Planes need some love.

[LadyAthena]

With 1.0 and all of it's epic additions I've been having (for the first time) a blast making planes. However, something is glaringly obvious. Planes need love. (Planes and space planes I'm lumping these together).

Not only in parts, but other area's as well. SAS is completely rocket focused as well as pilot skills. The glaring problems I see are:

* No mid range engines.

This is a biggie, all we get are the basic jet engines at the very beginning of the tech tree, and the Rapiers at.. literally the very last node.. There is nothing between that which lets you transition into higher and higher altitudes, and more efficient engines. There are so many different types of engines out there for jets there really is no reason not to have at least 2 other engines for planes to help the transition from regular planes into high altitude planes and finally into space planes.

* SAS controls - Pilot skills

Also are completely rocket based. Planes almost never fly perfectly in line with their current heading. Generally the nose will be pointed up at an angle to allow the trajectory and heading to stay on the horizon. There really needs to be new set of skills (Maybe even a whole new "Class" of kerbals for shuttles and flying "planes" with skills that focus primarily on that).

Skills that should be added at least 1 would be at a specific Rank they could keep the heading and trajectory on the horizon. This is required imo not only because it can be tedious to constantly adjust it, but also because as you fly you're going around kerbal. So the stock "Hold nose here" command will slowly start making the nose point up as you rotate around kerbin.

Turning on SAS with these pilots would also act differently, such as not allowing yaw, (sometimes a few planes of mine like to yaw lazily left or right not sure why, while others fly perfect). These different kerbals will know to adjust the attitude and rudders to fix this yaw issue.

* Other Nice features to have:

- Proper avionics lights besides mods, (there are none for Planes unless they are built in).

- Escape mechanism for advanced cockpit planes. (Certain cockpits that have a built in ejection seat with parachute to boot)

- Ailerons specifically set and designed for flap use (ones that actually fold out, etc. at a higher degree than just setting the stock ones)

- And last but not least, and arguably should be a focus, science that is plane friendly. I know we have the containers now etc., but opening those doors and what not is a little silly, and looks terrible. Nose cones, or fuselages with built in science for planes specifically would be nice.

Edit: I forgot the Ram Jet engines were there /facepalm My point still stands though.

Edited April 29, 2015 by LadyAthena

[AngusJimiKeith]

* SAS controls - Pilot skills

Also are completely rocket based. Planes almost never fly perfectly in line with their current heading. Generally the nose will be pointed up at an angle to allow the trajectory and heading to stay on the horizon. There really needs to be new set of skills (Maybe even a whole new "Class" of kerbals for shuttles and flying "planes" with skills that focus primarily on that).

Skills that should be added at least 1 would be at a specific Rank they could keep the heading and trajectory on the horizon. This is required imo not only because it can be tedious to constantly adjust it, but also because as you fly you're going around kerbal. So the stock "Hold nose here" command will slowly start making the nose point up as you rotate around kerbin.

Turning on SAS with these pilots would also act differently, such as not allowing yaw, (sometimes a few planes of mine like to yaw lazily left or right not sure why, while others fly perfect). These different kerbals will know to adjust the attitude and rudders to fix this yaw issue.

Can I get technical here? I'm going to get technical here.

For those who don't want technical, a summary: SO. MUCH. THIS.

Here's the thing: SAS is a rocket controller. Not a plane controller. I don't mean "it isn't tweaked to fly rockets." I mean the algorithm itself is designed for a rocket.

In controls engineering, there is no "one solution." (No, not even PID). And planes, dynamically, are wildly different beasts than rockets. Theoretically, the "best" solution is a custom controller for every craft. However, since I don't see stock (or even mods...) giving us transfer functions and Bode diagrams anytime soon, this is never going to be feasible in KSP. At the very least, though, there should be some consideration for how fundamentally different planes and rockets behave.

Breaking it down a bit, here's what rocket SAS has issues with on planes, in my (fairly limited, to be honest) experience:

-- The damping ratio on roll is ridiculously low. Over-rolling is incredibly frequent in many small aircraft. On the flip side, and this is where the "one size does NOT fit all" thing comes in, larger aircraft with longer wings can barely roll at all, even with a fair amount of control surfaces!

