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Airplane question


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32 minutes ago, jonpfl said:

How come I cannot add an engine to this design?  It never clicks onto the plane.

Can you explain where you are trying to add that engine (I just now spotted the floating Juno)? 'Click onto' how? A little more information would help to understand what you are trying to do.

The angle of the screenshot makes it a bit difficult to see, but it looks like you have left yourself no free stack nodes (the green balls that show where to 'click' stuff). Most jet engines, in fact I think all of the stock ones (except the gigantic Goliath), require a stack node to attach to, they cannot be attached freely (called 'radially' in the game). What you will need to do is select a part that can attach radially to either the wings or the fuselage and that will leave an open stack node at its back for an engine.

Example: the Mk0 Liquid Fuel Tank can be attached (in mirror symmetry would be good) under the wings or to the sides of the tail connector, and will then have an open stack node on the front and on the back - the front one can take a small air intake, the back one can take a Juno jet engine. Mk0 is a good choice for this size of plane, and with two of them you should have plenty of power.

Edited by swjr-swis
spotted the engine
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Just now, jonpfl said:

I saw some video from an older version that just popped on those engines without a fuel tank.  Or could I be mistaken?

Well, the Junos are relatively recent additions to the game, so it can't have been a very old video. And the Junos have never been radially attachable. But it's possible the video author had mods installed that allow radial attachment (I think Editor Extensions has an option like that). Or... that person might've added a small part in front of the engine that wasn't showing well in the video, like a cubic octagonal strut, or a small nose cone... those parts can be attached radially.

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As swjr-swis said, most engines only attach to the ends of parts not the sides of parts. The advantage of using the small fuel tanks on the side is that you can put the engines on the back of them and the air intakes on the front.

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54 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

Well, the Junos are relatively recent additions to the game, so it can't have been a very old video. And the Junos have never been radially attachable. But it's possible the video author had mods installed that allow radial attachment (I think Editor Extensions has an option like that). Or... that person might've added a small part in front of the engine that wasn't showing well in the video, like a cubic octagonal strut, or a small nose cone... those parts can be attached radially.

All,

My bad, I rewatched video and didn't realize he attached fuel tanks on the wing, I thought they were engines!

Thx

jonpfl

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51 minutes ago, jonpfl said:

Ok, why won't this plane take off?

What am I missing?

What is happening when you try?

I notice that your engines are placed rather low down. See how your center of thrust marker (the purple ball) is beneath the line of your center of mass (the yellow ball)? Your engines are pushing on the underside of your plane harder than the top side of your plane. Usually this means that it will constantly tend to pitch upwards, pivoting around the center of mass. You might try raising the engines up some so that they are in line with the center of mass.

More immediately, if you can't lift off of the runway at all I'd say that it's because your rear wheels are too far back. You need to be able to lean back to bring your nose up when you are trying to lift off. The force allowing you to pitch upwards in this case would come from the air pushing down on your horizontal tail fin causing the plane to rock backwards with the rear wheels as your pivot point. But there's too much weight in front of the rear wheel and not enough leverage behind them so you can't pivot on them.

Move the rear wheels forward more -- just about in line with the engine nozzles should work. Too far forward though and you'll hit your tail on the runway when you take off.

Edited by HvP
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As HvP said, one possibility is to try to move your rear wheels closer to the CoM, so that your tail can push down with enough force to raise your nose.

Or, you can arrange your wheels (by raising the front wheels and lowering the back ones, maybe) so that your plane sits on the runway on a slant from front to back. So it will automatically take off when it gets going fast enough. With a 4 wheel design like that, it will be very hard to turn your airplane when it is on the ground, and you will need to be very careful to be going straight when you land.

 

 

Edited by bewing
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  • 2 weeks later...

I am guessing that with your wheel layout, you are unable to get the tail down enough for your wings to start generating enough lift to take off.  You can raise the rear wheels slightly, lower the front wheels slightly, or a combination of both, so that when the plane is sitting on the runway the nose is higher than the tail so that the wings can work well enough to take off.

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I'd also guess the CoL is really far back. Like, way too far back to be very effective. With the CoL far back, it has a tendency to pitch down more and thus, force you into the runway. But also moving the gear closer, as Scarecrow said, will help.

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Youre using wheels spaced like youd have on a car, for weight distribution. The rear wheels are way behind the COM, which will stop the nose lifting when you pitch up. That plane is light enough though that you dont actually need 4 wheels, you can use 3.

Think of the COM as a pivot point or axle - to pitch up off the runway the plane will need to rotate around this point, but it cant because the rear wheels are so far back it prevents this. For the nose to come up, the tail must go down, and it cant because the rear wheels are there keeping it planted on the runway. The rear wheels need to be much close to the COM, as a guide try between the COM and COL indicators and adjust the heights as Scarecrow indicated. 

Steering would also be more difficult on the ground because those wheels are not steerable.

Alternatively, you could try putting the wheels in taildragger configuration. Put a single, small steerable wheel at the end of the tail assembly (the LY05), and move the front wheels back a bit nearer the COM (but in front of it still). This will also give you that nose up angle you want to start with on the runway. Remember to rotate the wheels dead straight using absolute mode (F key when using the rotate tool) to help prevent veering on takeoff.

 

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