Hodo

I agree with the others, ask in the BDArmory thread. If this were an aircraft for FAR I would tell you, your problem is your aircraft is to short length wise. This affects the pitch stability and to some level the yaw stability.

This design may work better in RO, because of the scale differences. On stock Kerbin scale it is to easy to achieve orbit. Something like this while would be a cool project to do but not quite to the scale of the one in the artwork.

Is it going to be with FAR? I personally think it is to easy to build cheese machines in the stock aerodynamic model. But if that is what people want it is cool.

Why do you need more powerful Ion engines, they are already 10x more powerful than anything found today. If you need to take a craft that far into space, you should use nukes. I have had a very successful Ion powered ship in the past. used a couple of nukes as an gravity kicker, to get it out of the gravity wells of some planets.

I know last version I ran hardcore, no revert, no quicksaves, just vanguard EVA chutes. I lost 2 Kerbals due to failures, 1 was because he ejected at mach 3, and well..... it is REALLY hard to keep with in 5km range of another Kerbal when that happens, so he was a loss. The second was due to a damaged craft attempting to land.... the landing was going find till the wing snapped off and then the craft tumbled end over end down to the runway. Took a while to gather up all the debri.

There is a big fat pad, it is called the runway. If that is to small you are either building WAY to big, or you can't aim. Not saying that a concrete slab wouldn't be nice somewhere near the KSC, but you have that MASSIVE green field that the old SQUAD Monolith used to sit in.

I here the samething in the automotive world also... Hell changing sparkplugs thats easy. LOL till you show them that the 5.7L LS1 that they have under the hood of that Camaro is wedged so tight in their that you have to have a special tool to get to them.

Try increasing the max speed to a realistic 45-50m/s instead of the aircraft cruising speeds.

So far been stuck with the first mission. It isn't showing me where to get this Volwen cat from and he is nowhere to be found. Edit- I think I figured out the problem.

Having wheels like that is a bit OP, there arent tires on Earth now that can withstand that kind of abuse in an off-road version. I think the best part of a challange is if there is an element of failure, with stock tires and wheels, if you break them you can fix them, but it takes time. Just like the real Dakar Rally, tires blow, axles break, they take time to fix.

Well today in 40min I had to play I had a contract that needed completing... destroy some military scout vehicles near my KSC.... So I sent out my new attack helo, the HA-1 Fiend.

In the old forums there was a challenge called the Dakar Kerbin Challenge.... If I can dig it up on these forums I will see if I can link it here. It was to drive from KSC to Old KSC. I remember doing it in around 6 and a half hours, and I took a short cut because my vehicle was amphibious. EDIT- Found it my search foo is good. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/45592-drive-to-ksc2-challenge-revived/#comment-636871

You don't have to go to those extremes. But you are on the right path. Most of my SSTOs run about 1.5-.5 wave drag. Mostly you want it low and the line as smooth as possible.

[quote name='DunaRocketeer']I tend to create launcher families that are useful throughout a game, then create a new design family in the next game. Nevertheless, there are a few vehicles that survive from game to game. I love flying a design using a BACC srb and Reliant upper stage early in the game. For some reason, I get a real 'The Right Stuff' vibe from it. What vehicles do you use over and over?[/QUOTE] I have kept the same design for SSTO fighter craft for about a year now. My F-119C Akula is my oldest stock fighter design. [img]http://i.imgur.com/ynZSnIr.jpg[/img] [video=youtube;qKcM2UNj8Ms]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKcM2UNj8Ms[/video]

[quote name='Van Disaster']My single rapier SSTO plane works nicely provided you keep to a specific climb trajectory - if you go too high too fast then it'll flop down the back of the TWR curve & you'll have to pull such high AoA you'll never have the thrust to recover past the extra drag. Having a decent amount of wing helps. [url=https://flic.kr/p/AGX2Ra][url]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/694/22779527327_a61cf26382_z.jpg[/url][/url] Biggest problem is re-entry & not cooking the cockpit. Fixed the hypersonic airliner by switching some tankage to LF/O, and using one pair of engines in rocket mode when the Whiplash pair start overheating - that boosts it to about M3.2 & 20km, and then it'll just meander up to final cruise height. At 27km/M5.0 it's burning less fuel than the supersonic version, problem is it uses half it's fuel just to get there... interesting design puzzle this is being. I suspect given the horrible economy of a rocket motor I might be better off adding more jets instead. [url=https://flic.kr/p/BqBpoA][url]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/747/23250990386_453444449e_c.jpg[/url][/url] ( not fully loaded on takeoff, the tail is an empty tank so I can pump fuel in it to trim when supersonic ).[/QUOTE] I have actually fixed most of my heating issues with the engines by using radiators set near the engine connection points. [img]http://i.imgur.com/CnW4zbM.jpg[/img] You can see them glowing here. The fuel load issue, is a really rough one due to the types of engines being used. I found if you actually reduce the number of engines, it will accelerate slower but will still reach the desired speeds at some altitudes if the wave drag is low enough. The altitude you are trying to reach is really the issue. 27km is quite high for most airbreathers on Kerbin. But it is a very impressive airliner.

[quote name='max_42']making planes was easy in 1.0.4 but the new update something has made it very difficult for me to make planes work.My shuttle falls out of the sky and tumbles after reentry. I downloaded FAR to try and fix it issue but it made little change. the stock planes and stock FAR planes fly, but poorly. All my planes will not lift off the runway, or if they manage to get airborn they [B]fly very very erratically.[/B] thank you[/QUOTE] Most of your aircraft suffer from the same basic issue. Your CoL is to far forward. The issue you are running into on the ground with take off is your landing gear are to far back. Landing gear should be placed just behind your CoM, near your CoL, this is the "point of rotation" for the aircraft. Like in this pic. [img]http://i.imgur.com/XETBVqT.jpg[/img] Notice how the aircrafts main landing gear are just behind the CoM, so it lets the aircraft rotate around them, like a pivot point. So you are not pushing them into the runway on take off. Even on my older VTOL designs. [imgur]TxoCK[/imgur] The landing gear is just behind the CoM, that one was a tricky one though. One of my must have mods now is RCS build aide... I cant suggest it enough if you are building with FAR. It is one of the mods I feel should be stock.

