Basic Aircraft Design - Explained Simply, With Pictures

[Dispatcher]

Thanks folks!

I've received a lot of requests to do a flight tutorial, but for all the time it would take to put something like that together, players could learn better through practice and trial & error. Understandably, it can be difficult to learn on certain designs of aircraft, which I why I supplied the EZ Trainer to learn the basics on. Beyond that, any real life flight manual will cover concepts applicable to KSP.

An additional note: I think a joystick/controller is pretty essential for aircraft since the keyboard doesn't allow for small adjustments.

I understand and agree with you on all of the above, and I'm one of the many who have benefited from your (non-video) aircraft design/ build tutorial (thanks again!). While I'm not into making You Tube or other video tutorials, perhaps one or more of the others here might add to the video tutorials out there by addressing the basics of flight. Such could be a stand-alone or a series.

[Wanderfound]

Thanks a bunch, I have been using this advice to good effect. I really appreciate the help.

Cheers. Happy to be of use.

[Thalass]

I don't know if this has been posted earlier in this thread (TL:DR ), but I have head great success using Infernal Robotics rotating actuator parts as pitch trim actuators for my aircraft. Set the speed to lowest in the editor, and set up the IR grouping. You could use it for roll and yaw trim, too, but I tend to build aircraft that are fairly stable in roll, and yaw tends to look after itself. It does make the joint a bit wobbly at high speeds, though.

[Mister Spock]

Great tutorial. I have a pretty basic question. Does it matter which way the Small Gear Bay faces? In one of your pics, the front gear is facing one way, and the rear gear the other. I assume the answer is no?

Also, do control surfaces function properly regardless of which way they're attached to the wing? I sometimes am not sure whether I've attached them right-side up, but they always seem to behave correctly. Maybe I've been lucky?

Thanks for a great resource. I've read and re-read it several times.

[AlexanderB]

Mister Spock:

Correct, the answer is no, the only difference is with the landing lights not shining forward if you put the wheel on backwards. (and who cares about those, so no problem there..)

Just make sure to "unlock steering" on the front wheel, will make driving around a lot easier.

Control surfaces, nope, doesn't matter what way is up, they get adjusted by the game to go the correct way by themselves. you can also tweak them to set up which axis controls what control surface, so (for example) you can split pitch and roll to seperate surfaces, or pitch on all, but roll only on a few, to make it less sensitive in the roll direction.

[Mister Spock]

Thanks! I've spent altogether too much time fighting the UI to get the wheels pointing one way or the other. Now I'll just worry about getting them on straight.

[Googol]

I made an account just to upvote. A million thanks.

23 Failed prototypes, until finally a functional SSTO today (thanks to this guide). I blame Jeb.

[Kitspace]

Hello

I can not read any text on the picture because it does not seem to show up in full resolution for me for some reason and neither does it open with a click. Is there a text version or another place to see the picture in its full resolution somewhere? Or what else can I do?

This thing looks interesting but I just can not read it!

Thank you!

[keptin]

A few people have reported this problem. I just posted an alternate mirror link on the front page. You can also access this here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66999462/AircraftDesign.jpg

[MaxShadow]

Great tutorial! I learnt a lot of things from it. I wasn't sure if should install FAR, thought that it would make things much more complicated. But everyone seems to love it, so I'll give it a try. However, I'm pretty bad with planes. I've made a few working small planes, but I'm failing so much trying to make a little cargo plane to transport a rover to the other side of Kerbin. When I attach the rover, it doesn't fly. The nose tilts down as soon as I reach the end of the road. The center of mass and lift are properly aligned, but the rover is probably too heavy. Perhaps I should make the plane bigger than the rover I also tried to make a little VTOL aircraft (just a squared plate with one jet engine in every vertice), but once I tilt it a bit, it loses control and starts flipping. I really hope these problems are a fault of the KSP engine and not my incompetence anyway, I'll see if FAR helps me or makes everything even worse.

[Wanderfound]

Great tutorial! I learnt a lot of things from it. I wasn't sure if should install FAR, thought that it would make things much more complicated. But everyone seems to love it, so I'll give it a try. However, I'm pretty bad with planes. I've made a few working small planes, but I'm failing so much trying to make a little cargo plane to transport a rover to the other side of Kerbin. When I attach the rover, it doesn't fly. The nose tilts down as soon as I reach the end of the road. The center of mass and lift are properly aligned, but the rover is probably too heavy. Perhaps I should make the plane bigger than the rover I also tried to make a little VTOL aircraft (just a squared plate with one jet engine in every vertice), but once I tilt it a bit, it loses control and starts flipping. I really hope these problems are a fault of the KSP engine and not my incompetence anyway, I'll see if FAR helps me or makes everything even worse.

