If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. The ones that are at an angle must be placed at that exact angle, you can't angle them to make them wider. Plane body deformations can cause the wheels to touch the ground at a slightly different angle. 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). To do this, take a few barrels of your jet fuel, stick them on the back of your aircraft. 2. May 19, 2013 in KSP1 Tutorials. Throttle up to full, activate SAS, stage to start the engine (you'll only have one stage here), and start rolling (or sliding) down the runway! You can post now and register later. Even exponential growth can take a while to get going if it starts out microscopic, and Id be fascinated to find someone who could figure out a way of measuring the growth rate. A slight "inwards" tilt on your wings (5 degrees or less) will improve stability hugely and will cause your plane to slowly correct itself in flight, also if you're using large control surfaces at high speeds then the result is obvious. Also, make sure you read this slowly, some of this stuff may be confusing, but, if you read carefully, I will help you out with what everything means. Mount your rear wheels out on the wings for better stability. It's unlikely you're doing this but just in case: while on the ground use only yaw controls to change direction, don't touch the roll controls. This guide also applies to STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) aircraft which do their thing using downward-pointing jets or rockets, because they're pretty much the same thing. They sometimes coincide with ailerons on some, more space-economical, aircraft. This would certainly have to be revised once Breaking Ground drops, those parts are extremely relevant for VTOL. Tutorial: Your First Plane - Kerbal Space Program Wiki By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Also, layout matters: aircraft with a wing that runs along the length of the craft, but with a narrow wingspan (like the Mk2 fuselages or wing strakes, and to a lesser extend swept or delta wings) will take more effort to pitch over but will roll very, very easily. Lift, the canard button), and finally CoT (Center of Thrust, the thruster button) 2. Touch down, CUT throttle, CUT engines, BRAKES ON. In that vein I drag optimized the Karmilla, and added science parts. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. You need about 150 m/s for the landing, less than that for take-off. Why did DOS-based Windows require HIMEM.SYS to boot? My first VTOL craft was the Bumblebee, and it's still one of my favourites! 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. The parts regarding landing gear placement is especially relevant in 1.1.x. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com. They both create a dihedral effect, tending to return you to level through a roll-sideslip interaction. Nothing bad will happen. It also depends on whether you're using FAR or another aerodynamic rewrite mod that would change the way your aircraft behave. Things that work at low altitude don't work so well up high and the plane ends up going up and down while slowly losing speed until it can't maintain altitude anymore. Please see the. Your plane is almost finished. Haha I think Ive perfected an aestheticallyclean turbine jet VTOL USAF F-35b Lightning II2020 https://imgur.com/gallery/918HyM4 https://imgur.com/gallery/f0NDJxR. We look at the principles behind designing a basic jet. When off the ground at a sufficient altitude to clear obstacles, main jets ON, When at sufficient speed for aerodynamic flight, hoverjets OFF, pods CLOSED, gear UP. Remembering the FW TA152 and the U2 I put long wings on it and while its turn rate makes an airliner look like a fighter plane it is stable enough at 19000m. Things get ugly!!). You've landed. Most of my planes I'm able to knock each of them down to 40% and still perform 7-8G maneuvers. Then I'd go with moving it towards more maneuvrable by moving CoL towards CoM. The main challenge for hover control is to keep the craft horizontal. It may be too far forward, especially if the tail is too small relative to the plane's wings. This tutorial was created primarily based on a Reddit post by the incredibly helpful u/AnArgonianSpellsword. You would need a lot of orbits at 69 km to come down into the ground. These tend to handle . There's no tutorial in KSP that explains plane design to you and this guide could have taken the lead on that. Powered by Invision Community. Basic Plane Design - KSP Tutorials #9 - YouTube How to force Unity Editor/TestRunner to run at full speed when in background? Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. You can park a ship into an elliptical . All three wheels (one steerable in front, two fixed in back) are mounted with angle snapping, symmetrically, Wheels are mounted to the fuselage, rather than to the wings (which flex under load), Center of lift is behind center of mass, and slightly raised, Rear wheels are in front of tail, but not enough to make tail strikes easy. But they are tons of fun both to design and to fly, which for me is kind of the point of KSP. zombie2u, You will need more jets at the nose and tail than on the wingtips, as there will be more forces on pitch when transitioning to or from level flight. What is Wario dropping at the end of Super Mario Land 2 and why? Also, I would like to know how I can tweak my aircraft to make them smooth at the controls. Good, strong control authority - instead of reducing the pitch control authority, make the plane aerodynamically stable, so that even if you do flip it, it will right itself. I moved the wheels from the tail to the fuel fuselage, and now she takes