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I'm looking for some VTOL aircraft topic on the spacecraft exchange and I couldn't find any so I decided to create my own. could the creations their post here please have a download link preferably stock but moded is fine. if there is already a forum for please link to it i would also be fine with VTOL tips

I was doing some thinking about a context for a late WW2 aircraft design as I thought builds around this time period could be very fun and interesting. The theatre I came up with us an alternate timeline where the Luftwaffe wins the battle of Britain and successful occupies Great Britain. After this they successfully defeat Soviet forces and are then preparing for attacks on the United States. My vision would be that this war would be fought at Sea and in the Air. German forces from occupied Britain would fight for Iceland and Greenland in the North fighting against Canadian and some of the United States forces, whilst the United States Navy would try to hold Atlantic island chains in the South against German forces from Spain and North Africa. I imagine that Germany would have ramped up production of the Me262 whilst still producing late war Bf 109s and Fw 190s. Germany will have also completed their production models of Hitler's Amerikbomber which would threaten Cities like New York. My idea is that the USA would be forced to rush jets into production to counter the Me262. They would use jet engines sent from the British that they would reverse engineer to produce their own. Early jets were slow to enter production and were notoriously unreliable and had very short range so the US airforce and navy would need new piston aircraft capable of holding their own. Im curious if anyone else has any thoughts on where US aircraft design would have gone if they were forced to keep innovating and if the war was to be fought on this front. Also im going to be designing some aircraft with this theatre in mind using Realism Overhaul and Real Solar system if anyone wants to share some design ideas or specifications for new aircraft

DOWNLOAD: KERBAL X ONLY STEAM (SOON) https://kerbalx.com/InterstellarKev/KDF-K-81-ROC Description Inspired by the famous B-2 Stealth Bomber the KDF K-81 Roc will deliver a payload that can devastate the opposition. Coming with a functioning cargo bay that can supply a host of armaments as well a full cockpit that your two pilots will have enough room to walk around and the view will insure a great flight experience. This is a Fully Stock + DLC Craft (no MODS) RCS Toggle Cargo Bay AG1 Toggle Engines AG2 Switch Modes AG3 Deploy Ladder in Cargo Bay Flags required for the full look (not a mod) place in your Flags folder in your kerbal space program folder DropBox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fy3irumwf9rt5ru/ROC.zip?dl=0 Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k6GFgBn-dMsuXv-OnA-33quBDXuMkmRh/view?usp=sharing A stock aircraft called KDF K-81 ROC. Built with 523 of the finest parts, its root part is strutCube. Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.12.2. Details Type: SPH Class: aircraft Part Count: 523 Pure Stock

Similar to the "What is your favorite rocket" thread, just about your favorite aircraft. Mine are the Boeing 777 and 747, the Antonov AN-72 and AN-225, F-14 Tomcat, and, of course, the Sikorsky Skycrane ( I believe it is the S-64). I couldn't narrow it down to just one, you don't have to either (Just try and keep it under 10 aircraft)

I've been playing the aircraft design Using mod installed in KSP (1.8.1 and now 1.12) for years, All of it is good, except for one fact that this mod generates lift in slow speed (taking off speed) obviously weaker than it should be in reality. I built aircraft according to the real-life examples, I always edit the mass and size in part.xml file and change all mods' setting to make sure the aircrft is close to real ones. This Fokker Dr.I in game is made to be 5.77m × 7.19m, Weights 550kg, Wing area is 20m^2. It's really close to the Wiki data, and I make the Mass-Lift-Centers-distance close enough for a fighter aircraft. However, the stall speed is tragically much higher than real-life-data's 72 km/h, I have to fly over 120km/h to make sure it doesn't need too much AOA to keep level flight. When it comes to other larger aircraft like B-29, the taking-off is so unrealistic that it feels like flying a Space Shuttle. I've been testing the different factors that might affect the Lift force, like the thickness of B9-procedural-Wing, or the length of Leading and Trailing edge, or the distance between deckedwings, And the result is, the only factors that determine lift, are Wing area (not matter how the wing is shaped) and Wing AoA in flight. So that means I can never use the real-life aircraft example's WingArea-to-TotalWeight Ratio to take off in the real-life speed, I have to fly much faster in higher AoA I've tried to edit part.xml to increase the "deflectionLiftCoeff " or any factor that looks like being about Lift or wingarea, but nothing works, the flight test data are the same. So, is there a secret setting button I don't know in FAR fuction that can increase the Lift generated in low speed ? Or is there any other ways to violently edit and increase Lift of B9ProcedralWing or other wingparts?

