How do you lose your aircraft?

[322997am]

I just wanted to get some community input on how we can recover aircraft. So I want you to tell me what is your top reason you lose control and how you recover. I want to make a tutorial on aircraft recovery so please put as much into this as you can.

Edited December 16, 2015 by 322997am

[quasarrgames]

poll needs more options. specifically

-overheats and explodes

-stalls 100m above the ground

-does not have enough delta v to get to space if it's an ssto (second biggest one for me)

-does not take off/land correctly (specifically with that wiggly thing where the landing gear will somehow be imbalanced even though you put them on completely straight and the craft will wobble and tip over and cheesegrater itself into the runway)(biggest one for me)

 

Just a little constructive criticism

[panzer1b]

Most of my vessels are lost to enemy weapons fire.  i mean no plane can survive a direct hit from a ibeam cannon.

[Overland]

Narrow wheelbase.. My 2 primary aircraft an ultralight sky trike and skycrawler hybrid heli both fly amazing.. The skytrike takes off at 24m\s and floats like a feather.. Similar how skycrawler can float and manuver around KSC as if on rails.. They both make perfect stable terrain surveyor scouts

 

Landing is different.. Never landed a skycrawler in one piece without a parachute and the skytrike isnt much better requiring flat ground

[Guest]

For me, it's when I can't pull up enough while buzzing the KSC.

[LordKael]

If your goal is to create a guide on how to recover, my first suggestion would be to include/reference building tutorials, as a large percentage of issues can be resolved before take off.

Secondly, I would hazard a guess that a good number of people who have/will respond "poor flying" or "crashed it into something" simply need to check the tweakables. Disabling all yaw control, and simply having a vertical stabilizer without any rudder will make flying these planes much easier for beginning pilots. Having logged somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 hours on various flight simulators, as well as a few hundred hours on RC aircraft of all sorts, flying a 3ch plane is infinitely easier, and will prevent amateur mistakes such as using the rudder to turn. 

Third, I would suggest that anybody who has issues with stalling or engine flameouts try flying less aggressively. Including tips on how to fly smoothly would be a boon to them.

[cantab]

Overstressing the airframe and breaking the wings or tail off. FAR makes this quite easy to do if you lighten the wings, and it sometimes leads to total airframe disintegration. I suppose it usually falls under poor flying, and indeed it's usually when I'm clowning around not flying sensibly, though earlier today I managed to have an aircraft break up due to *lack* of control authority (it couldn't pitch up out of a dive and so got crushed by the denser lower air).

Really the only possible recovery from that is to eject either the cockpit or the crew and descend on a parachute.

The other way I crash is when landing, especially away from KSC. Landing problems are typically down to a mix of bad plane design and one part unskilled flying. In this case it often is possible to take action and hold the landing together, or indeed to recognise when a go-around is appropriate.

[nosirrbro]

For me its usually doing 15+g turns at mach 2 and having the wings ripped into shreds.

 

That and my planes veering off the runway on takeoff. WHY THE HELL PLANE? WHY?

[problemecium]

I request an additional option: Not enough control surfaces / too unwieldy in general. Because that's the primary cause of failed test aircraft for me, particularly when using the heavy Mk3 stuff.

[Geschosskopf]

The most common cause of losing aircraft for me is attempting to land non-VTOLs at the very summit of Old Shineytop, the tall spike mountain just west of KSC  This mountain is named for all the glittering aluminum fragments littering its upper slopes

Next most common cause of loss is attempting to fly through the porte-cochère of the Astronaut Complex at high speed.

Third most common cause of loss is attempting to fly through the hangars on Airbase Island at high speed from the mountain side.

Fourth most common cause of loss is pulling too many Gs and causing an accelerated stall, usually leading to a high-speed lomcovak at very low altitude.

 

 

[katateochi]

Most of my aircraft crashes are due to pilot error while being close to the ground or KSC buildings.  I don't tend to go far in regular planes (spaceplanes are a different matter), I enjoy mucking around KSC and doing low alt flying.  When that goes wrong, not a lot can help....although an ejecting cockpit has saved the day on a few occasions. 
I also get a kick out of very fast landings (200m/s), feels awesome when it works, looks awesome when it goes wrong.  But again, that's mostly a pilot error problem, trying to correct too much just before touch down. What I find really helps with that is setting up some markers (3 flags or simple probes) in a line leading up to the runway, with that I stand a better chance of being well lined up before landing. But that's more pre-emptive than recovery.