off like a dream! The solution is to house the hoverjets in a cargo bay of some kind, with the doors opening downwards. Cookie Notice As crazy as this sounds, it's true, they really get helped out, and it's a really nice thing to do. Yes, although they have only been flown with nearly full tanks. People put waaaaaaaaay too many control surfaces on things from a lot of the screenshots I see. I might try to write a more advanced guide for spaceplane construction. - SF. You can post now and register later. Getting all of this into one craft is a pretty intricate business, however. You're one of the few I've read that recognized the potential of Junos in vtol vs the more popular panthers or using rotating clamp-o-tron assemblies- bigger engines have the huge design downside of shifting COM above fuselage longitudinal axis, which makes rocket placement difficult for SSTOs. So if you're getting those flame-outs, add more intakes until you don't get them anymore. Hi all so I accepted a contract to do temp scans on Kerbin and guessed a plane was the right way to do it so I made this. Otherwise tune the suspension to keep takeoff and landing stable. Kerbal Space Program max Surface Sample storage? The BAK Zephyr, a rocket-powered VTOL craft designed for conducting science missions on Duna. And start small. For what it's worth - watching 1.2 pre-release streams, the upcoming changes to SAS are profound. Right click on the control surfaces and knock down the control authority of each item. 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. The first challenge you're likely to hit is choice of hoverjet. I only very recently got into planes. Would I be better unlocking more parts and leaving this contract for later? Also, a good tip: If you use a Panther as a lifting engine, and link the 'Dry/Wet' control to the Stage action group, it allows you to have a lot of control over your lifting thrust (by toggling the Space bar). instead i atach the fuel tanks as radial fuel tanks, or underwing droptanks, so i can slide them on the hull. Clear editor. SAS sees this and turns the other way, which just causes the same problem in the other direction. [Stock] Brikoleur's Guide to VTOL Aircraft - Kerbal Space Program Forums The Cyclone uses Aerospikes for propulsion. Could a subterranean river or aquifer generate enough continuous momentum to power a waterwheel for the purpose of producing electricity? I haven't encountered oscillations like that in an airplane but I have encountered them aplenty in case of lightweight probes that have too strong control authority - too good RCS or reaction wheels, so I suspect the source here is the same. hope you and others find that useful in the future! (KSP 1.9.1) Subscribe - http://www.youtube.com/c/MikeAben?sub-confirmation=1 Patreon - https://. No, the intakes don't have to be vertical. The fastest known plane demonstrated, in version 0.23, a top speed of about 2377 m/s relative to Kerbin's surface just short of Mach 7. And there's the ever awesome 101 from @keptin. On the other hand, atmospheric craft are superb for exploring it for the very same reason you can scout for the perfect spot for your base, then land precisely there. Ill link it if interested. This thread is quite old. 100% is fine for doing a pure Pilot Assisted flight but for keyboard piloting it's too much. I really hope that this will help you, if you would like more tutorials, click these links: Hello, today I will be showing you how to make an absolutely perfect space plane! For the CoM / CoL relationship to get a stable-yet-maneuverable craft, I'd recommend doing the tweaks in two stages. Before building planes though, there are some inportant things to know. Set the thrust limiter on your main engines to zero. Rasterpropmonitor for Kerbal Space Program, How can I cheat docking in Kerbal Space Program. Eventually you either crash, or you reach a high enough speed that SAS wiggling can't cause a significant enough difference in engine speeds. The CoM (Center of Mass) is a yellow ball on your spacecraft when you enable it in the SPH. We look at the principles behind designing a basic jet. What Trump's very stable geniuses lack in intelligence they more than make up for in confidence. Another pointer is to make your wings larger with the same amount of control surface. there aren't any aerodynamics when you are a kraken scientist like me. Also: high proportion of lifting surfaces to non-lifting surfaces. Adding a vertical intake helps. However, don't put any fuel tanks on it yet, and empty any fuel-containing parts that you are using. I was hoping that the new intakes would give it the added altitude. 4. Then this tutorial is for you. Hit the launch button and watch your magnificent bird fly! This reduces the amount of trim you need to apply to get the craft level in flight. About the landing gear, the best way to stop the weird self steering issue is to increase the spring and damper strength. Even though it just spawned. This can be most helpful when transitioning to or from level flight. Building planes is one of the more fun things to do in Kerbal Space Program, and also leads to more science on kerbin and eventually SSTO spaceplanes. Or about the same speed but 1000 m higher. You do need rather a lot of them. You can pick the main cockpit and rotate the whole craft with it in SPH to see where your CoL will drift. But mostly, the answer is still "because they're fun and educational and you can.". On the other hand, something with a wide wingspan but narrow wings (like the connector Cs) will pitch easily but need more oomph to roll. Thank you for posting this. and our Larger ones have additional wing-mounted pods. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Sometimes though, planes need to do more complex jobs, like flying farther or making it to space, so I am planning on adding another guide to explain how to make and what to consider in an SSTO spaceplane. I've found that all my runway wiggling planes are caused by the wheels. Hovering is expensive but you don't really need all that many seconds of hover either for take-off or for landing. (KSP 1.9.1) Subscribe - http://www.youtube.com/c/MikeAben?sub-confirmation=1 Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/MikeAbenPatreon supporters receive early, ad-free, access to videos, kOS and craft files, and more. Absolute Beginner's Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB3Ia8aQsDKgGHrNZnz2ca8NVuyj7eHXc Craft File - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cfFBMm4EBhDh8mQ2UuOn9f5DL6jBgM05/view?usp=drivesdk0:00 - Introduction1:42 - Planning our Science Collection3:36 - Starting our Build4:49 - Changing Symmetry Mode6:40 - Adding Fuel8:07 - Adding Jet Engines \u0026 Air Intakes9:10 - Adding Wings \u0026 Elevons10:55 - Adding a Tail12:03 - Understanding Center of Lift16:24 - Understanding Control Surfaces18:31 - Adding Landing Gear22:25 - Summary I've been playing around with aircraft over the past couple days, only to find that no matter how low I set the pitch authority, they tumble and crash at the slightest hold of the "S" key. Remembering the FW TA152 and the U2 I put long wings on it and while its turn rate makes an airliner look like a fighter plane it is stable enough at 19000m. I have a simple Vtol SSTO that can take off with junos, hit LKO with rapiers, maybe with 100 m/s left on the rocket side, then return to spaceport and have sufficient liquid fuel for vertical landing. The juno 8-pack in a mk2 bay is my go-to, plus, a single Engine nacelle will provide enough air for them all and fuel is self-contained, making the design easy to scale for larger craft. Also hopefully you're not using any mods that use throttle (Throttle Controlled Avionics etc) as with engines as sluggish to react as jet, this is bound to cause trouble. The CoL should be behind the CoM on a horizontal angle, unless you're building a shuttle. 2 will usually do nicely, but 3 or 4 are usually better (but of course heavier, and this tutorial assumes you use 2). a craft that's designed to fly aerodynamically, using lift produced by lifting surfaces. When your airspeed is near zero and you're above your landing spot, reduce throttle until you start descending. I have made a couple VTOLs in the pastand had a lot of fun with both the engineering and flight challenges. This one is balanced with reaction wheels. This is my current best hi alt plane. My 'plane science' is more advanced than my 'rocket science' (career mode) because I got tired of seeing all the high-altitude missions I had on the books and wanted to finish them. 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. 3. You want to keep the CoL slightly behind the CoM, but not too much to not create torque. So basic, anyone can do it. 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. First off, make whatever you want, just, start off making sense. All rights reserved. Simply changing the intakes made it fly completely out of control and impossible to land. November 1, 2018 in KSP1 Tutorials. For all your gaming related, space exploration needs. Is there any way to reliably fix this? In the crash log, it says that at 00:00:00 there is "Lift-Off!" Mach speed - 343 mps. Absolutely! Plane - Kerbal Space Program Wiki Now I have a plane that will fly around the world at an altitude of the low-20s. My question is really about controllability. You are simply running out of atmosphere (i.e. So yes, it most definitely is possible. If the fuel flows from the. I've found a few body plans to be especially amenable to conversion to VTOL. I'm going to strongly suggest using the angle set to 90 degrees + symmetry mode to place landing gears. high altitude flight :: Kerbal Space Program General Discussions In a twin-boom design, you have one hoverjet at the nose, and one in each of the booms. 4. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Finally, it is really difficult to land a HTOL atmospheric craft on Duna because of the thin air: you'll be going really fast and terrain is really bumpy, so there's a huge risk of ending up as a big ball of fire, whereas it's very hard to land a conventional rocket lander precisely,like when you're aiming for your surface base. The cargo is near the centre of mass, but because it can shift, it's important to adjust the exact balance by tuning the power on the nose hoverjet At its core, a VTOL aircraft is a plain old aircraft, with downward-pointing jets that produce a TWR of > 1.0 with the vector centred on the craft's centre of mass, and some way of controlling its attitude when it is hovering, because control surfaces do nothing at an airspeed of zero. I'm trying to build a high altitude plane and have found out that the rules are different. Another way to manage this is to mount your wings above your CoM. Your link has been automatically embedded. It can be as crazy or as normal as you want, just remember these basic tips, 1. After the drag was sorted out, it wasn't very hard to create a dockable SSTO version. Powered by Invision Community. If I'm running something with a long delta-wing layout, I'll then use canards and have the dynamic instability to allow for manouvering; if it's something without a lot of pitch inertia, I'll go tail stabilizer. LTTP but anyway: the question is, practical for what? 19000m. You can horse hundreds of tonnes, up and down both, with the standard canard pieces. That way you can tuck them away for normal flight, and expose them for hovering. This makes one engine generate more thrust than the other, exacerbating the turn. 