I've recently been making a lot of aircraft in my new career game, and I'm looking for inspiration. I also think that simply seeing working planes improves new players ability to make aircraft, so... Post you aircraft here! They could be stock, modded, fast or slow, cargo planes or suborbital spaceplanes Just remember, no SSTOs as there is already a thread for that I'll start with my SR-71-K, heavily based off the SR-71 SR-71-K takeoff at dawn Climbing to altitude. Those ramjets produce lots of thrust Cruising at high speed, en route to the Northern Ice shelf

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1:1 Scale Replicas Full stock, full scale, full power In a scaled-down universe filled with scaled-down Kerbals, it's easy to forget how big real planes are. I've been building planes to the same scale of their real counterparts, enabling more accurate replicas with functioning mechanisms like swing wings, moving lift engines, and the odd GAU-8 Avenger. Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-23 Flogger Antonov An-2 Colt Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird North American F-86K/F-86L Sabre Dog North American T-2 Buckeye Douglas DC-3 / C-47 Skytrain General Dynamics F-111A Aardvark Consolidated PBY Catalina Vought F7U Cutlass Martin P6M Seamaster Ryan NYP - Spirit of St. Louis Mitsubishi F-2 "Viper Zero" Vought F8U Crusader The Century Series Convair F-102 Delta Dagger Lockheed F-104 Starfigher Republic F-105 Thunderchief Convair F-106 Delta Dart Lockheed F-117A "Nighthawk" Stealth Fighter PZL M-15 "Belphegor" McDonnell F-4 Phantom II EC-18B ARIA - Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft Douglas A-4 Skyhawk Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-19ST "Farmer-B" USS Johnston - Fletcher-Class Destroyer McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C/D Hornet Superscale (1.3x) Republic P-47 Thunderbolt Superscale (1.5x) North American P-51D Mustang Grumman YF-28 "Alleycat" Northrop B-2 Spirit Martin XB-51 Ilyushin IL-76 "Candid" Convair B-58 Hustler McDonnell F-101C / RF-101C Voodoo Grumman F11F Tiger Panavia Tornado Fairchild-Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II "Warthog" Shuttle Transport System Northrop T-38 Talon Lockheed L-133 Starjet Yakolev Yak-38 Forger Boeing-Saab T-X Trainer Aircraft Dassault Mirage 2000 North American F-100D Super Sabre Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-200 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 North American F-86 Sabre Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor Dassault Rafale Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II Republic F-84 Thunderjet Concorde General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon Grumman F-14 Tomcat (MULTIPLE VERSIONS) McDonnell Douglas / Boeing F-15 Eagle + F-15 ACTIVE STOL/MTD McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II Lockheed NF-104A "Zoom Climber" Sukhoi Su-27M/Su-35 Flanker-E More will be posted as I make them. Feel free to suggest favorite craft for me to take on!

http:// (CHALLNGE IS NOW CLSOED) Welcome everyone to another 'Quest for Hypersonic' challenge. This is a reboot of a challenge I did in September while already planning to try to make it bigger and better. Well now that challenge is pretty much dead and after some thought I decided to start a new one with some major changes. The original thread can be found HERE. Like in the previous challenge the goal is to build the fastest possible stock aircraft in either one of the two classes. Waverider, and Hermes. There are separate rules for both classes. (Details below.) If your design goes fast enough, you will receive a badge for either going faster than 3000 m/s, 3500 m/s or 4000 m/s. You will be able to put it in your signature. After you have submitted your entry, your result will be added to the top 5 leaderboard if you have beaten the record! So first, a bit of background on hypersonic travel. The term 'hypersonic' means anything traveling faster than Mach 5, or 5 times the speed of sound. Note: The speed of an aircraft is only counted as hypersonic if it is in the atmosphere and under 90 km. The first hypersonic aircraft was built by the US and was a two-stage completaly kerbal rocket that reached the speed of mach 6.7. Nothing but ash and dust remained of the rocket when it 'landed'. The first human to exceed the hypersonic barrier was Yuri Gagarin, (I am looking at you, Jebediah), and after that came Alan Shepard from the US. After that a series of developments led to the X-15 aircraft, which, to date is the fastest manned airplane capable of flight. CLASSES: Note: The rules apply only to the seperate classes WAVERIDER HERMES BADGES: These are the badges you get for building a craft that goes especially fast. You can either get one for flying faster than 3000 m/s, one for flying faster than 3500 m/s and one for flying faster than 4000 m/s http:// This is the badge you will receive if you build a craft capable of over 3000 m/s. http:// You will receive this badge if you build a craft capable of over 3500 m/s http:// Easily the hardest badge to get! This is the grand prize of this challenge! The 4000 m/s badge. WAVERIDER CLASS LEADERBOARD 1. @QuarkyGirl 5653M/S 2. @Pds314 5035M/S 3.@I troll children online. 4482M/S 4. @JorgeCS 4408M/S 5. @Vinhero100 4045M/S HERMES CLASS LEADERBOARD: 1. @QuarkyGirl:4806 M/S 2.@ralanboyle 4067M/S 3.@*MajorTom* 3107M/S 4. 5. HOW TO SUBMIT: To submit a craft, first take a pic of your craft and another picture of your record as proof. Then you can post it in this thread with the name of your craft and you record speed under 50 km. If you have passed the 3000 m/s barrier, then you will get a badge! GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN EVERYONE! AND REMEMBER, DON'T OBEY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!

