Question about wing drag

[herbal space program]

Hello all,

I've been working on an interplanetary SSTO design, and a big part of that is reducing drag to the absolute minimum for the most efficient possible flight to orbit. Now for a fuel tank, it seems quite clear that flying through the air sideways produces quite a bit more drag than flying through the air end-on, but is this also true for wings? At first it seemed like the delta wings I was using generated a fair bit more drag than the much narrower strakes I ended up with, but now I've seen a fair number of designs around that seem to use both swept and delta wings, which cut a much wider swath through the air than the strakes. IRL, all planes that go super-extra fast, like the SR-71, do have a very long and narrow profile, but is this actually true in stock KSP aero? TIA for any insights on this...

Edited June 5, 2015 by herbal space program

[Feradose]

Devs told us that stock aero doesnt use wing shape stuff, and makes any wings change shape in the aero calculations, if its going slow, it acts like a rectangular, non swept wing. If its fast, it acts more like a swept wing or delta wing. The surface area still matters though so less wing = less drag.

[herbal space program]

Devs told us that stock aero doesnt use wing shape stuff, and makes any wings change shape in the aero calculations, if its going slow, it acts like a rectangular, non swept wing. If its fast, it acts more like a swept wing or delta wing. The surface area still matters though so less wing = less drag.

Thanks! I guess I can stop worrying about that now. On a related note, would you happen to know if clipping wings into fuselages, etc. alters their effective area and/or drag? I'm not trying to cheat the aero system or anything, but sometimes the shapes you're given just don't fit the design.

[justidutch]

I have read other posts (too lazy to look for citations) that state that clipping parts does NOT reduce their drag. I have reading nothing about the effects on the lift model though. Perhaps someone can test that out?

[Feradose]

Tested, only FAR mod calculates those with voxels, stock just cares about inline/radial difference which doesnt make sense for wings.