This is for the same reason that you keep your fuel balanced. However, it's not a matter of "atmosphere or not", just a matter of air pressure which decreases rapidly with altitude. Before you can make a successful plane, you must understand what makes a plane go in places other than the ground - the wings. * Gear not mounted to parts that will flex (e.g. 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. Let it get good and clear of the ground before applying any control to it. 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. Controllability of a plane is on you. 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. Your very own tutorial.). 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. if mounted on not struted part) 2. put your main gear slightly behind center of mass. 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. KSC's runway is slightly north of Kerbin's equator and perfectly flat. 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. 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. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/13851-The-woes-of-building-a-space-plane?highlight=woes+spaceplane. 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. Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. That, combined with a Unity joint bug, makes your plane bounce. Center of Mass and Center of Lift are the usual causes of instability. Ideally, the wings should be tilted upward at an angle about 3-5 from the fuselage for optimal lift-to-drag ratio.[1]. Your plane is almost finished. Remember how you want your center of lift/drag to be behind the center of gravity? Your previous content has been restored. KSP v.22 Takeoff Troubleshooting Guide/Tutorial Lots of info to help get your plane off the runway! 200 m/s runway stability just doesn't seem to have a worthwhile purpose to me, and is inducing counter productive engineering challenges. This page was last edited on 14 April 2021, at 01:04. 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. 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. Unstable Aircraft: "FAR Firehound" (Stock). Your wheels should now have 0 degree angle between them, meaning they are both. Landing can be trickier for spaceplanes since they are designed for higher speeds than other aircraft and may not be able to fly level at speeds low enough for an easy landing (<50 m/s). 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. But be careful and don't crash it! Here is the best aircraft I have created to date: Jet Aircraft. 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 helped immensely and if you haven't been doing this already, do it. While having the same stock parts as in the VAB, spaceplane design is obviously quite different from pure rocket design. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. 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. And above all: have fun! 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. So yesterday I was playing some KSP2, and resumed the game from a save where I had landed in Duna. You probably won't have much luck landing the fuselage intact if your Mk3 plane gets its wings scorched off on reentry. @TheEnvironmentalist There is one more method I'm sure would work in your case, although I didn't write about it because I think it's cheesy and wouldn't solve the root problem. The centre of mass was between the 2 landing gears. Try not to place your gears to wings, especially wingtips - if they wobble even slightly, your plane lose the balance. This makes them a very effective choice for SSTOs since they do a good job of getting maximum velocity out of air-breathing mode, and then allow you to use oxidizer without needing the added weight and drag of a separate rocket engine. 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. If you can give a craft file and a mod list I could take a look. 1. make sure your main gear is not wobbling (ie. I have built lots of spaceplanes. 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. For an example, see the A-10 Warthog's landing gears: link. If your rear wheels are too far back the aircraft will not be able to pivot on the wheels and lift its nose up. Either put more engines or reduce the amount of rocket fuel. 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 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. A plane is any craft which flies horizontally in an atmosphere utilizing lift primarily generated by wings, winglets, or control surfaces. Just after having taken off, the plane will immediately start rolling to the right, and completely uncontrollably. 1. In contrast, if you attempt a landing at the KSC runway on a 270 degree bearing, you run the risk of colliding with the upward slope shortly beyond the runway if you can't slow down initially and then can't speed up fast enough. 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). Descending greater than -10 m/s usually makes a mess. Note that dropping off cargo from the back with a Mk3 Cargo Ramp is bad for more than one reason. Why is it doing this? http://www.youtube.com/user/Cruzanak?. Similar principles apply when finding suitable landing sites away from the KSC. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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. For this to happen, I'm assuming you're using rocket fuel tanks. Here is an example of landing gear place on a complex geometric surface: Unstable plane Rear landing gears only seems to work on cylindrical fuselage, if you place them on a fuselage intake or anything other than a cylinder, the wheels can behave strangely. * Unlock steering and disable brakes on front gear. Wing shapes do not appear to have a significant impact on drag or drag-to-lift ratio at this time, but swept wings are still an easy way to help ensure that your center of lift stays behind your center of mass. LV-N "Nerv" nuclear thermal rockets are commonly used on SSTOs for the rocket stage if Rapiers are not used. See the tutorial below. 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. However it's huge size can make it tricky to take off from the runway without destroying the engine. Note that the lift rating does not mean that the wings will automatically lift a spaceplane into the air when it's moving forward. Note: Some high-efficiency rocket engines lose most of their power and efficiency in low atmosphere. Increasing the number of intakes will not allow you to continue using your jet engines at higher altitudes. Also pay attention to your fuel balance, especially if you're using several tanks placed in parallel to each other. Alternatively, if you're returning from a high orbit or from an interplanetary trip, you can try repeated shallow passes through the atmosphere. Also, lift is usually placed in the middle-to-back of the wing, depending on the shape. That's over 2x the normal recommended max. While I am not a great plane builder there is a part in the structural (I think it is a pylon?) 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. EDIT: So, I set the front landing gear spring and damper to 0.5, and also set the tail gear spring and damper to 2, and the problem was fixed! symmetry building makes them face slightly towards (or away from) each other, with wobbly results. Everything looks perfectly symmetrical as far as I can tell. 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. as Shkeec said check gear check gear check gear. 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. Besides the good advice others have given, I would also be very careful with that little tailwheel. Paste as plain text instead, Safety note: Disable the brakes on the front landing gear. The rudder is mostly used when landing and when attempting to line up a shot (in a fighter plane). When flying straight the plane is pretty stable but pitching up causes a sharp roll and I cant figure out why. Plane bouncing on takeoff - Gameplay Questions and Tutorials - Kerbal Space Program Forums Hello, I am having a small problem with a plane I have built. I just built a plane but when i launch it just slides and spins slowly to the right, any ideas on why this is happening? Place your rear wheels/gear in front of the flaps on your wings. I have no problems using Mechjeb to launch rockets into orbit, rendezvousing and docking with other craft. 2. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. 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. In vanilla KSP, wings have a predefined lift factor. Cookie Notice 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. But, likely guess is your craft is not producing enough lift. 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. Paste as plain text instead, You can deploy your chutes just prior to touchdown for rapid deceleration. I removed them and it works fine now. Geometric shape of the body you attach the landing gear to. Display as a link instead, 1. make sure your main gear is not wobbling (ie. When you are near the end of the runway, quickly activate then detach them to get the nose pointing up. This is starting to get really frustrating. Heavy transport seaplane inspired to the Soviet Beriev A-40 Albatros which also appears in Evangelion 2.0! Now imagine what happens like that. For all your gaming related, space exploration needs. 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. This page was last edited on 17 December 2021, at 13:14. Landing is hard. 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. my planes keep flipping backwards on take off . wings, unless they're very well braced). Although I usually only need 50 m/s for most planes to wobble out of control. When dealing with high-speed landings, you may touch down too quickly and cause the front of the plane to smack into the runway. Your link has been automatically embedded. 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). To avoid wobble, wheels need to be absolutely vertical, and they shouldn't be attached to something that is likely to flex as speed builds up, as this could also affect the vertical alignment. You should have something called an "Elevon 1"; this will be the moving part for your wings. When your jet engines stop working, it is time to ignite the old, reliable liquid fuel engine. If you need to carry more fuel, consider using the Big-S Delta Wing as it provides the same lift-to-drag and lift-to-weight ratio as any other wing of the same mass, yet has the ability to carry fuel as well.