Aircraft Mission Sharing/ Build Challenge I wanted to put forward the idea of a challenge where people can put forward ideas for and create different mission scenarios set in RealSolarSystem Mod such as a city fortified with tanks or a Bomb target somewhere in WW2 Germany and then let anyone who wants to download the save file then design their own Aircraft to complete the mission. I think this could create some really fun possibilities like building an A-10 like plane to take out a line of tanks or a WW2 Bomber with the range to reach Berlin from London to avoid BF109 interceptors and drop its bombs and return home. If anyone has any ideas or wants to take part let me know!

I've been thinking about this for a while now and I'm wondering with the new stuff with the robotic parts and the new helicopter blades, why not get ones with tip jets on them like the fairey rotordyne, reason being with the helicopter motor (R7000 turboshaft engine) produces a lot of toque and i don't want to do a duel rotor design, for mass issues as well.

So, I was attempting to build an F-8 Crusader in KSP today, and that got me thinking: Is there anyone out there who would be willing to make a mod for KSP that adds in the right parts to make a Vought F-8 Crusader? Then, I started thinking about what else a mod like that could include, other than the Crusader's Nose-section, engine-shroud/engine, tail fins, wings, and landing gear. One of my ideas was that with this mod adding F-8 Crusader parts, it could also add in a few other cockpits, wings/control surfaces, and engines. Among these could be different variations of the Crusader nose-section (such as a more futuristic and sleek one, a larger two-seat version, etc), and possibly entirely different plane cockpits. What do y'all think?

Need I say more? More below if the answer is "yes." I bet lots of you are curious about how far your planes can go from their starting point when their tanks are full. However, I doubt all of you want to waste time just taking them out for test runs - one plane at a time. This thread is to finally know, once and for all, how to calculate your planes' range? In the spoiler below, you'll find SPH shots of a few of my aircraft - none of which are SSTOs. What bugs me is that the delta-V count for the engines don't really give a clue. If they are, then I obviously missed it. Could someone point that out, please? I also noticed that the Regional Jet Challenge had the range equation as the following. However, I don't know if it's accurate. Speed in this equation is the given cruising speed at the recommended altitude. Is there any way to calculate the range of my aircraft without needing to download any mods? Thank you.

I realize this isn't a very exciting vehicle by the standards of this forum, but I'm very happy with it. Many of the aircraft I've designed have flown well but have been ugly, or have been sharp-looking but have not flown well. This one looks (to me at least) cool as all get-out, and flies very well indeed. Although I know that KSP has no military content at all, and no way (normally) to arm vehicles, I retired after spending more than 35 years in military service (part of that time in the US Air Force and part as a Department of Defense civilian). This design was inspired by both the US A-10 Thunderbolt II (affectionately nicknamed the Warthog) and by the Russian Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name Frogfoot), both of which are heavily-armed, slow-flying ground-attack aircraft. The KA-1 Stormbringer is a single-seat fixed-wing STOL aircraft powered by a single turbofan engine. It has a generous wing area for its size, giving it good lift and allowing it to operate from short runways. Its robust landing gear and sturdy construction allow it to operate from unimproved surfaces. It carries ten KAS-3 300-mm unguided (but gyrostabilized) air-to-surface rockets which it can fire in pairs. Whether loaded with rockets or after they've been fired, this aircraft handles magnificently, at least by my inexperienced standards. I can literally roll 90 degrees, pull back on the controls, and change my heading by 180 degrees with almost no effort and without pieces of my aircraft falling off. Or I can make the same heading change by performing an Immelmann or Split-S maneuver, at speed, with maximum control input, without my aircraft disintegrating. I have both of the expansion packs installed, and this designs makes extensive use of the TweakScale mod. I was unable to find a way to decouple the rockets when firing that didn't leave part of the decoupling mechanism on the rocket; if anyone has suggestions for this, I would love to hear them.

