Reattachable Rover

[Fearless Son]

On 2/7/2016 at 5:00 PM, bewing said:

Oh, and put the rear landing gear way out on the tips of the wings -- the wider the stance, the more stable it is.

I want to emphasize this: a plane designed to land only on runways can get away with narrow landing gear spacing, but one designed to land in even modestly rough terrain needs something to brace its wings against the ground or they are likely to get shorn off if the landing surface is even a little uneven.  Foxter's design has the right idea, putting the landing gear at the ends of the wings makes sure that no wing can hit the surface without one of the landing gear hitting the surface first.  This will go a long way toward making touchdowns you can take off again from.  

Wings are delicate, gear is tough.  

[WhiteKnuckle]

38 minutes ago, Fearless Son said:

I want to emphasize this: a plane designed to land only on runways can get away with narrow landing gear spacing, but one designed to land in even modestly rough terrain needs something to brace its wings against the ground or they are likely to get shorn off if the landing surface is even a little uneven.  Foxter's design has the right idea, putting the landing gear at the ends of the wings makes sure that no wing can hit the surface without one of the landing gear hitting the surface first.  This will go a long way toward making touchdowns you can take off again from.  

Wings are delicate, gear is tough.  

Yup. Off field landings need wide set gear that has plenty of ground clearance so you don't tailstrike on landing flare or takeoff.

This is VTOL so I don't really have to work all that hard to land in rough terrain, but it was designed to be able to make unpowered landings so it represents the kind of landing gear setup I'd recommend:

The gear is wide set and pretty far back, and the tail is up angled so that I can flare pretty aggressively (no airbrakes) 

[I_Killed_Jeb]

1 hour ago, Fearless Son said:

I want to emphasize this: a plane designed to land only on runways can get away with narrow landing gear spacing, but one designed to land in even modestly rough terrain needs something to brace its wings against the ground or they are likely to get shorn off if the landing surface is even a little uneven.  Foxter's design has the right idea, putting the landing gear at the ends of the wings makes sure that no wing can hit the surface without one of the landing gear hitting the surface first.  This will go a long way toward making touchdowns you can take off again from.  

Wings are delicate, gear is tough.  

Another thing I like to do is angle the wings upwards so that a little rolling won't result in a ground strike

[LordKael]

Also, building planes that have wings attached across the top of the craft with engines/wheels attached below both looks good and functions great. My early career plane uses this design, and can land pretty much wherever I have a contract for it to land.

[Fearless Son]

3 hours ago, I_Killed_Jeb said:

Another thing I like to do is angle the wings upwards so that a little rolling won't result in a ground strike

If doing so, a good way to do it is to mount the wings low on the fuselage of the plane, then rotate them so they tilt slightly upward.  Assuming a fairly conventional design, the base of the wing should be near the bottom of the plane and the tip of the wing should be near the top.  In this way you can keep the center of lift generated by the wings balanced along the same axis of the center of mass.  

Though obviously your mileage may very depending on the particulars of your design.

[Red Shirt]

4 hours ago, Foxster said:

Funny how sometimes you can cobble something together quickly and it just seems to work well.

Foxster, I used your pics as inspiration and headed for the SPH. I also used set up knowledge I gained from playing with a VTOL I downloaded from Whiteknuckle. My first attempt flew fine but it just didn't respond as I thought it should. I changed the amount of wing surface and added some angle of attack to gain lift. I ended up with a plane that takes off at 40 m/s and flies pretty much hands off. I still have work to do as it is slow, with a cruising speed of abt 180 m/s. The good news is I can pick a spot, cut the engine, pop the chutes and land close to where I intend, then raising the landing gear, I can use the rover wheels to cruise to X marks the spot. I am a long way from a SSTO/rover but I'm now over halfway there. Thanks 

[MachoCyclone]

5 hours ago, Foxster said:

Glad you like it. Funny how sometimes you can cobble something together quickly and it just seems to work well. 

If you need a craft file then shout. 

Thanks for the offer, but I am still working on unlocking the tech tree. Gives me something to look forward too and the challenge of building it myself.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

1 hour ago, Fearless Son said:

If doing so, a good way to do it is to mount the wings low on the fuselage of the plane, then rotate them so they tilt slightly upward.  Assuming a fairly conventional design, the base of the wing should be near the bottom of the plane and the tip of the wing should be near the top.  In this way you can keep the center of lift generated by the wings balanced along the same axis of the center of mass.  

Though obviously your mileage may very depending on the particulars of your design.

Indeed it depends on the desired performance envelope of the craft. For agile atmo planes I like to do as you suggest, but for hypersonic spaceplanes I prefer to have the CoL above the CoM as I find it adds a good deal of stability, particularly for high altitude, high G maneuvers