Khazar

Thanks again for help. I managed to design a transport plane. It flies very well and is easy to land, but I can't build rover small enough to fit in. When I try to drive in through the ramp it starts to push transport plane despite visually it should fit in.

I'm trying to make money out of recon missions, usually each contract requires my to take eva report and in flight report in distant area (mostly mountains). To get profit I need to make it a two-way mission to recover most of craft, or fullify multiple contracts at one run if one-way mission. So far I have quite good plane that can go 20-25k alt, reach speeds around of mach 2 and is quite maneuverable but landing is difficult because of very small spread of landing gear. It has low placed tail wheel and 2 side wheels fetched to engine pylons spreading out of fuselage. Because wings are swept backwards, any landing gear put on them is rotated sideway, and I can't rotate it perfectly straight ahead, and I't then impossible to take off. (is there any way to make sure that landing gear is oriented perfectly inline, when in vechicle construction window ?) Now I'm experimenting with the idea of low-speed transport plane that could carry separate rover. The first option is to land in nearby flat area and then use rover to scout difficult terrain. The second is to use low cost rover, drop it during low pass and leave it behind after reaching mission objective. I haven't checked yet if it is possible to load rover at runway so I could avoid exceeding 30 parts limit. Otherwise this concept is out of reach.

How is lift force calculated for W or M shaped wings ? Les't name the point where wings are attached to the fuselage "point A" and the opposite end "point B". In first case the wings are made of one piece 7m long, leveled. In the second case there would be 2 pieces of same wing, first angled 45 upward and second 45 downward. Would both arrangements generate same or different amounts of lift force ? Is it a way to gain more lift force ? I have to keep wingsapan below 15m.

Thanks again. This 2,5 restriction is the problem for sure. I have quite maneuverable plane now and keeping distance below 2,5 km won't be a problem, just never thought I need to . This knowledge will make my life so much easier. I have to get eva reports of mountain, and so far my only option seemed to land near the mountain and take a looong walk. I assume that after dropped pad lands safely on the ground it is considered landed and won't disappear or get destroyed If I fly away more than 2,5 km from it ?

I have finally accomplished those recon missions. Thanks for help. Now I try to drop "recon capsule" to make eva reports without landing entire plane (difficult terrain). Is there a way to launch chute on capsule that has already separated ? If I launch it in same stage as separation, I have good chance that it would fail before reaching ground. Also, would that separated capsule have sas turned on or off ?

Sorry I meant piston engines and propellers.

Do radial engines benefit from additional air intakes like jets do ? Putting more air intakes would allow me to go higher ?

I have another question. I found this mod : https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/8/Magic%20Smoke%20Industries%20Infernal%20Robotics Magic Smoke Industries Infernal Robotics. It seems it should be possible to make variable geometry wings. Would it work with FAR ? Would it make any difference ?

Both control mods are great. It's so much easier to control plane with mouse than it was with keyboard. Pilot assistant is also great improvement, but it seems to be little more difficult to handle properly. What settings should I use to get to desired location using time warping ? Should I use it to keep constant alt, angle or speed to get smoothest flight (to avoid so dangerous quick corrections ) And does it use site targeting or something ? When I got near desired area I have switched to map mode and clicked on target to set is as navigation target (or how its called). After that (not instantly but after very short time) my plane started to turn and dive. It looked like it was trying to aim for this target market, but maybe its coincidence only and it was just reducing alt this way ? I also installed b9 mod, so i have couple new parts which I used in next design. http://www./download/2yk5ar2bakaewbd/PRZECIER_XIV.craft http://www./view/n57tn7cb911oh0f/007.jpg

Thanks I'll try both

This is my most recent plane. http://www./download/p3zss6woayvyc7a/PRZECIER+IXc.craft I made a flight to desired location, climbed above 18k and made raport. Unfortunately I used up 2/3 of my fuel suplies so I wasn't able to get back. I wander how much fuel would I save if I could fly straight ahead instead of constant fighting against sas. Is it normal that when I set up a course (usually climbing at low angle), sas slowly levels and then dives, rolling right at same time. It renders warp useless witch is quite problematic if flight time is around 1h just one way. Is there something I could do about that ? Or is it faulty plane ?

Thank you guys for your help. Thanks to yo now I have a plane for the job. http://www./download/p3zss6woayvyc7a/PRZECIER_IXc.craft I decided to go with just 2 jet engines with additional air intakes and I just reached >18k alt. I fell into spin soon after but it was caused by my error, I climbed at too steep angle and when plane started do fall towards side I countered it instead of reducing angle of climb. Wanderfound: I have no access to radial air intakes other than the one being fuselage and they generate a lot of drag so I put them into the fuselage to reduce drag. I wonder how landing would go Setting elevon as a flap prevents it form acing as a alieron or does it not interfere ? I guess flaps would be useful at landing but it mighnt not be worth lacking alierons. In other words do elevons stil act as elevons when they are flaps pulled up in position 0 ? How about other positions ??