Level: Intermediate/Advanced: You need to be able to slap together a plane that flies reasonably well before attempting a VTOL. Background reading: Start with the fantastic Basic Aircraft Design tutorial in this very forum. Craft used to illustrate this tutorial: BAK Cyclone BAK Karmilla BAK Drakula BAK Zephyr BAK Bumblebee What's a VTOL aircraft? VTOL stands for "Vertical Take-Off and Landing." A VTOL aircraft as discussed here is a craft that's designed to fly aerodynamically, using lift produced by lifting surfaces, but take off and land vertically. That's what this guide is all about, so we're not talking about VTOL rockets that don't make use of wings to produce lift. We're also not discussing helicopters here, because stock kerbals have not invented the propeller, and stock propellers are a whole big topic of their own. So this guide is about atmospheric craft designed to fly by making use of lift generated by wings, which can take off and land vertically by use of downward-pointing jets or rockets. 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. Their hoverjets just have a TWR of less than 1.0. Why VTOL? Because they're fun and educational and you can. Next question? No, seriously. Is there a point? There are a few missions for which a VTOL aircraft is ideal. Kerbin has some biomes that are difficult to reach any other way. The same applies to Laythe, although it has gentler topography. 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. 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. A V/STOL atmospheric craft built for Duna can drop you on any dime, anywhere on the surface. But mostly, the answer is still "because they're fun and educational and you can." The BAK Cyclone hard at work on Duna. It's a flatbed freighter suitable for shuttling base modules to and from the surface. 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... The basics 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. Getting all of this into one craft is a pretty intricate business, however. In particular, there's one constraint that needs special attention: centre of mass, and the invariance thereof, as you burn fuel. In other words, your fuel tanks need to be placed symmetrically around the centre of mass so it doesn't shift as the tanks dry, and you need to get your vertical thrust vector exactly aligned with said centre of mass. Regular HTOL aircraft can afford to be a bit sloppy with this because aerodynamic forces will effectively obliterate moderate shifts in CoM -- if your plane gets a bit more tail-happy as the tanks drain it's no problem, as long as your CoM stays ahead of your CoL. Mostly anyway. Not so with VTOLs: if the CoM shifts, you're not going to be able to land vertically anymore. Here's how you go about building a VTOL under these constraints. Build yourself a plane. However, don't put any fuel tanks on it yet, and empty any fuel-containing parts that you are using. Switch on the CoM and CoT overlays. Set the thrust limiter on your main engines to zero. Your CoT vector will disappear. Add enough downward-pointing jets to lift the plane, as symmetrically as you can around the CoM, in a minimum of two pods (fore and aft). (You can add more pods to the sides if your body plan permits it.) Adjust the thrust limiter on the fore (or aft) hoverjets until the thrust vector lines up with the CoM. Add fuel tanks symmetrically around the CoM. Add RCS jets to the bottom of the craft, at the nose, tail, and wingtips. Don't forget the fuel – Vernors need oxidant, the others need monoprop. (If you're building a very small craft, you can just use a reaction wheel instead. But that's less cool.) Set up your control scheme: one action group for toggling the hover jets, another action group for toggling the main jets, plus yet another one to toggle the hover jet bays, if you're using them (as you should). There, done. Simple, eh? Hoverjet design The first challenge you're likely to hit is choice of hoverjet. The second one is likely to be aerodynamics – if you just stick on some downward-pointing jets, you will find that they produce a lot of drag, which is going to be really inefficient. Your plane will be slow and have limited range, or you'll have to make it a lot bigger to brute-force your way around that limitation. The solution is to house the hoverjets in a cargo bay of some kind, with the doors opening downwards. That way you can tuck them away for normal flight, and expose them for hovering. There are lots of ways to make this work, but here are some designs I've used successfully: Juno in a Mk 1 utility bay. Stick it inside the utility bay, rotate it to point towards an opening, move it until it's completely inside. These are easy, pretty light, and you can add more of them – within reason – for more lifting power. Array of Junos in a Mk 2 cargo bay. This needs scaffolding: you need to put something in the cargo bay that lets you attach the Junos to it. A short Mk 2 bay will fit an array of 9 Junos, and a long Mk 2 bay will fit 18. That's a lot of lifting power – three Wheesleys' worth in the bigger bay! Also a lot of parts. I hope you have a fast computer. For rocket-powered hover, use Spark, Aerospike, or Vector (if you really need a lot of hover power). Terriers will also work on Duna. Sparks will fit in Mk 1 utility bays, the bigger ones will fit in the bigger cargo bays (Mk 2, 2.5m utility bay, Mk 3). Giving them air Air-breathing hoverjets need intakes. At this point you'll probably need to go back to the plane design you started with, because air intakes are dry mass and will shift the CoM as you add them. Hint: The engine pre-cooler and engine nacelle are fantastic air intakes, and they can be mounted in-line or combined with other elements. You don't have to use their fuel capacity – you might want to leave them dry if they're not symmetrical to the CoM. Hover control The main challenge for hover control is to keep the craft horizontal. If it starts tipping in one direction, you're really likely to flip over and crash dramatically, like a tree falling over. If additionally you can give it a controlled tilt and hold it there, then it'll start accelerating in that direction, like a helicopter. This can be most helpful when transitioning to or from level flight. Option 1: RCS RCS will get the job done nicely, and looks cool to boot. 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. Your choice of RCS jet is the Place-Anywhere or the Vernor. You may need to add several on bigger craft. Option 2: Reaction wheels Reaction wheels will balance smaller craft just fine, but are probably insufficient for bigger ones. Managing centre of mass One of the most finicky problems with VTOL craft is managing centre of mass. In principle it's simple – just place your fuel symmetrically around the dry CoM, and centre your vertical thrust vector on it – but... how? Use wing-mounted engine pods on pylons. Engines are dry mass. Mount them on pylons on the wing, and it's easy to move them forward and back to fine-tune the CoM. Put fuel tanks outside your main stack. Wing-mounted tanks, wingtip tanks, drop tanks, and side-mounted tanks flush with the body all work, as long as they can be moved backwards and forwards relative to the dry CoM. If you don't mind a bit of clipping, you can even make the latter look pretty good by clipping them a bit in the body. It makes no functional difference, but if you consider it cheating, don't do it. Use a long, light tail section. Long tails are good for stability anyway. If you make a long, light tail, you can adjust the balance of the craft by making it slightly longer or shorter without adding a lot of weight or making big design changes. Body plans I've found a few body plans to be especially amenable to conversion to VTOL. They have in common that it's easy to tweak the balance by moving things around, rather than having to add or remove pieces. Twin-boom The twin-boom design is one of my favourites, largely because it looks cool. In a twin-boom design, you have one hoverjet at the nose, and one in each of the booms. Light craft have a single engine at the rear of the fuselage. Larger ones have additional wing-mounted pods. The BAK Karmilla. This one is balanced with reaction wheels. It uses six Mk 1 utility bay-mounted Junos for hovering. The BAK Drakula. A bigger twin-boom design using two arrays of 18 Junos on each boom and a single array of 9 on the nose. Twin-Pod A twin-pod design is similar to a twin-boom, except that it has a conventional tail extending from the fuselage. The hoverjets are housed in the big wing-mounted pods. The BAK Zephyr, a rocket-powered VTOL craft designed for conducting science missions on Duna. It is entirely powered by Terriers. The absurdly big wing and control surfaces make it highly economical for high-altitude supercruising. The BAK Cyclone, delivering a station module to Duna. Note the landing area markers. The Cyclone uses Aerospikes for propulsion. Rockets are much less efficient than air-breathers, so it needs to be much bigger than a Kerbin-bound craft performing the same mission! Control schemes and flight To fly a VTOL craft, you need to be able to perform the following actions, which must be bound to a an action group: Toggle the hover jets Toggle the forward jets Control attitude 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. Taking off The procedure for a vertical take-off is as follows: Hoverjet pods OPEN Forward jets OFF RCS ON SAS ON Hoverjets ON Throttle MAXIMUM 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 The procedure for a short take-off is the same, except that forward jets and hoverjets will both be ON from the start. The craft will lift off once generated lift + hoverjet thrust overcome its mass. Landing To land a VTOL aircraft, approach the landing zone as you would with a regular HTOL craft, until on final approach. Then: Hoverjet pods OPEN Gear DOWN Throttle ZERO Main jets OFF Hoverjets ON Keep pitching up as you approach stall speed. When you're close to it, INCREASE THROTTLE until your rate of descent nears zero. Your airspeed will also fall. When your airspeed is low enough that aerodynamic control is getting sluggish, RCS ON, SAS ON. Control your vector primarily with pitch, and your descent rate with throttle. When your airspeed is near zero and you're above your landing spot, reduce throttle until you start descending. Touch down, CUT throttle, CUT engines, BRAKES ON. You've landed. ...and that's it really! I hope you've found this short tutorial useful. 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. My first VTOL craft was the Bumblebee, and it's still one of my favourites!

