentially cause you to enter a flat spin which can be unrecoverable if your center of mass is behind your center of lift. As you reach 100m/s, hold S to pull the stick back, and you should be in the air! If, instead, all goes well, then once your jet engines have shut down you will need to start the second part of your space mission by switching to rockets. Basic structure Firstly you're going to want to make a short fuselage. All rights reserved. That said, parachutes are an exceedingly effective means of reducing your stopping distance. I have found a solution to my problem. 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. I'm making sure that I keep trying to get it up but it just wont go! If your aircraft is burning up during this stage, you may need larger wings to slow you down faster, radiator panels to carry away the heat more effectively, parts with a higher temperature tolerance (like the Mk2 liquid fuel fuselage instead of the Mk1 liquid fuel fuselage), or parts to increase your maneuverability, like RCS thrusters, reaction wheels, or canards and elevons. This helped immensely and if you haven't been doing this already, do it. You may also want to deploy your landing gears to increase your drag, as well as airbrakes if you have them. Paste as plain text instead, To slow down faster, you can increase the braking strength of your rear wheels. This can turn into a fatal scenario if the center of mass gets behind the center of lift and you enter a flat spin. I have no problems using Mechjeb to launch rockets into orbit, rendezvousing and docking with other craft. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. 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. Maybe ;making the tailwheel less stiff would help, too. You should have something called an "Elevon 1"; this will be the moving part for your wings. Thanks for everyone trying to help! Hopefully this gets you your first aircraft that can take off and land, which is the biggest hurdle to being able to make KSP aircraft. 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. here are some images and a gif. 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. 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. 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. To minimize drag, vertical tail fins can be kept minimal, since aircraft can be maneuvered adequately by roll and pitch alone. 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. I've had stability issues in planes where I'd have proper gear setup, balanced weight and lift. Remember how you want your center of lift/drag to be behind the center of gravity? Here's a quick installment in to the. They sometimes coincide with elevators. First try speed over land reached over 210 m/s before flipping in the last second. KSP handling death investigation High Winds Cause Widespread Power Outages Ohio . If the front landing gear touches down first and has its brakes on, it's going to make the rest of your aircraft pivot around it as it's pressed into the ground.