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. Kerbal Space Program, how do you disable autosave? Imagine that first plane but with the bubble cockpit and the old style round intakes. To start off with, use ANY cockpit you want, this tutorial is going to teach you how to make anything using anything, as long as you follow these directions. Your very own tutorial.). A Screenshot of Kerbal Space Program. 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? 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! How to keep an airplane stable on the runway in Kerbal Space Program? You need to sign in or create an account to do that. 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. the vertical stabilizer only handles yaw? Use Pilot Assistant - it's SAS is meant for aircraft rather than general ( read: rocket ) use. I'm finding it quite surprising you didn't manage to get the plane to fly yet. Before building planes though, there are some inportant things to know. principle. There are lots of ways to make this work, but here are some designs I've used successfully: For rocket-powered hover, use Spark,Aerospike, or Vector (if you really need a lotof hover power). LTTP again (KSP on hiatus for a bit), but here's an answer anyway. You may be correct and that 3 engine plane is a lemon. Sorry if this is just too basic, it is kind of for beginners, edit: [snipped the stupid thought] i need to stop trying to post when dead tired, I like rules of thumb like these All the info you need without getting bogged down with specifics, Just a quick FYI, you say that CoL is center of thrust and CoT is center of lift; these are the wrong way around. if that does not work, lower the spring strength until it works properly. as a rule of thumb they all lose thrust at higher altitudes and at high velocities. Standard KSP airplane-stability request: post a screenshot of your airplane in the SPH, with the center-of-mass, center-of-lift, and center-of thrust markers shown. You might still be able to turn very quickly, but if you don't have enough wing you won't drag your velocity vector with you, which means you force your wings into a stall and bleed energy in a hurry (and can also lose control, depending). Can I use the spell Immovable Object to create a castle which floats above the clouds? The BAK Cyclone hard at work on Duna. We still don't know what his craft even looks like yet For all we know it could be a single SRB with canards at the front. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. As with everything in KSP, experiment, experiment, experiment. I have not had much success usingonly horizontally oriented intakes - the engines do not have sufficient air flow to generate enough thrust to actually lift the craft. That is something I am really looking forward to. Making a fuselage. I've had a lot of people comment that their planes veer off the runway or flip around madly even though they think they got everything right. Additionally if you have any off-center fuel tanks, double check the fuel is drawn from both at the same rate (same priority). Thanks for any answers! You would need to get down into the 37k-45k zone to aerobrake enough to come down in one orbit. If you forget to put an air intake on your airplane, don't worry! If you placed the main wings at the centre of mass and then added the smaller wings behind, this should be correct already. How do I build a good stable basic plane? 1. [Stock] Brikoleur's Guide to VTOL Aircraft, fuel and trying to add more fuel means you need. I didn't try for 20000m as it probably wouldn't do well. Because of that if you for example place control surfaces at the front you can make a plane that has CoL behind CoM (like in the picture) unstable because CoL will drift forward past CoM as AoA increases (contrary to your 4th point). Clear editor. I actually like canard layouts, but I'm going to endorse this post because it's a simple, easy way to do it. It is also said that a good landing is one you can walk away from. +1 for "If that all fails, you may try building your plane lighter and with mightier (or just more) engines, so it just doesn't have the time to start misbehaving on the runway before you bring it up in the air." Have fun with your S/VTOL craft and don't forget there are more ways to do them as well, including helicopter-like things that don't fly aerodynamically at all. Wings on the front of the craft can cause pitching and rolling, causing you to hold W constantly. If you believe your item has been removed by mistake, please contact, This item is incompatible with Kerbal Space Program. 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. Here's how you go about building a VTOL under these constraints. Any plane needs speed - so you need thrust (usually). ps. To fly a VTOL craft, you need to be able to perform the following actions, which must be bound to a an action group: If you have full RCS control, you will additionally need control for that, and if your hoverjets are inside pods, you will want a control for toggling them too. Similar to the fuel pump mods out there now. Also, lift is usually placed in the middle-to-back of the wing, depending on the shape. All other versions are slower and lower and unstable in turns. Kerbal Space Program - Beginners Guide to Aircraft Aerodynamics Interesting, though even being exponential theres a chance it starts out so small it takes longer than a takeoff to reach noticeable levels. Thank you and happy landings. KSP should be handing out engineering degrees :). (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.