The launch of a new aircraft from Kestrel, this time a seaplane! More video to come soon...

Hello, everyone! Recently, I took a break from my usual space-faring missions to build a new VTOL dropship. The Hummingbyrd VTOL has four Panther engines which are mounted on hinges that allow the aircraft to alternate between VTOL and forward flight postures. The decision to use Panther engines was made because of their ability to make instantaneous thrust changes via the afterburners, which helps tremendously when landing. The engine housings use two sets of small internal docking ports with one of each offset to the other engine to allow for each set of engines to remain coupled despite no actual axle passing through the engine mount. The downward-facing payload bay contains an extendable crew bench, allowing for quick on-loading and off-loading of passengers. The crew capacity is 10: two pilot seats and 8 seats in the payload bay. The vessel is 119 parts. Notice the highlighted docking port in the far engine housing, as well as the corresponding un-highlighted port in the near housing. Both are attached to the opposite engine housing, but remain docked to the non-offset port in the same engine housing. This prevents flight/aerodynamic forces from causing asynchronous engine rotation, leading to unbalanced thrust and instability. Shown above is the center of thrust, mass, and lift placement while in VTOL mode. While in this posture, all three are collinear in the dorsal-ventral axis. All tanks with fuel in them are laid out with symmetry front-to-back, allowing the C.O.M. to remain stationary regardless of fuel levels. This is critical for VTOL operations, as any significant deviation of the C.O.M. from the net thrust vector will cause a persistent pitch bias. Shown below is the center of thrust, mass, and lift placement while in forward flight mode. While in this posture, the C.O.M. is offset forward of the center of lift due to the redistribution of engine mass, leading to improved stability while in forward flight. The rear engine set is offset above the longitudinal axis to the same extent that the forward engine set is offset below, allowing the net thrust vector to remain in line with the C.O.M. Action Groups: AG1) Toggle engine orientation AG2) Toggle afterburners AG3) Toggle landing gear AG4) Toggle payload bay doors and piston lock AG5) Toggle piston extension Gallery: I hope you liked it! This ship is a joy to fly, and I highly recommend you try it out! Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/Jamie_Logan/Hummingbyrd Also, Check out my last mission:

