Get rid of lights at end of runway(or do something about them)

[322997am]

When I take off my planes, a lot of them have to go to the end of the runway to take off. Good. But the problem is:

1. Plane is veering to the side.

2. I try to correct it.

3.i decide to just take off.

4. at the last second I realize my mistake.

5. Wing clips the lights.

6. plane dies

what I'm asking is for those lights to be either removed or somehow moved so they do not interfere with takeoff. And there is probably a lot of people with this problem as well.

Edited June 25, 2016 by 322997am

[Vaporized Steel]

Press control of mass overlay in SPH.

Put your rear landing gear just behind the Center of mass and make sure your pitch control surfaces are far enough behind your center of lift. Or put them far enough forward if your pitch control surfaces are mounted on the front, while your center of lift is just behind the center of mass.

Voila, your plane now takes of one quarter way down the runway and you'll beat those lights.
If not, you have a 800 part plane and your going to post us a picture of the vessel that keeps running into those lights.

I hope I have saved your day

[The Aziz]

Well, for me, if a plane can't take-off before the end of the runway, there is something wrong with the plane.

Wherever you look, there are runway lights above ground, exactly where they're supposed to be.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

^ These two nailed it.

A plane would have to be of truly epic proportions to require the entire runway.

Make sure your rear landing gear is always just behind the COM. This makes a fulcrum that the plane can pivot on to raise it's nose.

[Padishar]

Alternatively, build the plane so the wings have positive AoA on the runway and you may not need to rotate at all to take off...

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

^ These two nailed it.

A plane would have to be of truly epic proportions to require the entire runway.

Make sure your rear landing gear is always just behind the COM. This makes a fulcrum that the plane can pivot on to raise it's nose.

So how do you avoid tail strikes when taking off and landing? I don't often spend a lot of time on planes, but the main reason I put the gear towards the back is to avoid tail strikes.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Just now, Otis said:

So how do you avoid tail strikes when taking off and landing? I don't often spend a lot of time on planes, but the main reason I put the gear towards the back is to avoid tail strikes.

You keep the tail short or make it raised at an angle.

Being very gentle as you take off helps as well. A well designed plane should only need a few degrees of nose lift to take off.

Here are some real planes, google search some images and you'll find they all have one thing in common: The rear gear are near the COM. I find in KSP that if you make it "look right" it will "fly right."

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

You keep the tail short or make it raised at an angle.

Being very gentle as you take off helps as well. A well designed plane should only need a few degrees of nose lift to take off.

That's all good, Rocket. Those are some nice planes. None of them were made in KSP though. I get what you are saying. I could spend more time fiddling with parts in the SPH and come up with some designs that would work. But, I just don't have the patience. I would rather just slap a few parts together, like I can in the VAB for rockets, and go. The op's suggestion isn't entirely a bad one. Make the runway easier to take off from for the simple-quick planes. I often don't even use the runway. I just get on the grass, turn around, and find the closest hill.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Otis

[322997am]

And try landing that plane with the gear near the com. In real life? Computer can do it. In KSP? Nope. You will end up either snapping the plane in half or breaking the tail.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

11 minutes ago, Otis said:

That's all good, Rocket. Those are some nice planes. None of them were made in KSP though. I get what you are saying. I could spend more time fiddling with parts in the SPH and come up with some designs that would work. But, I just don't have the patience. I would rather just slap a few parts together, like I can in the VAB for rockets, and go. The op's suggestion isn't entirely a bad one. Make the runway easier to take off from for the simple-quick planes. I often don't even use the runway. I just get on the grass, turn around, and find the closest hill.

To each his own, I have no problem with you playing the game in whatever way gives you the most fun.

I just wanted to make a friendly suggestion about how to get better take off performance from planes in KSP, this is a common problem and one I'm not any less guilty of than any one else.

I designed many a plane that careened down the runway like an out of control drag car before I finally read something on the forums that someone else had posted about the fulcrum effect of placing the gear just behind the COM. Perhaps I came off a bit "preachy" and "know it all-ish' but it's more like the converted trying to spread the good word! Anyways...It wouldn't hurt my feelings any if they changed the lights to 2-D models/sunk them into the ground/made them purely visual with no physics impact on a planes landing gear.

