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. Firstly, inadequate air intakes for the number and type of engines you're using (causing some engines to shut down before others). It is advised to place your control surfaces as far from your center of mass as possible. * Gear not mounted to parts that will flex (e.g. Set up for a long glide path, and watch rate of climb indicator at top of screen, aim for -5 m/s. The problem could be due to several issues. I do add a strut to each wheel out of habit since my earlier versions use to roll, better safe than sorry. 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. This can easily cause you to crash on landing. Display as a link instead, All lift-rating means is that the wing section will resist motion perpendicular to its plane. Landing is hard. Note that the lift rating does not mean that the wings will automatically lift a spaceplane into the air when it's moving forward. They all had to use the runway drop to take off. 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 that's not an option, you can still recover some value by landing at any suitable flat place on Kerbin. 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. When your nose is stable at about 10 degrees above the horizon, pull up hard and keep it pulled. Besides the good advice others have given, I would also be very careful with that little tailwheel. Second try, speed over land reached over 210 m/s and it didn't flip. 3. angle of the wheels. - SF. As you approach 35-50 km, your aircraft will most likely level itself out, at which point you can try aiming about five degrees above the horizon line. 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. Control surfaces are heavier than 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. To minimize the risk of such a situation, try to land on a large patch of flat open ground approaching a downhill slope. Pasted as rich text. 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. Place your rear wheels/gear in front of the flaps on your wings. 2022 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. All rights reserved. This page was last edited on 14 April 2021, at 01:04. 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. This plane will be able to take off, travel somewhere, perform a crew report, and then land. As with everything in KSP, experiment, experiment, experiment. For this to happen, I'm assuming you're using rocket fuel tanks. You can post now and register later. Ailerons to roll your aircraft should be placed as far off to the edges of your wings as possible. Does anybidy have any tips on how to build spaceplanes? 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. Having said all that, these are the issues you must contend with. Upload or insert images from URL. Let it get good and clear of the ground before applying any control to it. everytime i make a powered plane, it always flips over and points backwards after i take off. So the answer is: in the SPH, click on your front gear, set the spring to .5 and set the damper to .5 -- then save it and give it another shot at launching. I'm making sure that I keep trying to get it up but it just wont go! 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. In fact, nothing will happen at all, and that's probably bad, so put an air intake on your plane anyway. Enable mirror symmetry to save yourself some alignment effort. 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. They all had landing gear placed at the front and at the back. Keep your nose pointed prograde as you descend through the atmosphere. Yours is a very light plane, and the standard suspension settings are for a medium heavy plane -- so your suspension is too stiff. To takeoff and land at low speed, it's helpful to rotate the wings so the leading edge is slightly above the trailing edge. 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). 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). S5 moon rocket by lightbreaker_64. 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). When dealing with high-speed landings, you may touch down too quickly and cause the front of the plane to smack into the runway. I am definitely aware that there are multiple reasons as to why the plane flips. my planes keep flipping backwards on take off . The Kerbal Space Program subreddit. They all had to use the runway drop to take off. Brakes in the back keep you stable. Either one of those being misaligned will cause instability on the runway during takeoff (and the engines misaligned will cause flight problems). I have found a solution to my problem. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. 200 m/s runway stability just doesn't seem to have a worthwhile purpose to me, and is inducing counter productive engineering challenges. Privacy Policy. 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. 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. I moved the back landing gear to right underneath the COM. Real planes do this as well. Your link has been automatically embedded. You probably won't have much luck landing the fuselage intact if your Mk3 plane gets its wings scorched off on reentry. When flying straight the plane is pretty stable but pitching up causes a sharp roll and I cant figure out why. here are some images and a gif. Close to empty tanks will allow you to fly slower, decelerate faster, and reduce touchdown strain. This aircraft handles smoothly, no matter how you turn, roll and flip this aircraft, it will never lose control. Check out the following guide for some good info: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures 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. 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. Congratulations! I was wrong. Upload or insert images from URL. 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! 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. 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. 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? LV-N has less than 25% of its full power at Kerbin sea level. LV-N exceeds 75% of its full power at just 7700m altitude on Kerbin. It is due to the spinning up of the engines. For more information, please see our And also place them further apart. An alternative is making sure you have complete control of the craft. Heavy Cargo Space Plane SSTO Download. 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. Canards and horizontal tail fins should be placed as far towards the front and back of your aircraft as possible, respectively. Thermal turbulence, caused by convection, happens below clouds and typically only impacts planes during takeoff and landing. Clear editor. 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. First try speed over land reached over 210 m/s before flipping in the last second. This is most likely the standard jitterbugging problem. That's over 2x the normal recommended max. All the weight is pushed on the middle and it can't pull up. 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). 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've had stability issues in planes where I'd have proper gear setup, balanced weight and lift. 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. Any ideas? Note: The large delta wing will ensure you won't backflip. Note that when your jet engines shut down simultaneously while climbing in otherwise normal flight, it is generally due to a lack of pressure from the altitude you're flying at. And above all: have fun! 