After my aircraft takes off, I suddenly pitch up sharply and crash. If I am going fast enough, I can take off, but the moment I pitch up enough it pitches up sharply again. My Aerodynamic overlay and my Center of Mass overlay are inside each other. My center of thrust is directly behind me. I have included pictures. help plz

Applies to KSP versions: 1.0.4 and newer. TL/DR: Among other things, this post explains why your reentering Space Shuttle replica and other winged craft can be unstable even though you built it with Center of Lift (CoL) behind Center of Mass (CoM). It also explains how you can improve general stability of any winged craft with Angle of Incidence (AoI), while at the same time making the craft very SAS friendly, and able to fly straight without SAS. The difference between CoL and Aerodynamic Center Longitudinal Stability, the ability of the aircraft to self stabilize, is attained by having the Aerodynamic Center+ behind CoM. +) The wikipedia explanation for how to calculate the Aerodynamic Center for an aircraft is in the spoiler below. I find it useful to imagine the Aerodynamic Center as an arrow that pulls backward in your craft, relative to it's movement, while the CoL pulls perpendicular to the direction of movement. Lift influences the Aerodynamic Center because, among other things, lift creates drag, but it is only a dominant part while the craft is pointed near prograde. When the craft points away from prograde other types of drag become dominant. CoL actually has less effect on stability, than either Center of Drag and Aerodynamic Center. The CoL actually needs to move to be able to control the craft. To pitch down it needs to move behind CoM. To pitch up the CoL needs to be moved in front CoM. Left and right for roll. And that is exactly what control surfaces do*. You can see this in action in the SPH. Create a simple aircraft mockup, with a handful of structural fuselage. Select the root part and Shift+S, to give it a little AoA, because that's needed for the wings to create lift. Add a couple of small wing panels with control surfaces in mirror symmetry as elevators, either at the front or back. Turn on CoM and CoL and add a couple of larger wing panels with control surfaces in 2x radial symmetry, and place them so CoL is on top of CoM. Using the Rotate Gizmo you can now directly see what really happens to the CoL, when control surfaces move, by rotating them slightly up or down. *) I'll ignore yaw for now. It doesn't contribute to CoL in the same way, because it's a vertical surface. In the SPH yaw is shown as a rotation of the CoL marker. As long as the Aerodynamic Center stays behind CoM, designing your craft with CoL in front or behind of CoM doesn't change aircraft stability much, even in KSP, it just changes how much control input you need to apply, to fly straight. And keeping the Aerodynamic Center behind CoM is the hard part. We can't see the Aerodynamic Center, and for many designs it is close enough to CoL, because large control authority can move the CoL to CoM, so that the CoL works OK as a stand-in for Aerodynamic Center, during design. But the closer then CoM is to the rear of the craft, the worse it gets. The Aerodynamic Center is now significatly in front of CoL. So even if CoL at design time is behind CoM, the Aerodynamic Center might be right on top of CoM or in front of it. This is why most people believe CoL needs to be behind CoM. And with the available information it is the right thing to do. Except it's not always enough. This is also one of the reasons why Shuttles in KSP are so hard to get stable, even when the CoL is far behind CoM. If the Shuttle isn't built to account for the invisible Aerodynamic Center, the mass and wings are often concentrated in the back, but that long fuselage, with lots of drag, pulls the Aerodynamic Center in front of CoM. The result is a lawn darting shuttle, because of CoL too far back, which at the same time spins out of control, because of Aerodynamic Centre being in front of CoM. This has led people to accuse the aerodynamics or the cargo bays of being bugged. Which is understandable given the information available at design time. Angle of Incidence (AoI) Most of us were taught how lift works with pictures like this. Pictures showing lift from cambered wing profiles without Angle of Attack. It's not completely wrong, but it's missing a big part. Most of the lift comes from Angle of Attack, not from the cambered shape. But because of how we were taught, we all have a tendency to imagine wings mounted parallel to the fuselage. On top of that KSP defaults to wings mounted that way. When really we shouldn't. And to make things even worse, KSP does not model wings as cambered profiles. Which means: Wings in KSP always need Angle of Attack to provide lift. By giving the wings "built-in AoA", Angle of Incidence, the craft can be pointed prograde while still creating lift. That reduces fuselage drag greatly. If you mount wings with no Angle of Incidence, then the fuselage has to point away from prograde (the direction of movement) in order to get the wings to create lift. This creates a lot of drag. Even in real life, wings are mounted with incidence. For the same reason: Less drag