I'm in career mode and I'm forced to use quite basic parts so far. I even had quite similar design at some point of my struggle, but it had same landing gear

Ok, thanks again. I will send you some of my designs. Would you prefer saved aircraft files or sets of screenshots ?

So far most of my flights lasted usually around second or something, so that possible weight distribution disturbance caused by fuel usage could be a problem I didn't have to worry about This design is at stage where I gave up and decided I need to ask for help, so my efforts to make it fly despite dumb landing gear setup twisted it a little bit. Now that I know the importance of landing gear and some other useful things, I can go back and try to work with earlier versions of this design. I'll also try to put more intakes and go without rocket engine. If it turn out that jets will be able to run at 20 k alt that would make things easier. At the other hand that rocket engine could be useful during take off.

I meant something like above, but this is too extreme. Just to show the idea. I always put fuel tanks in line, but how if I would twist them a little, the green ones outwards and the red ones inwards, and then pushing them one into another so there would be no irregular edges. This way I could manipulate with the shape of a plane quite a lot, and avoid sharp junction of one line capsule and 2 lines of engines. Thy would merge much nicer this way. But would this hold, and would they share fuel normally ?? In current stage of my career I can't exceed 15 m of width, 30 parts limit, 20 t of weight and so on. Your design has 19 so I can't afford it. I can get a little bit around 15 m limit by folding wings up and down, but I doubt I could keep that long wings anyway.

Thanks for help. So nice to hear that thing can actually fly I tried so many tricks and changes to the design but didn't pay any attention to landing gear. <facepalm> I haven't researched any structs so far, so I have to avoid more aggressive maneuvers for some time. I would like also to ask if arranging fuel tanks like that would work ? : Is it possible to put them like that ? Would they pass fuel if put that way ? Would it hold ?

Thanks for help. I was losing hope Damn landing gear is the issue !! Thanks, i was slowly loosing hope. I didn't give much attention to the landing gear, thought it didn't matter much. Most of my concern regarding rear landing gear was to make sure engines wont hit the ground when pulling up, so i just put them as low and as far i could. Didn't bother to put it near center of mas. Well i made calculations based on fuel usage during my earlier attempts and I was aiming for 2 way trip with fuel reserve allowing me to stay in area for some time, but i suppose there could be a lot of design flaws reducing fuel efficiency There are 2 fuel tanks per engine. So you say i would be good with just 1 per engine ? I will provide screenshots when I'll get home, but I'm pretty sure landing gear is the problem. As for analysis, I managed to get all green values at 0.25 mach with flaps down and values were green at various combinations of speed and alt I expected to be at during my flight. I'll check when I'll get back home, but i doubt I ever placed COM behind COL. Farthest I sometimes tried to place them as close to each other as possible but never moved COL past COM. And I don't flip over very often I'll try tipping the wings, what to do about tail ? Is it better to use tailfins (no control surface) or controllable winglets ? Well I thought that entire part is an air intake and therefore it should remain open, but now after You mentioned it i suppose that those parts are actually fuselages with intakes visible at the bottom. This 0-1 junction is supposed to be a bulb (or how to call that) helping during transsonic speeds, but originally there were another one cockpit making smooth pas, but i had to remove it when i reached 30 parts limit after adding more control surfaces. Now if I could remove 2 fuel tanks I could put it back. But would it work ? Is it good idea at all ? I thought Rocket engine is easier way to get 18k for short time, than making efforts to keep jets running that high. I'll give it a try. How many intakes would I need to reach let's say 20k ? And do You consider 1 dual intake part as a 1 or 2 intakes ?

Well i doesn't fly. I just thought there must be some critical error i make and it would be obvious for you. Despite many changes i made it just can't get off the ground. I sometimes could reach speeds of about 200 m/s and it still runs flat, or more recently it starts to roll left and right until it hits the ground.

Hi. Could anyone help me with this design ? Is there any way I can tune it to take off and fly ? Or is it dead End and I should think design something totally different ? In order to accomplish recon mision I need to fly quite a long distance (entire ocean), climb to 18,5 k meters and fly around some area. It's early stage of carreer mode, i'm restricted to 30 parts, 20t of weight and so on. I came with idea of plane equipped with 2 jet engines and one rocket engine in the middle which i would start to get 19k alt in area of recon. Is there any chance this could fly ??