2 minutes ago, 322997am said:

And try landing that plane with the gear near the com. In real life? Computer can do it. In KSP? Nope. You will end up either snapping the plane in half or breaking the tail.

It's fairly well agreed by the community as a whole that the rear landing gear go just behind the COM. I can provide plenty of pictures of planes from KSP that function beautifully and are designed as such if it's needed?

[322997am]

3 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

To each his own, I have no problem with you playing the game in whatever way gives you the most fun.

I just wanted to make a friendly suggestion about how to get better take off performance from planes in KSP, this is a common problem and one I'm not any less guilty of than any one else.

I designed many a plane that careened down the runway like an out of control drag car before I finally read something on the forums that someone else had posted about the fulcrum effect of placing the gear just behind the COM. Perhaps I came off a bit "preachy" and "know it all-ish' but it's more like the converted trying to spread the good word! Anyways...It wouldn't hurt my feelings any if they changed the lights to 2-D models/sunk them into the ground/made them purely visual with no physics impact on a planes landing gear.

It's fairly well agreed by the community as a whole that the rear landing gear go just behind the COM. I can provide plenty of pictures of planes from KSP that function beautifully and are designed as such if it's needed?

Function beautifully, are hard to land. 

[The Aziz]

One of my simple-quick planes takes off after few seconds. Literally 17 parts. But keep in mind that building a plane is a bit more complex than just slapping a capsule on the top, fuel tank below and engine at the bottom. This is where lift starts to count. Aerodynamics are not forgiving.

[Vaporized Steel]

As for tailstrikes I sometimes put a LY-05 (the smallest landing gear) into symmetry on the tip of my airplanes rear end (may use the move : toolset to position is correctly) and I can just hold "S" and no explosions. You may want to use the "LY-10" if it's a bigger plane with a larger rear section. But generally that is not needed, just make sure you pitch at the speed you know you'll get airborne, or "V rotate" in piloting terms.

@322997am You can right click on the pitch control surface in the SPH and change "Authority limiter" to a lower setting then the default one aswell besides adding a rear wheel to avoid tail strikes. You can also right click on it in flight to change it. Sometimes it gives better control to change this setting on the ground or when your at a higher altitude.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Vaporized Steel

[Gojira1000]

Planes are more difficult than rockets and require more patience and practice.

They are also far more sensitive to poor design choices.

[Racescort666]

If I'm concerned about tail strike I usually put a small landing gear in the tail and move it as far back as possible and clip it into the fuselage as much as possible. That being said, you kind of have to eyeball your max runway rotation to make sure it will be effective.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

3 minutes ago, 322997am said:

Function beautifully, are hard to land. 

I don't want to insult your piloting skills but...

The classic "tricycle" pattern is one of the easiest gear setups to land on.

It's those nasty "tail-draggers" you have to worry about. Take my word for it, I fly a Cessna 172 with a friend in real life.

Spoiler

(That's me on the left in the red hat!)

(This is the plane we rent. Out of "Saratoga County Airport" for anyone who's curious.)

 

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Aside from various comments above, put more thought into your design if it's not taking off before the end of the runway.

Ideally, you want to be able to rotate and take off around 115 to 130 knots (~60 to 67 m/s) for a medium sized aircraft and up.  Assuming it's not a specialized high performance craft.

 

If your craft does not rotate at a reasonable speed (you should be able to pitch back by 100 knots), your CoM is too far in front of your gear, or your tail planes aren't large enough to give you control authority at low speed.  If your plane does not lift OFF the runway at the noted speeds above, you have more weight than your wings can produce lift for at any reasonable angle of attack (between 3 to 10 degrees).  Your options at that point are either to reduce the mass of the vehicle via means such as fuel/cargo reduction, increase the wing size, or add a slight positive AoA to them (rotate them so they're slightly facing up while sitting on the runway.  C-130 does this).  [[Or ALL of that at once.]]