from fuselage. There is no one AoI that works for everything and it isn't necessarily most optimal to have the fuselage pointed directly prograde, because the fuselage can also contribute to lift (not just Mk2). But in my experience it is always better to have at least 1° AoI than none. Personally I use between 1-5° Angle of Incidence on my designs. I don't have any set rules, but fast craft and/or big wings, needs smaller AoI, and high altitude needs bigger AoI. For SSTO spaceplanes, I've had good experiences with designs that can fly at 0° pitch, without losing or gaining altitude near sea level at 350-400 m/s. That also means the fuselage is close to 0° AoA at the critical phase just above supersonic where drag is highest and the engines haven't reached maximum performance yet. My Solutions Until KSP is able to show the Aerodynamic Center, I use the rule of thumb, that CoM of the craft needs to be as close as possible to midway between nose and tail, and never closer than 2/3 of the craft length towards the tail. Not a very accurate solution and doesn't work for all designs, but it has worked OK for me. Additionally, I design my crafts so the forward most wing has more Angle of Incidence than those behind it. That works effectively as if the elevator has built in pitch, which you can use to move the CoL on top of CoM, without compromising stability. Here are some examples. A stable conventional design (craft file) The conventional straight wing design with CoM forward of the middle. It's a breeze to get stable with CoL on top of CoM, because the Aerodynamic Center is most often behind CoL. Nonetheless, this design has 2° AoI on the main wing to reduce fuselage drag, and no AoI on the tail plane. A stable canard design (craft file) Canard designs, the most prevalent type in KSP, probably due to the way engines are massed in KSP for the LEGO™-modularity and gameplay balance. CoM is often way behind the midpoint, which means the Aerodynamic Center will most likely be in front of CoL. If the CoM isn't too far behind, you might get away with initially designing it with CoL a good bit behind CoM, using CoL as a stand-in for Aerodynamic Center. Once you've tested that it flies stable, you can then add a little more** AoI to the Canard than the main wing, to move CoL up to CoM. If the CoM is far behind the midpoint, see the Shuttle designs. It will now be possible to fly the craft without you or the SAS having to constantly apply pitch-up. It won't reduce drag, but it will make it easier for you or an autopilot to control the craft. The shown craft has a fixed canard with 4° AoI and the main wing has 2° AoI. **) Only very rarely will it be required to have more than 2° difference between main wings and tailplane/canards in KSP. An unstable shuttle design A stable deltawing design (craft file) Shuttles and other pure deltawing designs, are the hardest to balance and require great care taken during design to make sure the CoM doesn't fall too far back. If the CoM is far behind the midpoint, you may be forced to redesign it. It might not be possible to stabilize it without adding dummy weights near the cockpit. Moving the fuel tanks forward might help initially, but instability could re-emerge when the fuel is spent. If the CoM isn't too far behind, you might be able to do something similar as with a Canard designs, by initially designing it with CoL a good bit behind CoM, using CoL as a stand-in for Aerodynamic Center. Again, once you've tested that it flies stable, you can then use the Rotate Gizmo to prebake the elevons with some pitch up, to move CoL up to CoM, to get the craft to fly without you or the SAS having to constantly apply pitch-up. The deltawing jet shown here, has 2° AoI om the main wing and the elevons have been angled up 2° from their default attachment angle. Additionally, the big wing strake has also been angled up 1° more than the rest of the wing. Test showing increased stability with AoI Edit 2016-03-01: Fixed some grammar and clarified a few sentences. Edit 2016-11-03: Added applicable KSP version. Edit 2016-12-01: Added AoI image. (source) Edit 2020-10-21: Format fixes as the new forum software made it apparant, that lots of old style formattings have been mixed over many, many edits.

Built this over 3 days. Has fully stock (no DLC) working S-Foils, flies fairly well, and only has 321 parts! KerbalX link: https://kerbalx.com/OlMuskiBoi/T-65-X-Wing Doesn't come with a targeting computer because Jeb kept switching it off anyway

SPARROW HT-101 and LT-101 Custom Cargo Lift DropshipCustom cargo lift. use L and J to control lift and drop.Use I and K to control VTOL tilt4 standard rotors controlled by main throttleAG 10/0: Controls Panther Engines.AG 5: Toggle R.A.P.I.E.R EnginesAG 9: Switch Mode Panther EnginesAlso Bonus: comes with a free emergency rover tucked underneath top cargo bayHT- 30.34m / cargo lift (HEAVY) KERBALX: https://kerbalx.com/InterstellarKev/SPARROW-HT-101-VTOL-CUSTOM-CARGO-LIFTSTEAM: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2051297280LT- 22.84m / cargo lift (LIGHT) KERBALX: https://kerbalx.com/InterstellarKev/SPARROW-LT-101-VTOL-CUSTOM-CARGO-LIFTSTEAM: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2051302109