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. If your rear wheels are too far back the aircraft will not be able to pivot on the wheels and lift its nose up. The tutorial below explains everything very well. This is an important distinction; a plane with great lift rating but without any control surfaces will fly easily but will be almost uncontrollable. 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. This page was last edited on 19 February 2020, at 07:08. So if I start encountering wobble it's time to pull back on the stick and get in the air. 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. Obviously jet engines are air-breathing, so you need to include air intakes in your spaceplane. What you ought to be using is the Swept Wings and Elevon 1s instead of the Delta-Deluxe Winglets. Then at the top, we'll put one tail fin, centred on the end of the fuselage. That said, parachutes are an exceedingly effective means of reducing your stopping distance. T-1 "Dart" engines are unique amongst conventionally-fuelled rocket engines: They have close to the highest efficiency in both vacuum and low atmosphere. However, it's not a matter of "atmosphere or not", just a matter of air pressure which decreases rapidly with altitude. 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). 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. 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! I have done everything imaginable to try to remedy this problem. Alternatively, if you're returning from a high orbit or from an interplanetary trip, you can try repeated shallow passes through the atmosphere. 3. make sure your center of mass is slightly in front of center of lift force. 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. 1. (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. Edit: I made a simple easy plane in career mode that is both stable and cheap: A trick i've used before is to put modular girders on the sides of the fuselage and putting the gear on the bottom of the girders. I wanted to develop a plane to check how are the aerodynamics physics working, and went back to the KSC VAB to design a little plane. Remember how you want your center of lift/drag to be behind the center of gravity? KSP Stock Space Shuttle by _ForgeUser18393701. This can turn into a fatal scenario if the center of mass gets behind the center of lift and you enter a flat spin. Depending on which surface you place them on, they might not be parallel to the axis in which case. 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. So yesterday I was playing some KSP2, and resumed the game from a save where I had landed in Duna. 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. While having the same stock parts as in the VAB, spaceplane design is obviously quite different from pure rocket design. Now I'll walk you through a basic aircraft; fancy stuff like science equipment can be added later. Be aware that landing on water is an option if your spaceplane can fly level at less than ~40-50 m/s. Maybe ;making the tailwheel less stiff would help, too. Balanced fuel saves Kerbal lives. 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). 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. Everything looks perfectly symmetrical as far as I can tell. 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. 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. 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. If you can maintain level flight at about 30-40 m/s, you should be able to perform an ocean landing if needed. 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. A good example of this is at the KSC runway when landing on a 90 degree bearing. All I have are the parts from the Aerodynamics tech and the gear bay (wheels). Beyond that, you're going to get some wobble once you get close to take off speed. 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. If rear landing gear are strutted together, or braced to a center point, they are less likely to torque in different directions. Paste as plain text instead, 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). Note: Some high-efficiency rocket engines lose most of their power and efficiency in low atmosphere. LV-N "Nerv" nuclear thermal rockets are commonly used on SSTOs for the rocket stage if Rapiers are not used. 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 . Why is it doing this? These should be in the bottom left next to the display of the cost of the aircraft. Lift maxes out at 30 and declines beyond that point, so avoid excessive fuselage tilt.[1]. 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. #2 DaSkippa Mar 14, 2014 @ 2:56am as Shkeec said check gear check gear check gear. You can also angle the wings themselves slightly upwards (using WASDQE) in order to make them generate more lift when horizontal. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one. A relatively low-drag alternative is to use an inverted cargo bay and some hydraulic cylinders with structural panels as a cargo elevator. Having landing gears near the front and back of your aircraft can also help to ensure that you won't break your engines or smash your cockpit into the runway. Display as a link instead, 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. Thanks for everyone trying to help! 2. 67K subscribers in the KerbalAcademy community. Powered by Invision Community. However, don't bother going overboard with intakes because your engines will still shut off at high altitudes due to the low air pressure regardless of how many intakes you have. Center of Mass and Center of Lift are the usual causes of instability. 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. Espaol - Latinoamrica (Spanish - Latin America), http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65638-Basic-Airplane-Space-Plane-Aero-Tutorial. For myself, it always was the position of landing gear in terms of pitch. Plane wobble during takeoff - KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials - Kerbal Space Program Forums Is there a way to place landing gear so that i can guarantee my plane can remain stable on the runway even at high speed in excess of 200m/s? 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. The most dangerous part of a spaceplane flight is returning from orbit. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. 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? Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. 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. Tell ya what, I'm gonna try to recreate that thing in my sandbox and see what I get. This would indicate two problems. To minimize drag, vertical tail fins can be kept minimal, since aircraft can be maneuvered adequately by roll and pitch alone. 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. 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. i have no idea why this happens please help. 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. . 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. Any plane needs speed - so you need thrust (usually). My Space Plane Keeps Flipping Backwards On The Runway. 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. 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. Nothing bad will happen. My plane tends to wobble on the runway with the stock game so i decided to download FAR, but the problem still persists. You can post now and register later. 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.