KSP Quick Guides: Plane/SSTO Tutorials! *SSTO Video Just Released*

[m4rt14n]

It seems that your youtube videos is not showing the first time around. Maybe some mishaps with using the timer? Okay so basically a VTOL design is just a regular airplane design in regards to COM and COL right? Just need to put the COT aiming down COM for the vertical engines?

Yep, still not getting landing on the helipad. Now it's like 1/10 I can land there successfully; I guess that's an improvement.

VTOL is so awesome. It's like Munar landing every day of the week!

Edited February 5, 2014 by m4rt14n

[Claw]

Thanks Do you make a lot of planes/spaceplanes?

I haven't heard of people having issues with my videos loading before. Can you elaborate a little bit or point me in the direction of people who were having issues? Thanks for letting me know about it!

That's about all I've been making lately. I haven't really made any giant behemoths (largest was 90t). I've been mostly focusing on smaller craft and have been really trying to understand the engine/intake/wings/weight relationship. That has let me make more designs where I can push alignment of the CoM/CoT/CoL around. I love it.

As for the videos, I have no idea why. I don't see anything obvious as to why they wouldn't work. It was like Martian said. First time it didn't want to play. Reloaded it and it went fine. Sometimes if I jump ahead or behind, it freezes and I have to reload. The only thing I can think of is your pop-ups. But I don't recall having a problem with those on other videos...

Do you have a video without pop-ups? I can give those a try and see.

[Cruzan]

Maybe some mishaps with using the timer? Okay so basically a VTOL design is just a regular airplane design in regards to COM and COL right? Just need to put the COT aiming down COM for the vertical engines?

Yep! You can make a VTOL without any wings if you wanted to, but you'd have to leave those engines on all the time, even for horizontal flight. That Berret design that I used in the videos can transition to normal plane flight (VTOL engines off) after it takes off because of the wings.

I really don't bring up the CoT bubble very often. As long as you're mounting the VTOL engines directly over top of the CoM like in the video, you won't run in to any problems . The only time the CoT might be useful for VTOLs is if you have a unique VTOL engine setup, like 2 in the back, one in the front or something, but you're just asking for trouble if you do that haha

I had never thought of VTOL landings like Munar landings, but they definitely are! Your whole mission can be gone in an instant!

That's about all I've been making lately. I haven't really made any giant behemoths (largest was 90t). I've been mostly focusing on smaller craft and have been really trying to understand the engine/intake/wings/weight relationship. That has let me make more designs where I can push alignment of the CoM/CoT/CoL around. I love it.

As for the videos, I have no idea why. I don't see anything obvious as to why they wouldn't work. It was like Martian said. First time it didn't want to play. Reloaded it and it went fine. Sometimes if I jump ahead or behind, it freezes and I have to reload. The only thing I can think of is your pop-ups. But I don't recall having a problem with those on other videos...

Do you have a video without pop-ups? I can give those a try and see.

Ya I've been forced in to smaller designs because of my computer's specs. It can't run anything at a reasonable framerate that has over 150 parts or so.

For the video links, I'll have to mess around with it when I get home. I tested them all out and had 3 or 4 of them do exactly what you guys were describing, but it seems to be kind of random. Of all the times it did it though it was when an ad didn't play, so that's odd. Hopefully I can figure it out later, otherwise I might just stick to using one main link for each video. On youtube, the videos' individual descriptions all have a table of contents as well that viewers can use to navigate through the topics if they need to.

Hopefully I can figure it out, but I hadn't noticed it before. Thanks to both of you for bringing it to my attention!

[Cruzan]

Added another quick video to the list! This one covers two different toggling methods that will make flying and landing VTOLs much easier!

Toggling your intakes will take the jet-lag out of the equation, for rocket-like performance while toggling your engines will make landing much smoother and less...explosive

[m4rt14n]

I tried using the Djinn you had for the video, but it's really hard to control. I seem to be missing the prograde marker all the time. I'm guessing I need to go slow on the banking and turning.

[Cruzan]

Hmmm...You might actually be missing the prograde marker because you are going too slow. At low speeds, the prograde marker on any craft kind of does it's own thing, but if you pick up 5-10m/s of speed it should pop up in front of you.

I'll take a look at the craft file I posted to see if there any any problems though!

[Cruzan]

I tried using the Djinn you had for the video, but it's really hard to control. I seem to be missing the prograde marker all the time. I'm guessing I need to go slow on the banking and turning.

Everything was working fine for me. Let me know if I can help you out some more, but these techniques will work for any VTOL so you can always try it with a custom design of your own

[m4rt14n]

I'm just really bad I guess. I think 1 VTOL engine is a bit harder compared to 2 one. Managed to land 4 times on top of helipad out of 20 tries lol. That engine shutoff trick is awesome!

Also I just realized that it is not necessary to put an intake on top of the plane to feed the air to the VTOL.

[Cruzan]

Hehe it just takes practice

Did you try using the intake toggling instead of engine toggling? I've heard from a couple of viewers that they had better success with the intake method. It is "safer" since you won't drop altitude as fast and you can catch yourself more easily.

[m4rt14n]

I'm getting better now, around 70% successful landings. The engine trick seems to work better for me than using the air intake one. Thanks a bunch!

[Cruzan]

Great!

If you want to give yourself an added challenge, the landing pad on top of the control tower at the island KSC can be tough, but is good for practicing.