As a point of rule, I build aircraft to the specifications of what I want it to do, then start tuning it for low speed performance.  LSP is essential to quick takeoffs, and smooth, easy landings.  Unless you're flying something like the Cessna @Rocket In My Pocket flies, which is so small and light it takes off at something like 55 knots and cruises somewhere near 120, you want to design your low speed performance so that you have controllable, steady level flight down to about 120 knots.  The C-130 clones I build for ferry missions can maintain control authority in the pitch moment (Jargon for: I can move the nose with aft stick input) down to about 115 knots.  Below that, I end up pulling the stick all the way aft and the nose will keep dropping anyway.  Mind you, the C-130 design scheme is one of the single most robust low speed performance designs in existence (The design is older than most of our parents).  Copying the design might be a good place to start to get a feel for what GOOD low speed, short, rough field capability is like.

 

Another thing to consider is controllability in torque moments (how will your control surfaces handle roll, pitch, yaw).  

Keep an eye on your Center Of Mass and how it moves as fuel/cargo loads are increased or decreased.  Something I never paid attention to until an engineer friend of mine point it out was that if your control surfaces don't essentially run an axis through your CoM, you start to have Moment Coupling.   IE, if my ailerons (roll authority) are too far behind CoM, they cause unexpected pitch moment... as they are acting partially like a tail plane.  Thus, I could do a roll, and find my nose climbing sharply and be forced to counter it with forward stick input.

 

 

All in all, the lights at the end of the runway aren't a problem.  The problem is with your vehicle design.  If you aren't on an ascent by 3/4 the length of the runway, you're overweight.  If you can't get it in the air in that distance, you're going to fight just to climb, and you're going to fight to land.  It's very important to remember that you don't design the universe to accommodate your airplanes.  You design your airplanes to deal with the universe.  In a stock game, KSC is the only finished runway surface in the entire system.  In real life, we build nice finished airports everywhere, but even then they have to reasonably submit to the realities of the location.  St. Marten has a glide slop so shallow that beach goers on the end of the runway run the risk of surprise haircut by 747.  Telluride is over 9000 feet above sea level on the side of a mountain.  Try landing while going something like 25% faster than normal, being buffeted by mountain winds, and aware the whole time that on one side is rock, the other a sharp drop.  An Aircraft carrier is both built specifically to assist launching and trapping planes, AND the planes are built specifically to land on it.

 

Incidentally, the side-veering is a result of too much weight on your gear.  When overloaded in KSP, landing gear tend to result in an unnoticed lean to one side (usually left) that causes slight bank and drag forces, pulling your nose off center.   One thing you may not notice is that if your CoM is too far forward, your attempt to rotate makes this problem WORSE.  Instead of rotating like a see-saw on its pivot, the act of applying your pitch back on the stick pushes the tail down, compressing the landing gear further and making the overload affect worse.  As a point to make about piloting technique itself, don't pull back on the stick until you reach takeoff speed.  Doing so early deflects air and makes it harder for engines to speed you up, lengthening your takeoff roll even further.  Depending on the design, this also results in a partial rotation before takeoff that raises your nose gear off the ground, leaving you to steer with only rudder authority that is not yet sufficient to control the plane.

 

 

Remember, a properly designed airplane almost flies itself.  If you have to WORK to maintain control of the aircraft at any point, the design has serious problems.  Modern high performance aircraft being the exception thanks to advanced Fly-by-wire avionics.

[Alshain]

2 hours ago, Otis said:

That's all good, Rocket. Those are some nice planes. None of them were made in KSP though. I get what you are saying. I could spend more time fiddling with parts in the SPH and come up with some designs that would work. But, I just don't have the patience. I would rather just slap a few parts together, like I can in the VAB for rockets, and go. The op's suggestion isn't entirely a bad one. Make the runway easier to take off from for the simple-quick planes. I often don't even use the runway. I just get on the grass, turn around, and find the closest hill.

Once you learn what you are doing you can slap a few parts together and make a plane.  You didn't start slapping fully functional and successful rockets together on day one, nobody did.  Planes are no different.  Build enough of them and you will be able to build a flyable plane with no test flights in no time.

There is nothing wrong with the lights on the runway.  Thousands of us have been flying planes with them there just fine for a very long time.

