Mk 3 - Does not act as a lifting surface

[Sanguine]

Hi, I don't think anyone has actually mentioned this as an issue yet, however, when I was comparing the Mk2 to Mk3 spaceplane parts in the hangar, I noticed that the Mk2 spaceplane parts actually have a lift rating. While most of them are quite small mostly in the 0.2 range, this still greatly benefits their lift, and thus makes Mk2 planes require less wing area. The Mk-3 parts however, do not have this feature. This is actually quite important, as

A) With the new aerodynamics model, we will not be able to wing spam, and thus Mk3 planes will require grossly huge wing areas, and

The Real life shuttle actually was designed so that the entire body acted as a lifting surface, not just the wings.

I'm sure this is quite an important issue, as it allows for us budding shuttle builders to actually use these parts to their greatest effect.

[GusTurbo]

You're right. I noticed this when the parts were first added. Hopefully this gets corrected.

[Starhawk]

I was quite surprised today when I was thinking of updating the parts tables in the wiki and discovered that the Mk3 parts had no lift!

Happy landings!

Edited April 3, 2015 by Starhawk

[zekes]

Hi, I don't think anyone has actually mentioned this as an issue yet, however, when I was comparing the Mk2 to Mk3 spaceplane parts in the hangar, I noticed that the Mk2 spaceplane parts actually have a lift rating. While most of them are quite small mostly in the 0.2 range, this still greatly benefits their lift, and thus makes Mk2 planes require less wing area. The Mk-3 parts however, do not have this feature. This is actually quite important, as

A) With the new aerodynamics model, we will not be able to wing spam, and thus Mk3 planes will require grossly huge wing areas, and

The Real life shuttle actually was designed so that the entire body acted as a lifting surface, not just the wings.

I'm sure this is quite an important issue, as it allows for us budding shuttle builders to actually use these parts to their greatest effect.

I have a plane that is 400+ tons on launch with reasonable wingspan - you just need to use actual aerodynamics a bit to get your bird off the ground.

[Alshain]

Hi, I don't think anyone has actually mentioned this as an issue yet, however, when I was comparing the Mk2 to Mk3 spaceplane parts in the hangar, I noticed that the Mk2 spaceplane parts actually have a lift rating. While most of them are quite small mostly in the 0.2 range, this still greatly benefits their lift, and thus makes Mk2 planes require less wing area. The Mk-3 parts however, do not have this feature. This is actually quite important, as

A) With the new aerodynamics model, we will not be able to wing spam, and thus Mk3 planes will require grossly huge wing areas, and

The Real life shuttle actually was designed so that the entire body acted as a lifting surface, not just the wings.

I'm sure this is quite an important issue, as it allows for us budding shuttle builders to actually use these parts to their greatest effect.

This is a non-issue with the new aerodynamics model. The new aerodynamics will be based on craft shape like FAR. While Squad hasn't specifically said this, they did say that mods will be able to add flaps, spoilers, and air brakes and they will "just work". The only way that would be possible is if aerodynamics used craft shape instead of arbitrary lift values. So, yeah Mk3 will have a lifting body in 1.0, and so will every other body (like FAR... or you know, real).

Edited April 3, 2015 by Alshain

[Master Tao]

This discussion about KSP's development has been moved to Suggestions and Development Discussion.

Also, more-or-less what Alshain said. We'll have to see how the new aero model works to know whether lift ratings are needed for any parts, not just the Mk 3 parts. FAR and NEAR, for example, ignore those lift ratings, but the parts still exhibit lifting body effects.