[KSP 1.1.3] Basic Tutorial on Planes V1.1 W.I.P: Pictures!

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Changelog :

Spoiler

V1.0: Relase for tutorial and the first topic about CoM CoL and CoT

V1.0.1: Added another topic about stalling (unfinished)

V1.0.2: Finished and Polished the stalling topic

V1.1: Added pictures and a new topic about landing gear

Intorduction: Ok, so we went on alot of rocket adventures (hence the name Kerbal Space Program ) but what if we want to build this magical thing below?

 

Yeah thats right. This is a tutorial on how to build a PLANE!

CoM/CoL/CoT: So, what is the most important thing you need to do for a plane to fly? Well do you know the Center of Mass (or CoM)? Mass is Weight. But we also need to focus on two other forces: The Center of Lift (CoL) And the Center of Thrust (CoT) On the bottom left corner in the editor there are buttons to check all these forces, as the following screenshot shows: The CoM should be infront of the CoL to prevent flipping, the CoT should be alinged with the CoM to prevent unstable flight. If the CoM was behind the CoL, then the plane would want to pitch upwards, as if you put a string behind a model plane's CoM. Here is a screenshot on what your CoM, CoL and CoT should look like:

Stalling: So you probaly were flying and then you thought "What happens if I kill speed to about 20 m/s?" Here is your unfouranate answer: you will stall. Stalling is when your wings are at a critical AoA. Your wings no longer produce lift and the air flow turns into eddies. So what do you do if you ever get at your stall speed? There is one answer that is easy to remember: Push the nose of your plane down. Then, when you get to normal speed pull up. Yes. It's that easy but even in the real world this is how you do it.

Landing Gear: If you want your plane to take off, you need landing gear. Tricycle landing gears are the basic landing gears for all KSP begginers. Tricycle landing gears are basicly like this: One landing gear under the nose and one landing gear on each wing (Note: To put landing gear on wings, turn off angle snap. It's below the buttons for the CoM/CoL/CoT). But what if our landing gear was like this?

Well, it will veer off the runway and go BLAM BOOM BANG!

So if you want to take off your landing gear has to be like this

 

 

Edited July 16, 2016 by Murican_Jeb