Jump to content

Retractable wings


Recommended Posts

Shuttle style lifters are easier than mounting a winged spaceplane on top of a booster.   (That is never going to be aerodynamically stable).  You can also do something similar to Falcon Heavy/Delta Heavy, and mount a pair on boosters on the spaceplane's wingtips and/or 2 pair of boosters attached to the wings. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can balance it by adding fins to the back.  Might be a lot of fins, but it'll get you... somewhere.

A few players have made retractable wings in stock I believe, but they might be too cumbersome for the average player / ship.  Check the spacecraft exchange to see if you can find some. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting things with wings into orbit I don't think would be the main use. I think the real advantage is sticking things with wings in cargo bags and fairings. So.... I don't mind this. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, RoboRay said:

Never say "never"...

Fair enough I shouldn't have said "never".  It can be done.  But as your screenshot shows it requires large wings on the booster, wings that might be larger than the shuttle's wings, to achieve something that is aerodynamically stable.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, AVaughan said:

Fair enough I shouldn't have said "never".  It can be done.  But as your screenshot shows it requires large wings on the booster, wings that might be larger than the shuttle's wings, to achieve something that is aerodynamically stable.   

The launch vehicle's wings have to be larger than the ones on the spaceplane atop the stack, yes.  That would have been the case for Dyna-Soar as well.

Dyna-Soar_on_Titan_booster.jpg

Edited by RoboRay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

@Rocket In My Pocket, Did you ever misalign the wing on redocking and not realize it till it was too late?

Actually misalignment was the rule not the exception to be honest lol.

If I could get it within 5 degrees I was usually happy with that, it might pull a bit to one side but it was still manageable.

It only flew a handful of missions, and I think I only got it "perfectly" aligned once. The more interesting question is "Did I ever accidentally hit it and send it twirling off into space?" ...Yes, yes I did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would love retractable/foldable wings... just as I would love retractable/fold-able rover wheels... like those found in the Kerbal Planetary Base Systems mod (the making history retractable rover wheels don't have enough range between deployed and retracted for my purposes)

Ideally something like this:

584c612df7cde8931f17c06b7fca2941.jpg

(the animation is a bit incorrect, the wings would swing out, then rotate, doing it simultaneously results in the clipping that you can see in the video).

I've tried to make designs that fit in a mk3 cargo bay, I havn't used a dockable wing like the poster above... maybe I should have, these dockable aircraft look bad, and land horribly (I wasn't able to bring them to a stop successfully on the ground of the target body... which is more challenging to land on than kerbin)

These looked and flew horribly, they were abandoned:

Spoiler

uN4FPwd.png

T0SCBKs.png

eyoE8wM.png

BTru2XW.png

For launching winged craft via rockets however, the solution is rather simple, have them at the bottom of the craft:

6xcH869.png

Now if you don't want it directly inline, you can do two on each side for easy balance, or put in the extra tweaks to make asymetric designs (such as STS style designs) work.

Yzx9xBb.png

The final transfer stage had to rotate 180 degrees in this design... but that is due to specific peculiarities of my design which also included an orbiting relay and an inflatable heat shield

SkclmXm.png

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...