Basic airplane in career mod

[telesien]

Hi, although I've been playing on and off KSP for a long time before release, I never really used airplanes.

Now I would like to start with the basic one. I unlocked the initial parts and I tried to take off for two days.

I understand the basics (drag, thrust, weight, lift), but I just can't make one from the basic parts. I'd say the basic problems are:

- Very weak engines. Even four of the basic jet engines give very little thrust

- Lack of lift. With the parts limit and weak engines, I can't make wings big enough

- Wheels. The two available ones are hell to attach and balance

 

Whenever I build something, I hit a spot around 50 m/s, when the plane starts wobbling during take off and crashes. I think it mainly because it takes too long to accelerate to that speed and the wheels is not up the task.

Still even getting to 100 m/s speed is usually not enough to take off

 

I tried high wing (hell to attach wheels), mid wings (same problem), low wings (better wheel attachement, but harder to take off without crashing) and even gull wing (easiest wheel attachement, but hell to take off)

 

TL; DR: I know the basics of airplane design, but can't build one from basic parts. Any design available that uses only these parts?

[Gaarst]

Pics ? Tech tree ?

[regex]

Carry less fuel.  Remove unused monoprop.  Reduce mass in as many ways as you can, instead of using fuselage use girders, etc...  Get the most from your engine and existing wing lift.

Edited April 22, 2016 by regex

[zarakon]

Here are a few planes that I built using only the first tier of aircraft parts:

The biplane is the easiest to use by far

 

One trick is to drain some or even most of the fuel.  With jet engines you can go pretty far without much, and reducing the weight makes it a lot easier to fly, especially at liftoff and landing

[ghpstage]

You can get them to work. I've found that designing them for low take off speeds (30-45m/s) seems to avoid most of the issues that your finding on take off.

Meaning to make sure the craft has a decent angle of attack when on the runway by having a good angle between front and rear gears, and rotating the wings slightly.

Keeping it light will help landing a lot too.

 

Honestly, they weren't really worth using in the old career, but the new patch has pushed them way out into obscurity.

Edited April 22, 2016 by ghpstage

[Violent Jeb]

Here you go.

Note that this guide is for .90, but a lot of the principals still apply (except for drag, afaik). Also note that wheels are a tad finicky as of 1.1.

Assuming you have the Juno engine, wheels and the Mk1 cockpit, you should be able to get airborne with a dozen or so parts.

Wheel placement is really important especially on the gravel (tier 1?) runway. Have you tried driving onto the grass and launching from a somewhat flatter surface?

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by Violent Jeb

[telesien]

36 minutes ago, regex said:

Carry less fuel.  Remove unused monoprop.  Reduce mass in as many ways as you can, instead of using fuselage use girders, etc...  Get the most from your engine and existing wing lift.

Thanks, haven't noticed I can do that. So far it didn't help, but we will see

36 minutes ago, zarakon said:

Here are a few planes that I built using only the first tier of aircraft parts:

The biplane is the easiest to use by far

 

One trick is to drain some or even most of the fuel.  With jet engines you can go pretty far without much, and reducing the weight makes it a lot easier to fly, especially at liftoff and landing

I tried the biplane, but it doesn't seem to accelerate at all even with the central tank completely empty. Suspension seems to be OK, so I don't know what the problem might be. Interesting is that I can't seen any elevons on it. Is that correct?

[bzimac]

1 hour ago, telesien said:

I tried the biplane, but it doesn't seem to accelerate at all even with the central tank completely empty. Suspension seems to be OK, so I don't know what the problem might be. Interesting is that I can't seen any elevons on it. Is that correct?

Just a guess, but did you put something behind the engines? If nozzles are obstructed you won't get thrust from them.

[zarakon]

1 hour ago, telesien said:

I tried the biplane, but it doesn't seem to accelerate at all even with the central tank completely empty. Suspension seems to be OK, so I don't know what the problem might be. Interesting is that I can't seen any elevons on it. Is that correct?

My first thought for it not moving is the same as what bzimac said - you likely have something blocking the exhaust.  On mine I actually used the rotation gizmo to turn the tail connector up a notch, which puts all the tail fins above the center line of the plane.

I don't use any of the elevon parts on it.  All three of the tail fins are the control surface type

 

craft file:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/jia9b3nkrxcsp44/Biplane%201.craft?dl=0

[Gojira1000]

Buggy gear alignment might account for the wobble on the runway. Check they're not offset and are dead level and straight.