Have a poke at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/94958-Wanderfound-s-Spaceplane-Design-Guide-for-FAR-NEAR Combining that with keptin's tutorial should give you a substantial head start.

If you continue to have trouble, grab a few things from the Kerbodyne range (linked below) and rip 'em apart for some reverse engineering. FAR spaceplanes can lift pretty much anything to pretty much anywhere, but it does take some time to figure out what you're doing.

[MaxShadow]

WOW that's a lot of spaceplanes. I'll definitely take a look at some of them, specially the biggest ones like the Wedgetail and Albatross. Also, a freaking KR-2L on the back of the Dementia?? THIS IS MADNESS (?) I've read your guide too. Pretty straightforward. Not too long, but it covers some aspects I haven't seen explained anywhere else, like the control surface tweaking, and using flaps and spoilers for landing. I'm using NEAR right now, it's like FAR, but a bit simpler and without the aerodynamics analyzer. I'm starting to get the hang of it, just need to learn to make a good balance between mass and lift. By the way, thanks for the answer!

[Wanderfound]

WOW that's a lot of spaceplanes. I'll definitely take a look at some of them, specially the biggest ones like the Wedgetail and Albatross. Also, a freaking KR-2L on the back of the Dementia?? THIS IS MADNESS (?)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91229-Kerbodyne-Dementia-Porkjet-Memorial-Edition

[MaxShadow]

I bet those kerbals got their brains displaced during lift off.

PD: Squad bought Spaceplanes plus? Nice I hope they buy RemoteTech, FAR and DRE too

[Alshain]

I bet those kerbals got their brains displaced during lift off.

PD: Squad bought Spaceplanes plus? Nice I hope they buy RemoteTech, FAR and DRE too

Not likely, buying art assets is one thing, but plugins are another story. They are designed to add on, not to be native so even if they wanted to add the functionality, they would have to write it themselves.

[tall_guy]

Thanks for the tutorial! Maybe now I'll manage to fly something without crashing...

[Vashts]

just wanted to say thanks. this thread helped get me on the right track.

[Cap Arcona]

THIS WAS FANTASTIC!!! I love airplanes and recently have been reading books on the principles of flight, (most recently ["Introduction to Flight" John Anderson, McGraw-Hill Education 2004] for those interested) but the activities of my planes didn't jive with what I know. Your tutorial was absolutely fantastic, and I have some sweet spaceplanes plying the skies now. Thanks!!!

[keptin]

Thanks folks, glad to see this tut helping so many peeps out. It's been a year since posting and it's received some great feedback and many revisions. I'm very excited for the future aero model coming soon as we approach KSP v1.0.

[Hidden Gunman]

You may have just saved my spaceplane hanger from becoming a storage shed for only ever seen once designs and tumble weeds...thanks man, most appreciated...

(and if I find the &^%$er who suggested 'centre of lift before centre of mass' to me some time back, I'll commit a crime... )

[deepspacecreeper]

Very great manual which explains KSP aerodynamics in a simple way for spaceplane novices.

There is one point about Centre of Mass and C-o-Lift: For some aircraft, especially for those with their wings in the middle of the plane, when the fuel is drained, the CoM shifts back and forth. I will try to find the midpoint of the CoM and position my plane's wings.

[kcs123]

I have used some parts of picture in OP to explain my own design process with SSTO aircrafts. Please, let me know if I'm violating any copyright/ToS, so I can change/remove picture.

And thanks for this thread, I have learned a lot from it and I hope that this picture will help others too.

You can find my recent craft filles and more info in SSTO/Spaceplane/Airplane Design Contest II: Akademy Awards thread - that post is still WiP and I will update it with more stuff ASAP.

[Fieel]

Is there a good tutorial video series that teaches FAR (i have no idea how to use it during construction!) and how to build some examples of basic planes using B9 and FAR?

[kcs123]

There is some videos in first post in FAR thread - check spoiler section. There is also link to FAR wiki. You may check Kerbodyne SSTO Division thread. I wrote some additional info in already mentioned thread in above post. Check spoiler sections.

You can find some decent craft examples for building with B9 and FAR.

When you open FAR graph hover mouse over numbers for tooltip with additional info. Don't know much about video tutorial, but you can start with mentioned. Hope that helps.

[Kermen]

This is best thread I've ever seen. Can I get a hardbound copy of this? I'm literally quivering in awe of the quality of this post. I have never seen anything so eloquent. Are the graphics available in SVG so I can print them poster-sized?