-- There is zero tolerance for pitch instability. I've kept an aircraft with center of pressure ahead of center of mass under control in KSP 1.0, but there's no way to harness the instability (as in real-life aircraft like the Su-27 and F-22).

-- Yaw...I don't even know. Most designs I see don't have enough tail, but even so, constant veering in one direction should be damped out.

-- Control inputs totally disable the controller! This is the behavior I'd most like to see changed. Control inputs should be inputs to the controller, not overrides for it.

SAS seems to be the same algorithm for all control axes (roll, pitch, yaw). That works pretty well for rockets, but it doesn't for planes. Ultimately, a slightly different controller for each axis would make a world of difference, IMO.

On the flip side:

I have no idea how this would be implemented for planes and planes only. By cockpit? No good, they're used for plenty of other things. A separate hotkey? Probably confusing. A different class of Kerbal *could* work, but I'd personally prefer Jeb and Val to be able to fly both planes and spacecraft. It's certainly a tricky issue to circumvent.

...Maybe one of these days I'll stop being so grumpy about sticking to C++ and Python, learn C# and Unity, and make a controller mod myself....

Edited April 29, 2015 by AngusJimiKeith

[Fel]

Also are completely rocket based. Planes almost never fly perfectly in line with their current heading. Generally the nose will be pointed up at an angle to allow the trajectory and heading to stay on the horizon.

Nose is pointing up is because you are flying a rocket with wings. You can't use the reaction wheels one way while adjusting the flaps another, and the reaction wheels isn't the best analog for CoM adjustment. Turning reaction wheels off lets me trim it down to ~3* (you would need CoM adjustments to push the nose down). Likely will also need to turn off gimbals as well.

Remember, this is not a flight simulator; it's not really a good rocket flight simulator.... it's a lego sandbox. All those buttons in a typical flight cockpit aren't there for show.

[LadyAthena]

Nose is pointing up is because you are flying a rocket with wings. You can't use the reaction wheels one way while adjusting the flaps another, and the reaction wheels isn't the best analog for CoM adjustment. Turning reaction wheels off lets me trim it down to ~3* (you would need CoM adjustments to push the nose down). Likely will also need to turn off gimbals as well.

Remember, this is not a flight simulator; it's not really a good rocket flight simulator.... it's a lego sandbox. All those buttons in a typical flight cockpit aren't there for show.

The world of Kerbin is vastly smaller than irl, and as you said it isn't that great of a simulator, therefore even with just jet engines, I need to fly with my nose tilted up. I need to use SAS with keyboard to keep things more steady, especially in smaller more nimble planes. There's no two ways around it.

[DJK]

The world of Kerbin is vastly smaller than irl, and as you said it isn't that great of a simulator, therefore even with just jet engines, I need to fly with my nose tilted up. I need to use SAS with keyboard to keep things more steady, especially in smaller more nimble planes. There's no two ways around it.

Or you could just turn off SAS and trim the plane manually (which BTW, works as in rl - without a FBW augmentation system). Note that IF you designed a proper plane, IT WILL be inherently stable during flight without SAS, unless you're going for an unstable design like some of the rl fighter jets use - which obviously isn't the design to be looking for when going to space, but a nice one to pull 20 G turns for fun in the atmosphere

Edited April 30, 2015 by DJK

[T-Bouw]

Though I agree that SAS is not adequate enough for plane-use, I also think planes are getting a lot of love already.

Don't get me wrong, I love planes as much as the next fanatic.

But we have flaps/flaperons and spoilers/spoilerons now, 4 different sizes of landing gear, 5 different plane cockpits, bigger wings, etc.

Besides, ejection-seats are fighter-plane territory (guns). Even the Space Shuttle didn't have those later on (could've helped though).

I have my gripes with the game, true, but for me, flying is more fun/realistic than ever.

