Am I doing something wrong or are wheels broken still?

[Bandus]

Greetings! Awhile back I recall reading about issues with wheels that caused undesirable results with most aircraft. Specifically, that the wheels bounced and broke often. I read a few threads regarding adjusting the suspension and dampening but I'm still experiencing this issue. My question really is: Are there still problems with wheels or is it more likely I am doing something wrong? Thanks!

[klesh]

People are still reporting problems, while others including myself havent had much of an issue being able to takeoff and landing.

Try not to use the smallest wheel size, and use a larger wheel than you initially think you may need.

[Bandus]

Thank you for taking time to answer! Unfortunately, I am playing in career mode so unfortunately a larger wheel isn't a viable option at the moment for me. Do you know if Squad is looking into making wheels (even the small ones) a bit more robust? With my first plane in career mode, once physics engage it almost immediately starts "bouncing" on the runway. As it gets up to about 70 m/s I can actually see the wheels coming through the texture of the landing gear cover for the rear gear and eventually it just wobbles until a wing strike occurs.

[bewing]

From your description, you are using the LY01 gear. To fix a wobbling problem like that, you want to move the landing gear outward farther from the fuselage. Generally the wisest choice is to mount them on the wings, halfway out to the tip. The LY01 gear are fairly delicate, and you will probably want to land at a significantly lower speed than 70 m/s. Probably something more like 40 would be good. And make sure you float down like a feather until the wheels touch -- don't force the landing to happen early.

 

[Bandus]

Thanks @bewing. I tried this and it helped a bit. However, now when the physics engage the front landing gear simply explodes. Fairly frustrating! I may just wait to see if landing gear are tweaked in future version of KSP.

 

Edit: Also, this seems to describe the exact issue I'm having. It seems this is a known bug. 

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by Bandus

[bewing]

It sounds like your plane is too heavy for the gear, then. Try upgrading to the LY10 gear (in sandbox mode, perhaps, just to test it out).

[pincushionman]

Don't use the LY01 gear. At least until the wheel middleware gets updated.

[klesh]

Yeah, theyre looking to overhaul the way wheels work in 1.2.  The update to Unity 5 screwed up the ways the old wheels work, and the current ones are more of a stand-in until they are properly fixed.  

[kBob]

I have no problem with the LY01 though my planes are generally in the <30 part category as I recently decided to do a hard level career.  But I generally use six landing gear on my planes and if the plane got too heavy eight might be needed (though I've put weasels er Whessley's  on the same plane with a few extra parts in a previous career with no problem, but of course by the time you get wheezers you're hopefully going to have more landing gear options unless you get them under a contract like I did).

I've tried them on the wings and only on the fuselage and it doesn't seem to make any difference as long as you have enough of them to reduce the psi (or kPa).  I also make sure my com and aerodynamic overlay are very close together and near centered on the plane for a good balance.

And pay extra attention to their being straight, if your plane is wandering around while still on the ground double check they are all straight, I can't say for sure but if the plane is moving all about while trying to take off it may be adding more strain to the wheels.  If you're interested I can post a craft file of my basic "trainer."

[bewing]

And if you can manage to post a craft file, we can look at it closely and tell you exactly what is going wrong.