Ha, Ha. Jester's Thread This is my multipurpose thread. Screenshots, pointers, downloads and general discussion for advanced building techniques. Using things like Infernal Robotics, part clipping and stabilizing. This is to post my ideas as well as allow you guys to show off your own creations. Basically anything you feel was a complex mess to get flying, driving or floating. The whole idea here is to pass ideas and info around so everyone can build some great stuff. Don't just post a picture and run, This thread is more about "look what I built, and here's how I did it" There's already a thread for Screenshots One of my favorite helicopter of all time the RAH-66 Comanche - More under "Projects" One of my Favorite videos so far. My Protolift lander going to Duna Projects 100+ Mods And Running Strong! 1.3 Mod List 1.0.5 Mod List How To Hit 60-100 FPS (Very old) 64bit - AVP - EVE Help - KSP 1.0.5

Not really sure about this section being the proper place for this query, but i figured that if it wasn't then someone would point me the right way. So currently I'm taking a forced break from KSP (I'm trapped in trigonometry hell pls help!!!!). But i figured as this isn't really something that requires me firing up the game, and has a number of different approaches which would likely keep the thread going for a while . That makes it perfect for something to sit here and simmer while i slog thru graphs, functions and derivations of arcane formulas for the next few weeks. Anyway; to the actual blasted point. I rather enjoy building aircraft in my heavily modded install of KSP, and iv'e always had some difficulty figuring out how to replicate how actual planes use control surfaces. Note we're not excluding stock, but i personally always use Procedural Wings & Control Surfaces along with FAR in my installs. So anything specific to those is worth mentioning alongside other advice if you know of it. For instance flaps; iv'e never once built a plane in KSP with actual flaps. Not because i don't want to, but because i couldn't ever figure out how. Inverting the deployment direction doesn't seem to be enough since then they just become awkward airbreaks sticking up perpendicular to the edge of the wing, and actual flaps can usually deploy in multiple angles (For instance you almost always have settings for "Landing" which create a wack ton more lift so you can go below stalling speeds on approach). Things like Split Flaps, Elevons and Spoilerons i can't even conceptualize how to do in KSP, and it doesn't seem that any tutorials go beyond very basic aircraft design. So i ask of this wonderful community; please vanquish my ignorance and replace it with the knowledge i seek.

My suggestion in a fly-by wire avionics system, and I'm not referring to SAS. It could be implemented into stock or made into a mod. This way an aircraft with, say, a broken elevator or missing canard, could fly. Heck, if the system were properly implemented, you could fly an aircraft that is facing backward without the control surfaces going the wrong way, or even fly an inherently unstable aircraft! Some background info (especially for those who don't know what an actual fly-by wire system is): From Wikipedia TL;DR: Instead of the aircraft responding to the stick being pulled (or in this case [ S ] being held) by deploying elevators, the aircraft just calculates what control surface movements would actually accomplish this pitch up. Here's a hypothetical situation to demonstrate what I mean: You're flying an F-16, but (oh no!) your right stabilator isn't moving, no matter what you do. Now, whenever you try to pitch up, it also rolls the aircraft left. A fly-by wire system would accommodate this by also using the ailerons to stop the roll before it even happens. Another example: you're flying an Aeris 3A (modified to be supermanueverable), and now after pitching up to vertical, you have stalled, but your attitude is still nose straight up. You try to pitch back, and the canards face leading-edge up and the elevators face trailing-edge up. When flying normally, this would do the right thing. But because you are falling backward, it causes a new pitch down. Similarly, roll is also reversed! To simplify it further, the fly-by wire system makes it so that the aircraft does what it thinks you want, instead of what you asked for. KSP could gain so much from a fly-by wire system. Even if you don't fly aircraft, it'd still be useful. Vertically landing rockets would be so much easier because you wouldn't have to fiddle with a negative authority limiter on control surfaces.s2

WELCOME TO THE HANGAR Here there be giants With part counts measured in the thousands, these colossi of the skies aren't for the faint of heart Look inside to find detail-oriented replicas of some of the largest passenger and cargo liners ever built or conceived With no mods or DLC required, these craft are open to all who can handle their bulk! Boeing 747-100 Antonov An-225 "Mriya" Boeing 747-8 Airbus A-380-861 Boeing Pelican "ULTRA" Hughes H-4 Hercules "SPRUCE GOOSE" McDonnell Douglas MD-11 Scaled Composites Stratolaunch Boeing 747sp (WIP)