[quote name='A_name']Well you guys, I'm going to mark this as answered now. I finally settled on a design that uses 2 of the large spaceplane tail fins. There's still some sideslip, but it's flyable enough. Val, since you asked, [URL="http://i.imgur.com/9gUhzpi.jpg"]here is a picture of the plane in the SPH[/URL]. In retrospect, my CoM does sit rather back on it and thus closer to the rudders. Final conclusions: -You might need more rudder than you think especially if your CoM is more to the rear of the plane. -At least for this particular design, active yaw control is better. -Bad piloting skills can enhance the problem, i.e. allowing the plane to enter a bank and not correcting often enough. Thanks again for all the help![/QUOTE] You dont have to go huge. [img]http://i.imgur.com/CdzGUwD.jpg[/img] This is one of my UAV SSTOs and it has very small vertical stabilizers but they are more than adequate for the job. Then there is this... my old and trusty F-119C/A Akula [img]http://i.imgur.com/xcbSHN7.jpg[/img] And its replacement the F-134 [img]http://i.imgur.com/7Qhiulx.jpg[/img] Then the SP-365 which is my current medium lifter SSTO. [img]http://i.imgur.com/iVIUKr0.jpg[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/XVIfmcH.jpg[/img] Notice the tail can be big, or small, but its position plays a huge factor in its effectiveness.

So, just messing around with my SSTO program, performing contracts and general exploration. One mission takes my program to the south pole with VIKs. [img]http://i.imgur.com/CnW4zbM.jpg[/img] Great picture with the sun and the moon rising. But managed to get my UAV SSTO program working also. [img]http://i.imgur.com/CdzGUwD.jpg[/img] And of course it is a VTOL [img]http://i.imgur.com/NKeDhoa.jpg[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/luJiTsP.jpg[/img]

[quote name='Paul_Sawyer']Thanks for the tips, guys! I trimmed the pitch on the main wing control surfaces and increased the angle of attack (I think that's how it is called) of tail wings, and now it ascends beautifully! [url]http://i.imgur.com/3yqwp4m.png[/url] I thought about it at first too, but turns out with some subtle tuning it can be manageable. I still have some problems with roll stability, though - for some apparent reason every time I pitch up it rolls slightly to the right. P.S. Holly smokes, I used to play with small aircrafts before, and I couldn't even imagine how many nuances can appear in building different types of planes 0_0[/QUOTE] Good to see you figured it out. Just wait till you start messing with SSTO aircraft, and VTOLs. VTOLs are the tricky ones, the transition from level flight to hover is fun. The other fun ones is supersonic and hypersonic flight.

[quote name='A_name']I’m having some sideslip issues with one of my new spaceplanes. Basically, the plane insists on yawing to the left. [URL="http://imgur.com/a/JdKju"]Here is an album with some screenshots. [/URL] Notes: (1) the plane is not suffering from asymmetrical thrust or air intake, (2) the problem occurs with several types of tail planes, (3) it happens whether I activate or deactivate yaw control on the rudder (in the screenshots where yaw control is deactivated, the yellow line I think just represents the rudder trying to keep the plane straight in its static condition due to its aerodynamic properties), (4) I’ve checked that all parts are symmetrically attached, (5) yaw is disabled on all control surfaces other than the rudder (on some tests as stated above). I can’t for the life of me figure out why this is happening, but needless to say it makes the design practically un-flyable. Please help! Incidental question: Can wing parts even be used as tail planes? As you can see in one the bonus screenshot, before even taking off, the wing begins providing lateral lift (left in this case), as if it has decided that way is “up” and so its lift should pull in that direction. This came up during my testing of different versions of tail planes and I’m curious if this is normal behavior.[/QUOTE] In a nutshell, you lack enough vertical stabilization for that craft. I dont have the time to go into more detail right now sorry. But your tail on that size of craft isnt quite big enough. This is leading to some of your issues. Make sure your vertical stabilizer is far enough from your CoM to act as a lever. In addition to that make sure you have enough control surface on it to actually work. It is generally best to error on the side of caution and have a slightly to big tail then not enough.

[quote name='zolotiyeruki']I tried that (putting a docking port above the middle), but I couldn't get it to dock back up. The way I eventually did it (see below) was to extend the rover's landing legs while in the bay, and that held it in place quite well on the way home. Speaking of which: [url]http://imgur.com/a/zpBbs[/url] 13 tons and change.[/QUOTE] I use the inline docking port, the one that extends from the body of the craft. You would be surprised at how well that thing works. I place it upside down and have it at the bottom of the rover, and the docking port in the cargobay on the floor. This gives it a place for it to dock to as it drives over it.

I would love to see how that plane handles FAR. I imagine it would have comical results.

I haven't tried 1.0.5 yet, so no clue if BDArmory works. I refuse to install it until everything I run is updated. I am patient like that. But very 1950s sci-fi of your design there.

I heard it best from a F-15C Eagle pilot when I was a kid. He said, "Landing an Eagle is just the act of making a controlled crash that the plane can take off again later from."

This is one of my combat SSTO fighters, it has an internal weapons bay, mk2 bay upside down. It is able to take small objects into orbit, around 2m in length and 1.25m in width.