1 hour ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

It's those nasty "tail-draggers" you have to worry about. Take my word for it, I fly a Cessna 172 with a friend in real life

Yeah but in KSP, taildraggers are a lot easier to get on and off the tier 1 runway.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Alshain

[Rocket In My Pocket]

3 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Yeah but in KSP, taildraggers are a lot easier to get on and off the tier 1 runway.

Agreed!

I've actually built up somewhat of a respect for the humble, old school taildragger from playing KSP.

I've just heard so many horror stories from veteran pilots about how hard they are to get used to after flying a tricycle plane IRL that they make me a little nervous lol. That said... the "Piper Cub" is a much beloved plane for it's ruggedness, reliability, and prowess in taking off/landing anywhere. I'd really like to fly one some day!

Spoiler

 

[StahnAileron]

I'm also of the belief that if my plane design needs to leave at the end of the runway to takeoff, it has a design flaw. Things I've done to mitigate this being a necessity (I'll be repeating a few things others have stated, if not all of them):

• Add some pitch to the wings: this will let you generate lift while you gain speed (i.e. during roll-out). In some cases (Lift-to-weight ratio dependent), you won't even need to touch the controls to lift off.
• Have the rear landing gears shorter relative to the front gear: This is similar to the above method, because it accomplished the same thing: giving the wings some AoA so you create lift during your acceleration on the ground. I don't use this often as it could make landing the plane harder. (It depends on the landing gear arrangement and its low speed performance profile.)
• Proper landing gear positioning relative to the center of mass: Stereotypical tricycle-style gear arrangement should have the main gears just behind the CoM for ease of rotation while handling the majority of the craft's weight.
• Enough Gear to handle the weight: Not enough gears (with the proper settings as well) will cause the gears to buckle and make you swerve all over the place. Heavy craft = more gear support.
• Watch your mass: What is the purpose of the craft? How much mass (especially fuel) do you need to accomplish that purpose? More mass means you need more lift. That's either more wing, more AoA, more speed, or some combination thereof.
• Have the right amount of control authority: If you can't rotate well even with proper gear placement, you probably need more pitch surfaces. It should be something just as simple as adding canards to the design.
• Watch the CoL relative to the CoM: The CoM shouldn't be too far behind the CoM or else the craft will be TOO stable (unless you have an absurd amount of control surfaces to counteract that). It'll be hard to get the craft to pitch unless you go stupidly fast and/or don't have the ground getting in the way (i.e. you flung yourself off the end of the runway.) This is something to keep an eye on in conjunction with gear placement.

For tail-strike protection:

• Using taller gears if possible: This give you more clearance, though might make the plane look funny or unstable. (Depends on craft mass and gear placement.)
• Taper the tail: Might be harder to do depending on what parts you want/need to use.
• Add another set of higher placed gears by the strike zone: Acts as a bumper to prevent you from pitching too much and striking the tail. (I try not to make my designs come to this if I can help it. I have done it, though.)

There's also acceleration to look at. However, if you need very high-speeds to take-off, something is off about the design, IMHO. (Unless you're building a speed-demon craft that's utter crap at low speeds but rules the high speed envelope.)

All in all, it comes down to what the intended purpose of the craft is. Unless you're doing something mildly exotic, most functional/practical designs should be able to take-off before reaching and flinging themselves off the end of the runway, thereby avoiding the lights. It's true enough in reality (for whatever good this reference is) as real runways can have far more elaborate lighting systems. (Especially at commercial airports that handle large airliners.) As an example, KerbinSide adds feature to the KSC and makes the runway more like a commercial runway with landing lights on the west end of the runway (Runway 09). They were kind enough to not replicate it on the east end (Runway 27), or else some players would be VERY liquided

Anyway, the way I see it: If my design requires the ENTIRE runway to liftoff, risking a light strike, it needs work. (I already know it would need work if it's swerving a bit on roll-out.) I consider a possible light-strike as something to use as part of a QA/QC checklist.

Edited June 24, 2016 by StahnAileron
Wrong Runway number

[KerikBalm]

3 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

A plane would have to be of truly epic proportions to require the entire runway.

