How do you lose your aircraft?

[Stratzenblitz75]

Recently, I lost an aircraft because I deployed the landing gear in flight. No seriously, the act of deploying the landing gear DESTROYED my aircraft:

Turns out, with this particular design, if I deploy the landing-gear at over 100 m/s, it tears the aircraft apart. If I'm going slower than 100 m/s, it doesn't.

KSP... what. even. is.

 

(On a more serious note, I probably lose most of my aircraft to bad piloting, poor control authority, or both.)

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Main reasons:

Landing gear issues

Breaking up by pulling up too much

Not getting off the runway

[Finox]

There needs to be a "hit the ground to hard on landing" option, that would be my vote.   Unless you count forgetting air intakes, I ALWAYS forget air intakes for some reason!

[SpaceplaneAddict]

I don't lose my aircraft. All have A.B.O.R.T features and can also safely ditch in the water. However, in my SSTO's. the A.B.O.R.T system is ditched for extra delta-v, but they can still safely ditch into the water, even with full tanks.

 

Automatic.Banging.and.Over-excessive.Realistic.safe T.

[numerobis]

My usual reason is looking away while taxiing and suddenly I'm tipping over at 50 m/s and everything starts to explode.

[RA3236]

I don't crash. I always deliberately crash.

[jhousen]

so far, crashed into the vab at 70km (only the once...so far)

the rest were landing attempts (okay, controlled crashes into the runway terrain)

[kmMango]

My aeronautical engineering skills are pretty good. My piloting skills, not so much.

I usually get off the ground fine. Then I either stall it, or try to pull a turn too tight and eat dirt/ocean/VAB. Engineering-wise, canted landing gear is my most common issue, followed by control surface issues.

Edited January 2, 2016 by kmMango

[RocketBlam]

Other: landing.

Always.

[pandaman]

I don't 'lose' them as such, I know exactly where they are, I just dismantle them 'very quickly' after contacting the ground.

[Curveball Anders]

4 minutes ago, pandaman said:

I don't 'lose' them as such, I know exactly where they are, I just dismantle them 'very quickly' after contacting the ground.

Ah, as in Planned Rapid Disassembly, instead of Unplanned/Unexpected Rapid Disassembly.

 

[luizopiloto]

You forgot the option for Bugs... 99% of the time my planes are damaged by bugs... >_____<

[cubinator]

Actually, as I recall it's usually me flying too low to the ground and too fast. Last couple of times I remember was one where I was trying to buzz the mountains west of KSC a little too close (done that a number of times actually) and had to abort. Jeb survived by jumping out because he's BadS, but the rest of the plane was gone. Another time I was flying a Mk3 plane testing out the new Goliath engines (I think it was the stock passenger plane but may have been my own) and I was seeing how low I could go to the ground while travelling at supersonic speed...That didn't tuen out well. I've done that with other planes too. I suppose that goes under "Poor Flying" but maybe you should add a category for "Reckless Flying." 

Flying the passenger jet at low altitude and supersonic speed: 
                                                                                                        ^
                                                                                                      Jeb

[Fearless Son]

In the words of Richard B. Riddick, "You know, Johns, statically speaking landings are the most dangerous part."

I am pretty good at flying, pretty good at coming in on approach, but something often goes wrong in the last few seconds.  Maybe one of the wings dips a little too far while touching down, maybe I cannot correct the airspeed in time, maybe I overshoot, and maybe I just loose control at the last moment.  

A spaceplane I recently flew worked great, but for some reason every time I went over the runway on my landing approach one of the wings would rip off for no given reason.  Never even touched down, just suddenly tore a wing off in the middle of a gentle maneuver.  I ended up having to land it before it got to the runway to get around this.

[Mr. Speed]

I must say I don't crash vehicles I have flown before, and if I crash them I would chalk it up as aggressive maneuvering.

However there is a certain design flaw I walk into every now and then and that is a hard to predict one in the VAB.
It is a center of drag problem at higher angles of attack.

an exaggerated example:
Let's say you are building a plane that is a bit X-wing like, a long nose with all of its weight (cockpit, engines fuel etc) in the back of the plane and center of lift slightly behind center of mass. At high angles of attack the nose will create drag or body lift, pushing it backwards.

I'm not sure if I should call this a stall since it isn't really the wings losing lift, it is the nose creating lift and/or drag.

 

[cantab]

On 17/12/2015 at 6:35 PM, Stratzenblitz75 said:

Recently, I lost an aircraft because I deployed the landing gear in flight. No seriously, the act of deploying the landing gear DESTROYED my aircraft:

Back in 0.90 with FAR I managed to snap the spoilers off one of my planes by deploying them around Mach 0.8. They were just like NOPE. Fortunately I still landed the plane.

1 hour ago, Mr. Speed said:

I must say I don't crash vehicles I have flown before, and if I crash them I would chalk it up as aggressive maneuvering.

However there is a certain design flaw I walk into every now and then and that is a hard to predict one in the VAB.
It is a center of drag problem at higher angles of attack.

an exaggerated example:
Let's say you are building a plane that is a bit X-wing like, a long nose with all of its weight (cockpit, engines fuel etc) in the back of the plane and center of lift slightly behind center of mass. At high angles of attack the nose will create drag or body lift, pushing it backwards.

I'm not sure if I should call this a stall since it isn't really the wings losing lift, it is the nose creating lift and/or drag.

 

I've had similar things with my in-development shuttle orbiter, after I extended the nose then at high speeds too much AoA makes it want to pitch further. It's probably down to the ratio of wing lift to body drag changing at those speeds. I've reduced the tendency enough to keep it under control, but it's still something I have to watch out for when flying.

[bewing]

I'm using vanilla, not FAR or anything -- my planes never disintegrate in the air. There are two main ways they meet their demise: either I try to force a landing (with no parachute) out in the wilderness (often at night, on the first pass), or I'm simply boarding the cockpit after an EVA while floating in the water and the Kraken gets me. Since I'm using a keyboard for control, the all-on/ all-off nature of the controls is very unforgiving.

 

[Columbia]

On 12/18/2015 at 9:39 AM, Finox said:

I ALWAYS forget air intakes for some reason!

Me too! I thought I was the only one!

Other than that, the methods of how my aircraft perish in disaster.. are.. quite.. unconventional..

It can end as the aircraft's joints face a force greater than they can take, and therefore lose their connection abilities, sending the aircraft into a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly™ causing the parts to fly away from each other as they have been released from the grasp of the main ship.

This can also happen while the fixed-wing heavier-than-air manned powered machine is applying force on Kerbin's crust or is flowing through the Troposphere:

At some times however, when executing a formation, the aircraft can end up in a proximity so close to each other that the objects of one aircraft can make physical contact with each other at high speed. This causes another exertion of force greater than the joints can take.. and you know the rest.