[N_Molson]

This ultra-light design works well for me in 1.1, I really went to the basics :

The decoupler is used to balance the mass/lift centers (there's a big sticky in the cockpit : DON'T ACTIVATE !). The 45° "V" tail works perfectly, and saves 1 part while allowing a central engine. The elevons on the wings can be used as flaps (extra lift, extra drag) if the "authority" setting is right (something between 30 and 90), beyond that you get spoilers (aka airbrakes). I can even takeoff and land on the L1 runway (well, one landing ended of the roof after I rolled over, but except for 1 wing, the plane was intact).

Edited April 22, 2016 by N_Molson

[Wanderfound]

This was done for FAR, but stock aero is close enough these days that the same principles apply:

 

 

[Bluejay]

7 hours ago, N_Molson said:

This ultra-light design works well for me in 1.1, I really went to the basics :

The decoupler is used to balance the mass/lift centers (there's a big sticky in the cockpit : DON'T ACTIVATE !). The 45° "V" tail works perfectly, and saves 1 part while allowing a central engine. The elevons on the wings can be used as flaps (extra lift, extra drag) if the "authority" setting is right (something between 30 and 90), beyond that you get spoilers (aka airbrakes). I can even takeoff and land on the L1 runway (well, one landing ended of the roof after I rolled over, but except for 1 wing, the plane was intact).

I didn't even think about attaching the wheels to the wings instead of the main body. I can't wait to get home and try this.

[N_Molson]

Quote

I didn't even think about attaching the wheels to the wings instead of the main body. I can't wait to get home and try this.

Actually they are attached to the "structural decoupler".

[Wanderfound]

8 hours ago, Bluejay said:

I didn't even think about attaching the wheels to the wings instead of the main body. I can't wait to get home and try this.

Be careful with wing-mounted wheels; if the wings flex, it'll disrupt the alignment of the landing gear, causing lethal takeoff wobbles.

You can only get away with wing-mounted gear on very light aircraft and/or very stiff wings. However, you can get the look and wheelbase of wing gear without the flex by mounting it to the fuselage and then translating it outwards.

[Vikins]

I tried to make aircrafts from examples in this thread - they didn't fly (

I can't understand what i'm doing wrong.

They twist round all the time and crushes on take-off strip.

 

[CSE]

I like @zarakon's taildragger biplane. There's less weight on the landing gear at takeoff, firstly because the engine points slightly up and therefore the thrust is supporting some of the weight, and secondly because you don't have to rotate to take off by pushing down with the tailplane.

Combine it with @N_Molson's v-tail design to mount a single engine and I think it's the perfect first plane.

[jedensuscg]

First install Ferram Aerospace Research (FAR). It makes the aerodynamic model so much better. (if you hadn't already that is) 

I struggled with early career planes to, but there are lots of ways to make one. 

Here is a video of my first successful plane made with the first unlock. I would say that upgrading your runway once helps a lot.  The second landing in the video is external view if you want to fast forward to see the plane. At the 2:06 mark I zoom in and around the plane so you can see the parts better. 

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/138235-finally-got-an-early-career-aircraft-to-flyand-land/

You can ignore the add-ons I use.  except for mouse aim flight which really helps with flying,none of them affect the aircraft. (if you're curious is RPM for the displays, nav utilities for the hsi and Kerbin side is where those extra hangers came from. 

Also note I am using the STRUCTURAL fuselage, (the one that holds no fuel) All the fuel is in the two mk 0 tanks that make my engines.  (my engines are just an intake, mk 0 tank, June engine attached in a row). 

Also FLAPS! Install a pair of elevons, turn them into dedicated flaps (right click menu in SPH) set the flaps to 2 for takeoff. 

And lastly, make sure you set up control surfaces correctly. The default setup makes all control surfaces (elevons, winglets) work in all axis (pitch, roll, Yaw) if you don't change these you will have issues, they will tend to fight each other or be too sensative. To fix this right click each part click the first option and lower the axis you don't want controlled to zero. DO NOT lower the slider all the way down, as you actually go into the negatives. Make sure you lower the slider to 0%, about half way. 

Edited April 29, 2016 by jedensuscg

[bewing]

Generally, canard designs are more efficient than designs with rear stabilizers. (Stabilizers push the back of the plane down, which robs you of lift.) Here's a very easy canard design. The fuel tank is half full. 3.6 tons total.

You can replace the girders with an empty fuel tank, or a SciJr or two.

On any design, you have to be very careful about making sure the LY05 (steerable) gear is mounted vertically to the ground, or the wheel will not work.