How improve this plane?

[Pawelk198604]

I have a problem with the tail of the plane at take-off, how could I improve this design, all in all I'm proud of it because I haven't played KSP for a long time.
Though Jeb is furious that he didn't get selected as a test pilot?

 

 

[bigcalm]

Honestly?  It looks good in flight - but you absolutely need better (or lower) landing gear on that plane.  Also, because the landing gear is so far forward (likely because you're trying to make for an easier take-off) you're getting tail-strike all the time, particularly on take-off, but also on landing.

Short answer:  Bigger landing gear (LY-10 small landing gear), and move it further back - this will make it harder to lift off, but you'd be much less likely to get tail-strike when doing so, and similarly, less likely to get tail-strike on landing.

[Vanamonde]

Engines mounted above the center of mass will tend to apply a nose-down torque. I'd suggest moving the position of the engines down. Additionally, the model of fin you are using for a vertical stabilizer does not pivot and so is not helping with attitude control. Other than that, I find plane building to be a matter of many small tweaks to improve balance and response to controls. 

[GoSlash27]

I think the landing gear and vertical fin are fine as they are. The main problems I see are 1) the wing is too far forward and 2) the control surfaces haven't been specialized to not fight each other. Also the horizontal stabilizers are a bit big and the reaction wheel hasn't been disabled, but these are minor points.

On point 1... The VAB is misleading in that it thinks every horizontal surface is there to provide lift, but that's not necessarily true. The horizontal stabilizers are there to provide downforce to counter the weight of the nose, not provide lift. I'd recommend temporarily rotating the the horizontal stabilizers in the VAB so that they provide no lift, then move the wings so that the center of lift is slightly behind the CoG, *then* restore the horizontal stabilizers to a close- to-horizontal position with the leading edges slightly low. This will make your pitch response less janky and should cure your tailstrike problem.

On point 2, control surfaces in KSP should be limited to provide control over only one axis in order to avoid cross purposes. Ailerons should only respond to roll, elevators only to pitch, and rudders... You don't really need active rudders in KSP and the plane will track more true in turns with SAS on if you don't have one.

On the minor points: Smaller horizontal stabilizers will give you more precise pitch control and reaction wheels will simply drain electricity and lead to cross control crabbing the same way active rudders do.

Best,

-Slashy

[jimmymcgoochie]

Stick another wheel at the back of the tail to avoid tail strikes. Move your engines down so that they’re level with or under the wings. Fix your main gear- they’re angled wrongly and the wheels are pointing in a bit, make them level and it’ll be a bit more stable on the ground. Reduce nose wheel friction (you’ll need advanced tweakables for this) to stop it swerving around on the runway.

And most importantly- don’t land in cockpit view, it only makes things harder and it’s impossible to see what exactly went wrong in that landing; I suspect you landed with too much bank angle, the right wing hit the ground and that was that.