My SSTOs often require the whole runway... and yes, those runway lights are very annoying

 

A long time ago we had this big launch tower next to the launchpad... those who built very wide asparagus-pancakes often collided with it... there were complaints... it got removed.

I don't see how this should be any different. All of the above spaceplanes can takeoff before the end of the runway... at least without a payload... but when loaded near their limit and/or with an awkward payload weight distribution... then I need to use the entire runway.

Those lights are just annoying obstacles

[Alshain]

1 minute ago, KerikBalm said:

A long time ago we had this big launch tower next to the launchpad... those who built very wide asparagus-pancakes often collided with it... there were complaints... it got removed.

I don't see how this should be any different. All of the above spaceplanes can takeoff before the end of the runway... at least without a payload... but when loaded near their limit and/or with an awkward payload weight distribution... then I need to use the entire runway.

Those lights are just annoying obstacles

The key difference was, at the time, you had to build wide asparagus rockets to go further due to poor aerodynamics and a lack of parts so removing the tower made sense.  However, you don't have to build a plane that can't take off till the end of the runway.

[Guest]

@Rocket In My Pocket It's all good.  I am probably guilty of laying a trap and pouncing on it when it went off. My forum etiquette still has much room for improvement. Nothing wrong with your post at all. In fact, it was a very good one. KSP is quite an amazing game in that players can actually see the effects of good and bad plane designs. I simply wanted to point out that things could be made easier for players in a more casual mood.  It is true that a simple plane that will fly quite well once in the air is often difficult to get off the runway. If reworking the end of runway lights makes it easier for players both new and old to get planes in the air, then it should be done IMO. Elitists that come here tell players "Well, it's always been that way and you're doing it wrong" rubs me the wrong way.

[Alshain]

18 minutes ago, Otis said:

@Rocket In My Pocket It's all good.  I am probably guilty of laying a trap and pouncing on it when it went off. My forum etiquette still has much room for improvement. Nothing wrong with your post at all. In fact, it was a very good one. KSP is quite an amazing game in that players can actually see the effects of good and bad plane designs. I simply wanted to point out that things could be made easier for players in a more casual mood.  It is true that a simple plane that will fly quite well once in the air is often difficult to get off the runway. If reworking the end of runway lights makes it easier for players both new and old to get planes in the air, then it should be done IMO. Elitists that come here tell players "Well, it's always been that way and you're doing it wrong" rubs me the wrong way.

Nobody is trying to be elitists, we were offering suggestions to improve the gameplay without waiting for Squad to do something that is, quite frankly, not likely to happen... at the very least not soon.  The fact of the matter is, Squad kinda likes things to explode for beginners and having a plane that needs the lip of the runway to take off is definitely beginner.  That's not meant to sound superior, but it is beginner.  I certainly don't speak for them, but I don't predict they are likely to ever remove those lights.

I strongly suggest you spend a little time getting to know plane construction better and before you know it you will be building planes that fly without really thinking about it, just like rockets.  Everybody starts off knowing very little, even those who fly real planes don't know all that much about building them.  There are several ways to get off the runway faster.

1. Flaps create lift, use them! (but retract them once you are airborne) - This is simply the easiest way with the least amount of consequence.  Because they are retractable, they don't cause problems in flight and they have nothing to do with tailstrike.  They work in stock, just add control surfaces, preferably close to CoM both at nose to tail length AND wingspan length.  Ideally they should be the inner control surfaces on the wings.  Change the tweakables to remove all input controls (Yaw, Roll, Pitch).  Set them to deploy correctly (i.e. inverted if necessary) and then assign their deploy toggle to an action group.  The control surface should deploy DOWN for flaps.

2. Move the wheels to the CoM - Yes this can be difficult with long tails, however combine this with the mentioned flaps and the plane will often lift off with very little... or even NO lift on the stick.

3. Wing Angle - The biggest drawback to this one comes not from taking off but landing, and also level flight.  Adding angle to the wings definitely gets you off the ground, but then you have to work to keep the plane level or worse, descending.  This is really a last resort IMO.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Alshain

[322997am]

I'm adding a pol to this thread.