[Jovus]

I have no idea how this would be implemented for planes and planes only. By cockpit? No good, they're used for plenty of other things. A separate hotkey? Probably confusing. A different class of Kerbal *could* work, but I'd personally prefer Jeb and Val to be able to fly both planes and spacecraft. It's certainly a tricky issue to circumvent.

The simple and 80% correct answer would be: "Did you build it in the VAB? Use the rocket controller. Did you build it in the SPH? Use the plane controller. (Are you rolling around on powered wheels? Use the rover controller.)"

Also I completely agree with you.

[arq]

My main issues with planes are currently these:

Engine Stats - Jet characteristics vary stupendously with altitude/speed. A jet that provides 150kN on the runway somehow can blast 1000kN under the right conditions, then can drop to 0 as soon as you pass 20km or so. I don't usually *want* that much power out of an engine, for one. But I find the wild variability annoying to design around to fly (with most jets, if you don't throttle down as soon as you clear the runway you'll go down in a fireball). Slightly tamer curves would be a welcome change.

Autopilot/SAS - I would love some more plane-oriented stability system, a keypress or HUD button would be fine for this. A pitch hold, wing leveler, and autorudder would be my biggest requests, and maybe a roll/yaw switch. It seems that it should be easy to toggle out SAS for this alternate system with a keypress. I would also love to see control inputs as inputs to the SAS controller rather than temporarily disengaging it.

If you want ejection seats, there are mods that cover that and give kerbals personal parachutes. That should be sufficient. Maybe someday Squad will add something like that, but I expect it's pretty far down their list (also ejecting isn't really an option at the super-high speeds that most KSP vehicles operate). You can always turn your cockpit into an 'ejection seat' by adding decouplers and parachutes, that sounds more 'kerbal' to me anyway.

Flaps already exist. Add control surfaces, set them to deploy with an action group, and invert their deployment (so that they deploy down rather than up). They don't have multiple settings like in FAR, but they still work fine for my purposes. Also, with stock aerodynamics, making them extend back from the wing on deployment wouldn't change them functionally (okay it would move their CoL by a few inches, but that wouldn't be noticeable), the pitch is what actually matters.

[Stealth2668]

Also a stock tool to make custom wing parts one piece. This has been needed for a long time because currently, custom wings just flap around in several pieces depending on size and the order you placed the individual pieces.

[Hodo]

With 1.0 and all of it's epic additions I've been having (for the first time) a blast making planes. However, something is glaringly obvious. Planes need love. (Planes and space planes I'm lumping these together).

Not only in parts, but other area's as well. SAS is completely rocket focused as well as pilot skills. The glaring problems I see are:

* No mid range engines.

This is a biggie, all we get are the basic jet engines at the very beginning of the tech tree, and the Rapiers at.. literally the very last node.. There is nothing between that which lets you transition into higher and higher altitudes, and more efficient engines. There are so many different types of engines out there for jets there really is no reason not to have at least 2 other engines for planes to help the transition from regular planes into high altitude planes and finally into space planes.

* SAS controls - Pilot skills

Also are completely rocket based. Planes almost never fly perfectly in line with their current heading. Generally the nose will be pointed up at an angle to allow the trajectory and heading to stay on the horizon. There really needs to be new set of skills (Maybe even a whole new "Class" of kerbals for shuttles and flying "planes" with skills that focus primarily on that).

Skills that should be added at least 1 would be at a specific Rank they could keep the heading and trajectory on the horizon. This is required imo not only because it can be tedious to constantly adjust it, but also because as you fly you're going around kerbal. So the stock "Hold nose here" command will slowly start making the nose point up as you rotate around kerbin.

Turning on SAS with these pilots would also act differently, such as not allowing yaw, (sometimes a few planes of mine like to yaw lazily left or right not sure why, while others fly perfect). These different kerbals will know to adjust the attitude and rudders to fix this yaw issue.

* Other Nice features to have:

- Proper avionics lights besides mods, (there are none for Planes unless they are built in).

