How Do I Achieve Stable Flight? - C7

[MyNameIsNotPa]

I have built an aircraft using C7 parts that deploys a UAV that flies on its own. At this point, I have balanced the UAV out enough that it flies very straight for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately it has a slight tendency to slowly roll to the right, where it eventually rolls too far and loses altitude.

I have done my best to balance all the parts of the UAV, and I even can release it with the release craft rolled to the left a bit, but it is still rolling to the right.

Any help or tips on how I can up the balance and keep it from rolling? I\'m pretty confused at this point. :-\

Thanks.

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

I have had problems with this before. Try adding struts to the wings to stop them moving or any other part of the UAV moving. It would also be good if you could include a picture of the craft.

[Tosh]

I have built an aircraft using C7 parts that deploys a UAV that flies on its own. At this point, I have balanced the UAV out enough that it flies very straight for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately it has a slight tendency to slowly roll to the right, where it eventually rolls too far and loses altitude.

I have done my best to balance all the parts of the UAV, and I even can release it with the release craft rolled to the left a bit, but it is still rolling to the right.

Any help or tips on how I can up the balance and keep it from rolling? I\'m pretty confused at this point. :-\

Thanks.

To stabilize roll try placing center of mass below center of pressure (i.e. wings/fins above the fuselage), so that the plane tends to fly with its belly down. More complicated task is to stabilize pitch and altitude; see the post by Iskierka and the following discussion that explains this stuff:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=6341.msg85631#msg85631

In short, fins should have slightly negative incidence (-1° to -2° would suffice) to make the plane pitch up while it has enough speed, and pitch down if it hasn\'t. What prevents a plane from constantly pitching up and going to stratosphere (or tipping over) is the engine thrust; it must be just enough for the plane to stay aloft. And it seems that fins tuning just cannot be done with pure C7 (since the game provides no means to change wings incidence); you\'ll need to edit some .CFG files...

See my Drone pack (link in my signature) as an example of completely stable UAV flying straight for almost 1 hour .