Retractable Landing Gears; Pretending

[Starhawk]

If the gear are physicsless, their mass and drag are added to the parent part.

So they probably just make the parent part's drag arrow longer.

Happy landings!

[SpacedCowboy]

SpacedCowboy,

I just learned today how to decode all of the numbers.

Here's the important part:

State Area/ Drag coefficient

Retracted Forward 0.140/0.498

Retracted Backward 0.140/0.412

Deployed Forward 0.355/0.704

Deployed Backward 0.355/0.654

Best,

-Slashy

Wow! What a difference.

[Vegetal]

To clarify: The F12 overlay is completely worthless and should not be taken as proof of anything. I've had times when it didn't show ANY arrows on my plane, so...

Interestingly enough, before seeing this thread I was flying a small aircraft and ended up testing landing gear drag, which was very clarifying because the little plane was very streamlined.

What I noticed: With the debug option to show drag values on right-click, I found out the drag is doubled when gear is open (on the smallest one). I also found out the aircraft developed a small pitch down tendency with them open, so I am inclined to believe the drag ISN'T applied to the parent part, but the gear itself.

I still think it's too small a difference though. As some said, you can go to LKO with gear down.