How do I stop my plane?

[maceemiller]

3 hours ago, AeroGav said:

Good job !  Any pictures of your creations?

Yes I have some. Im on my laptop tonight so I will post them here. They dont look much but im proud  

 

 

Edited December 1, 2015 by maceemiller

[AeroGav]

Ah why didn't you say you were playing with FAR (Ferram Aerospace) mod !    That'll be why my plane wouldn't fly - it's heavily optimised for stock aerodynamics and has some tricks that would not work in real life, FAR is wise to them.    Then again it messes with the stock aircraft too, the rules are so different.

From what I hear, the stock aerodynamic model used to be virtually unflyable as well as hopelessly unrealistic.    It's now more forgiving and quite easy to get stuff flying with it, in a semi realistic way.      However, while it's still early days (only had it a week), I'm currently of the opinion that FAR does increase the difficulty along with the realism.  I'm finding it  much harder to create aircraft that are stable, capable of going fast high up and slow low down , like i can with the stock aero.

That second plane looks nice.  Change out the engine for a RAPIER , and the intake for an engine-precooler + tail cone combo,  and it might make orbit... 

[maceemiller]

25 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Ah why didn't you say you were playing with FAR (Ferram Aerospace) mod !    That'll be why my plane wouldn't fly - it's heavily optimised for stock aerodynamics and has some tricks that would not work in real life, FAR is wise to them.    Then again it messes with the stock aircraft too, the rules are so different.

From what I hear, the stock aerodynamic model used to be virtually unflyable as well as hopelessly unrealistic.    It's now more forgiving and quite easy to get stuff flying with it, in a semi realistic way.      However, while it's still early days (only had it a week), I'm currently of the opinion that FAR does increase the difficulty along with the realism.  I'm finding it  much harder to create aircraft that are stable, capable of going fast high up and slow low down , like i can with the stock aero.

That second plane looks nice.  Change out the engine for a RAPIER , and the intake for an engine-precooler + tail cone combo,  and it might make orbit... 

Thanks. TBH im not bothered about orbiting with planes but im willing to give it a go as a week ago I couldnt even fly a plane! I will also try flying withour FAR and see what happens however ive had it installed for so long its part of my mod family

[Wanderfound]

You may find this useful:

http://youtu.be/ji7AV2D3anY

 

[maceemiller]

6 minutes ago, Wanderfound said:

You may find this useful:

http://youtu.be/ji7AV2D3anY

 

Mmmm thankyou for the link. Just had a quick look and I cant wait to watch it

[JTpopcorn]

Chutes, your planes are small so they probably can glide to far less than 100m/s, but chutes are the best way to go from flying fast to stopped.  I have hit over 200m/s landings after deploying chutes on touch down.(Not recomended, but possible)  For your Kerbal's sake I would land along the runway on the grass, stop, then roll up onto the runway for full cost return.

-JT

[juanml82]

Once your speed is low enough so the parts won't break when in contact with the ground (ie, not at 100 m/s), you can always retract the landing gear to force the plane to stop

[wrcsubers]

Landing at high speed is not impossible.  Wheel brakes obviously do quite a bit, but they can make your craft quite unstable, like others said, set the front brakes to about 30% or less of your rear brakes values.  One of the biggest things you can do is enable a bunch of Aero parts to deploy during landing.  I've had successful landings with wheels touching down at 295m/s and being able to stop just past the 1/2 way mark of the runway.  This high speed is certainly not the ideal way to do it, but it can be done...

Here is just that landing...
YouTube

The problem with approaching at this speed is everything happens VERY fast.  You're kilometers out and before you even know it you're at the end of the runway.

[maceemiller]

So, with taking on board everything members have said here and some slight tweaks to my plane I can now safely land at well under 30 m/s.

The tweaks ive made are as follows :

1...my centre of lift was in exactly the same place as my centre of mass. I moved my wings forward to move my CoL slightly behind the CoM.

2..on the subject of wings, I originally had them totally in line with my plane. I very slightly angled them so the front of the wings is higher than the back. This has greatly improved take off and landing.

3..I lowered the front brake strength to the number 5 strength but a major landing help was to move my rear landing gear forward to just behind my CoM. Touchdowns are super soft now.

Last night I thought I would try to land on the old runway on the island. Ive tried many times before but always failed. This attempt went perfectly with a complete stop on the runway with time for Valentina to have a look about before we returned home. 

Once again, thankyou for everyones contributions which have helped me fly and enjoy it

 

Edited December 5, 2015 by maceemiller

[Concodroid]

this has never happened to me... i'm not sure if someone has said this, but do reverse thrust AND/OR parachutes.