I haven't tried landing the djinn there yet so I don't know if it can do it haha

[m4rt14n]

I think I'll stick with the helipad for now. LOL. Although mucking about with VTOL seems to increase my skills in flying regular spaceplanes. As now I'm able to land non VTOL planes in the KSC regularly.

[Cruzan]

Haha ya I understand

Landing VTOLs really does make other types of landings much easier!

[Cruzan]

We're finally ready to start covering SSTOs! This video goes over how everyone should get started when first trying to make an SSTO and the key is to start small.

Enjoy!

[Cruzan]

Episode 10 is ready! This episode goes over how to plan your re-entry trajectory for an SSTO. No math needed!

Enjoy!

[m4rt14n]

Can you please do a quick ascent guidance for SSTO that needs to rendesvouz and dock to an orbitting space station?

For example when to time the launch for an SSTO to end up in orbit near to the space station without too much manuevering. Thanks

[HeadHunter67]

These guides were very helpful for me. I've been playing with the KSO orbiter and I have never successfully flown or landed a spaceplane before. It kind of defeats the purpose of a reusable spacecraft if I land it in pieces, so I needed to learn how to land from orbit. I'm still not good at lining up the final approach and touching down safely, but I'm getting better. I have you to thank in great part for my success.

[Cruzan]

Can you please do a quick ascent guidance for SSTO that needs to rendesvouz and dock to an orbitting space station?

For example when to time the launch for an SSTO to end up in orbit near to the space station without too much manuevering. Thanks

Hmm that's an interesting idea. I'll see if I can come up with something!

These guides were very helpful for me. I've been playing with the KSO orbiter and I have never successfully flown or landed a spaceplane before. It kind of defeats the purpose of a reusable spacecraft if I land it in pieces, so I needed to learn how to land from orbit. I'm still not good at lining up the final approach and touching down safely, but I'm getting better. I have you to thank in great part for my success.

No problem! That's great to hear

How do you like the KSO?

[HeadHunter67]

How do you like the KSO?

I love it - it's honestly the thing that brought me back to KSP. After some practice, I can generally land it safely at or near the strip... but I still can't get the hang of lining it up with the runway on the final approach. So often I'll land parallel to the runway (but dozens of meters to one side or the other), or sometimes at an angle to the runway (which could be bad since it's on a berm). Any advice for lining up perfectly?

[Cruzan]

I love it - it's honestly the thing that brought me back to KSP. After some practice, I can generally land it safely at or near the strip... but I still can't get the hang of lining it up with the runway on the final approach. So often I'll land parallel to the runway (but dozens of meters to one side or the other), or sometimes at an angle to the runway (which could be bad since it's on a berm). Any advice for lining up perfectly?

That's sweet! I might have to take the KSO for a spin one of these days

As for lining up...there was a trick I saw on reddit once by Sattorin. He planted a flag at either end of the runway and would line up the two markers on approach so they'd overlap. When they line up like that you'll know that you are coming in fairly straight. I haven't tried it myself, but it sounds like it should work pretty well!

[HeadHunter67]

It's not seeing the line that's the hard part - it's getting the craft to go on that heading. Tried to bank, tried the rudder... it's not a visual issue, it's "how do I make the plane fly in that line?"

[Cattasraafe]

Hey Cruzan awesome videos. Been watching for only a few hours and a just got my first ssto into orbit. Was gonna ask for some advice on the plane. Not sure there is much to give sense the basics are there. Seems like learning fly and build more advanced stuff is left. I've just had trouble with some random flat spins and not judging my flameouts well. What would be the easiest way to send you my craft file?

[Cattasraafe]

Hey Cruzan awesome videos. Been watching for only a few hours and a just got my first ssto into orbit. Was gonna ask for some advice on the plane. Not sure there is much to give sense the basics are there. Seems like learning fly and build more advanced stuff is left. I've just had trouble with some random flat spins and not judging my flameouts well. What would be the easiest way to send you my craft file?

[Cruzan]

It's not seeing the line that's the hard part - it's getting the craft to go on that heading. Tried to bank, tried the rudder... it's not a visual issue, it's "how do I make the plane fly in that line?"

Ah ya that's the tough part

I'd recommend using a plane that has a fair amount of lift on it to give a better glide ratio. This will let you hang in the air a little longer to correct the alignment if you need to. For the most part I'm about 90% lined up with the runway by the time I'm 1km away and then do minor adjustments with the rudder and a little roll to line up as best i can before committing to a landing.

What is the design of the plane you've been using to try and do this with? I could maybe whip up a training design with good handling to make landing easier to practice.

Hey Cruzan awesome videos. Been watching for only a few hours and a just got my first ssto into orbit. Was gonna ask for some advice on the plane. Not sure there is much to give sense the basics are there. Seems like learning fly and build more advanced stuff is left. I've just had trouble with some random flat spins and not judging my flameouts well. What would be the easiest way to send you my craft file?

Grats on getting your SSTO to orbit! You can send your craft file to me here in a PM or email it to [email protected]. Just tell me what you want me to look at on it!

[Pyromaniacal]

I have just watched your spaceplane/SSTO design YouTube series, and am about to see how they hold up to FAR. Hopefully, it works similarly, even if I need some practice before I do much more. You have at least helped me with the wheelbarrowing issues I frequently have, as with the ground hugging for small planes.Thanks so much for what you did!