How Do You Align Elevons With Wings Easily?

[NeoMorph]

For some reason whenever I try they always never align properly. The rotate and offset functions seems to jump in large increments so that I never get the damned angle wrong.

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?

[FyunchClick]

Switch the snapto off (shortcut is "c" I think).

[T-Bouw]

What I always do is:

Have angle snap on,

move the part to the wing (you'll see that, often, the aileron/elevon is perpendicular to the wing),

then use course angle rotations (90 degree increments) to get the aileron to align vertically,

then I use the ofset-tool to slide the aileron to its proper horizontal place,

I copy those ailerons I just made if more are needed along the wing (saves work!)

If needed, I fine tune the pitch of the ailerons with the rotation-tool in very fine increments.

A few testflights will tell what the proper pitch is.

Hope those tips help!

[Val]

When attaching elevons to the trailing edges of wings, with angle snap, I use the phrase: "Dammit, Sit Straight" to remind me what keys to press. (D + S)

To make it work, make sure you have Angle Snap turned on (C key toggles it), then do the following.

1. Grab a new Elevon from the part list.
   
2. Move it to the edge you want to attach it to.
   
3. Press D and S.
   (This should be sufficient for most elevons on horizontal wings)
   
   • Press S twice more, if it's a non-symmetric Elevon and you want the ends reversed.
     

[*]Attach the Elevon.

On vertical wings it usually enough to just press D and nothing else.

Hope that helps.

[Mister Dilsby]

Back before we had the rotate gizmos I used to always put the wings and tail sections in a 'straight' attachment to the fuselage first, regardless of how I eventually wanted them rotated. Then I put the elevons on--relatively easy to align them to the wings if the wings are already in an orthogonal XYZ orientation--and only THEN would I move the wings where I actually wanted them.

[Val]

Back before we had the rotate gizmos I used to always put the wings and tail sections in a 'straight' attachment to the fuselage first, regardless of how I eventually wanted them rotated. Then I put the elevons on--relatively easy to align them to the wings if the wings are already in an orthogonal XYZ orientation--and only THEN would I move the wings where I actually wanted them.

I still do that.

Which reminds me, my instructions above, probably only works for wings that are exactly horizontal or vertical.

[NeoMorph]

Thanks for the help guys... hopefully I will be able to start making planes properly... I've mostly stuck to vertical rockets up to now with only the occasional dabble in space planes due to this annoying glitch it means that every elevator that touches the wing goes BOING and resets to some weird angle that takes a while to get aligned properly

[selfish_meme]

A little trick I learned when placing elevons, with angle snap on, place them on the trailing edge, they are perpendicular right? start pushing them further into the trailing edge, at the right point they snap parallel to the wings

[FyunchClick]

A little trick I learned when placing elevons, with angle snap on, place them on the trailing edge, they are perpendicular right? start pushing them further into the trailing edge, at the right point they snap parallel to the wings

I noticed that too, and they are nicely centered on the wing too when you do so, but I find that only seems to work well with the wing at a right angle as mentioned in the other posts, and I also have trouble getting it to work well if the camera angle is too high. Whatever the angle of the wing, I usually put them on using the method you described, then turn off angle snap and use the rotate and offset tool to get them exactly where I want them and lining up neatly with the ones already on that wing, if any.

Edited September 23, 2015 by FyunchClick

[Mister Kerman]

A little trick I learned when placing elevons, with angle snap on, place them on the trailing edge, they are perpendicular right? start pushing them further into the trailing edge, at the right point they snap parallel to the wings

Yeah, this is what I do. Very simple. You're putting the elevons on the back. I sort of "shove" them into the wing. Push forward enough with the mouse and they will allign the proper way.

After that take angle snap off and fiddle around with it with the gizmos. The hard part is just getting it to sit in-line; but it's not that hard with this trick, and you won't need to worry about them being upside down or anything crazy like that.

[Kerano]

Shift + WASDQE for 5 degree increments.

[sal_vager]

This question on gameplay has been moved to Gameplay Questions