How do you take off in a space plane

[mike43237]

I can\'t take off in a space plane. Every plane I build just speeds along the runway and it won\'t go anywhere, im pressing all the directional buttons but all it does is eventually flip the plane over.

[Volt]

There are a few questions we need to ask here:

Where are your control surfaces vs. your landing gear? If your pitch control surfaces are right above the rear landing gear, you won\'t get anywhere because the surfaces are fighting the force of the landing gear against the ground. Best solution is to move the gear away from the pitch control surfaces (elevators). Otherwise you could try putting control canards near the nose of the aircraft so it lifts from the front, although that only works to a certain extent in my experience.

Also, do you actually have enough lift to take off at the speed you can get to along the runway? Best way to test this is to roll out near the edge of the KSC area and hop off the cliff towards the water, aircraft carrier-style. If you have enough lift, you won\'t go on a death fall into the sea. Gotta be going at a fair speed though.

Edit: Sorry Bill! :

[BillWiskins]

Edit: I believe this is known as being \'ninja\'d\'.

Do you have control surfaces attached? It might sound like a stupid question, but I\'ve forgotten them a number of times (you see a wing, you assume it\'s all included...).

Further to that, make sure it\'s not too heavy. Stability is helped by having the wings further back, behind the centre of gravity. It took me much, much longer than I expected to build a stable, reliable plane - but that\'s why this game is so great. You know it\'s possible, but the challenge is in figuring out how. My best advice is to get back in the space-plane hangar and get experimenting.

[hebdomad]

(I\'ve said this before but I\'ll help you out anyway)

Ok here are a few tips that might help.

1. Landing gear location. This is surprisingly important. Think of your aircraft as one big sea-saw. If you put your rear wheels at the very back, it\'s going to be near impossible for the elevators to \'lever\' the nose up. The best location for your rear wheels is just behind your aircraft centre of lift (just behind the wings). It DOES mean you have a risk of destroying your tail if you get over excited with your take off, but that\'s an issue with real world aircraft too...

2. Keep your aircraft balanced. Unfortunately while burning fuel your weight will shift. As a rule of thumb, it\'s better to be nose heavy than tail heavy.

3. Don\'t bother with ailerons! but do put rudders and elevators on your aircraft. Your command module will roll fine without ailerons anyway and thanks to the code in KSP your \'elevators\' will also do the work of the ailerons for your...

And one last thing... Have a free jet fighter/stunt plane!

You might need a joystick or be really good with a keyboard to fly this jet, but it\'s a lot of fun

(SAS and hitting capslock is recommended!)