 

[Reactordrone]

Mostly landing accidents with the occasional controlled flight into terrain.

[Temstar]

Veering off during take off is usually caused by too much lift at the back of the plane, this almost always happen with delta wing planes with tricycle landing gear. The lift generated at the back causes the back wheels to lift off slightly, decreasing your AoA and forcing your front wheel into the ground. At this point your plane becomes a wheelbarrow hence why it starts snaking.

To counter this what you can do is hold the joystick fully back before you start your engine. Once you start moving this lifts the front wheel and force down the back wheels

[DunaRocketeer]

These days it's largely to do with landing badly on rough terrain. I've mostly done away with that due to my VTOL, but that comes with its own risks...

[Inverurie Jones]

Pilot error or misuse of time warp. Liberal use of parachutes usually prevents catastrophic loss.

[Bev7787]

Poor flying? Nah I blame landing gear

[Red Iron Crown]

For me:

Most common: Insufficient pitch authority at the end of runway, impact ground or water almost immediately.
Next most common: Plane inexplicably yaws/rolls when accelerating on the runway and disintegrates.
After that: Excessive control input at high speed leading to aerodynamic disassembly.
If I get past all that: Excessive sink rate on landing, leading to part distribution around KSC. Pod survives (usually).

[KerBlammo]

Headline: Crashed Plane Flying Too Close To Ground  According To Investigators.

Other than design flaws its usually when I'm doing low level flying, buzzing KSC or moving the camera around for a glamour shot...

That or trying to land a VTOL. I can do it safely most of the time, but certainly not ALL the time!

[Tex_NL]

Who says I loose aircraft?

[ZooNamedGames]

For me, if the landing gear doesn't cause me to crash upon landing or not enough vertical lift after running off the runway, then I typically make it off fine. Tbh, I don't crash that often.

[adsii1970]

For me, these are the top ways I lose aircraft:

• Five-year old daughter attempts to climb in my lap during take-off, landing, or when I am weaving through mountains at high velocities.
• Cat jumps into lap (with claws extended) in my lap during take-off, landing, or when I am weaving through mountains at high velocities.
• Forgot to include airbrakes, engines don't have reverse thrusts, and I overshoot the end of the runway.
• Aircraft hits over 465 m/s and I attempt something stupid, like a high banking turn or a sudden high stressor, such as a rapid descent or ascent, or other rapid change of direction.

 

[AeroGav]

Mostly it's  a case of taking a successful design, modifying it "slightly",  and thinking "the hell with it, no need to check centre of mass on empty tanks, it was only a small mod and the last one flew great".      

Going up to orbit, unloading cargo, re-entering, then getting stuck in a flat spin.   Reload from pre-launch save and kiss goodbye to the last two hours..

[Gojira1000]

Flat spins are a PITA, but the feeling of joy when you manage to somehow power out of one is awesome. Still, they're my usual killer. Normally because I'm either hauling empty or hauling overweight and have buggered my CoM/CoL.

I have an unhealthy belief that Jeb can fly anything.

[Fiddlestyx]

On 12/15/2015, 7:20:55, quasarrgames said:

-does not take off/land correctly (specifically with that wiggly thing where the landing gear will somehow be imbalanced even though you put them on completely straight and the craft will wobble and tip over and cheesegrater itself into the runway)(biggest one for me)

This for me as well.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Fiddlestyx

[swjr-swis]

The -ahem- few times -cough- that one of my aircraft goes maximum entropy is usually entirely attributed to trying to fly a design that would make the universe divide by zero (again), just to achieve a specific aesthetic. For any given set of Things Thou Shalt Never Do When Designing An Airplane, my designs often end up requiring one or more members of the set.

It is hard to fight this, because often enough, KSP actually allows the contraptions to fly (to a degree).

All other cases are purely pilot error. Jeb is a horrible pilot.