- Escape mechanism for advanced cockpit planes. (Certain cockpits that have a built in ejection seat with parachute to boot)

- Ailerons specifically set and designed for flap use (ones that actually fold out, etc. at a higher degree than just setting the stock ones)

- And last but not least, and arguably should be a focus, science that is plane friendly. I know we have the containers now etc., but opening those doors and what not is a little silly, and looks terrible. Nose cones, or fuselages with built in science for planes specifically would be nice.

Edit: I forgot the Ram Jet engines were there /facepalm My point still stands though.

All of that is available through a few mods.

Flaps can be set in FAR even the angle can be set and combined with other control surfaces like Ailerons.

Escape systems with parachutes for the Kerbals, can be found in the Vangaurd EVA parachutes, I use it all the time, and I just added the eject cfg to each one of the aircraft cockpits.

Aircraft based "SAS" systems, PID Tuner Pilot assistant tool is exactly that and it works wonders.

Avionic lights, there is an actual mod called exactly that.

And if you are having a YAW issue, then you do not have enough vertical stabilizer force to keep the craft flying straight. This can be fixed by either making a BIG ugly tail or just moving it further back from the CoM of the craft where it would have more affect.

[Fel]

The world of Kerbin is vastly smaller than irl, and as you said it isn't that great of a simulator, therefore even with just jet engines, I need to fly with my nose tilted up. I need to use SAS with keyboard to keep things more steady, especially in smaller more nimble planes. There's no two ways around it.

Seriously, try trimming (alt+w), 3* shouldn't be "nose pointing up." I've ran though various stock and found that after turning off reaction wheels and gimbals, I continuously am able to get a fairly flat horizon.

FYI, for EACH change in altitude you need to RETRIM the plane.

Engine Stats - Jet characteristics vary stupendously with altitude/speed. A jet that provides 150kN on the runway somehow can blast 1000kN under the right conditions, then can drop to 0 as soon as you pass 20km or so. I don't usually *want* that much power out of an engine, for one. But I find the wild variability annoying to design around to fly (with most jets, if you don't throttle down as soon as you clear the runway you'll go down in a fireball). Slightly tamer curves would be a welcome change.

If you fly the plane like a plane, you'd have tamer curves. Most notably, by the time you're "breaching" 12km you should be drastically lowering in engine effectiveness, just like in real life. You'll note that getting a TAME (and SANE) 10*->15* incline should result in you leveling off, not having a flameout. Hitting 20km means you're more or less running on momentum and now are just wanting to get to space on a technology that simply cannot do it. The community incorrectly called jetengines "rockets without oxidizer" for a long time.

[arq]

If you fly the plane like a plane, you'd have tamer curves. Most notably, by the time you're "breaching" 12km you should be drastically lowering in engine effectiveness, just like in real life. You'll note that getting a TAME (and SANE) 10*->15* incline should result in you leveling off, not having a flameout. Hitting 20km means you're more or less running on momentum and now are just wanting to get to space on a technology that simply cannot do it. The community incorrectly called jetengines "rockets without oxidizer" for a long time.

Oh I certainly agree. I wouldn't mind stuff tapering off (even lower, maybe 16km or whatever), but it should be *somewhat* gradual. The switch suddenly happens and it's the abruptness that bothers me. The engines blast along better than ever than and then they switch off and you squeeze out the last bits on momentum alone. I'd like them to taper down and find some sense of equilibrium. My issue is that I constantly need to readjust the throttle because the thrust curves work out that you either slow down to a crawl (or stall) or accelerate until the ship breaks up from heat, at least with the turbojet and RAPIER.

[rodion_herrera]

Question: In real life, name one aircraft flown via a keyboard. Well, yes, modern airliners have stuff like an FMC/FD or what we all commonly refer to as an "autopilot", but hey, if I love flying, I actually FLY the aircraft and not relegate control to some box with buttons.

I fly KSP aircraft with a joystick. Issues like trim etc, can all be configured in a joystick. If this thread is at all about the love for aircraft in KSP, I'm curious at why no one even bothered to mention any controllers like sticks, yokes, throttle quads and rudder pedals.