How do you land a plane XD

[Imaus]

Hi first post here.

For the life of me i cant land my planes, everytime i hit the ground, its going to fast and the back falls off or, just expoldes on impact. Now this might have something to do with the plane im flying but i really think im doing something wrong XD. I go in at about 130ms and everytime it just explodes and the pilot is no more. So far everything eles in this game i have goten down but landing a plane is harder then rocket science.

My plane Flys like a dream, most of the time

[DomAzaris1996]

Welcome to the forums Imaus!!

First, I\'d like to say that I have only landed planes on terrain, not the runway, so I am not that accurate.

Now, to business:

Generally, your horizontal speed should not matter (as long as you arent going like crazy), as opposed to your vertical speed.. You only want to decrease a meter or two a second... You can do this but reducing thrust and angling the plane up a bit, so the lift slows the plane down...

Dont get me wrong, horizontal speed does matter, but it is mainly the vertical...

But yes you are correct, the planes are much harder to fly than rockets!! Just remember, vertical speed is the main thing!!

Hope this helps you!! Sorry if it doesn\'t!

You could always search vids on youtube for a practical demonstration, but my internet is running slow so I cant look some up for you at the moment

Cheers,

Dom

[geb]

Wide spaced wheels can help to keep a plane from rolling sideways on landing. The wider they are, the more lateral movement you can tolerate. Still, drifting sideways on approach to ground isn\'t good...

I find it easier to land aircraft with the engines entirely shut off, if the design of the craft permits it. Some planes handle really badly without power though, so that doesn\'t always help. It should go without saying that you reduce speed as much as possible before trying to touch down, even if you\'re flying a rocket with tiny stubby fins and 'as slow as possible' is about 300m/s. Find how slow your plane can go. See if it can glide nicely with no thrust at all.

[Clouds]

130 is pretty fast. Usually I come in for a landing with no power resulting in 50m/s or less. Keep an eye on the gyro-nav-ball-thingy and the yellow circle representing your velocity, and keep it very shallow (near the horizon) which means you\'re moving forward much more than downward, which is what you want for a gentle landing.

And, just in case, don\'t forget to lower your landing gear, if you had raised them.

[Imaus]

Well i landed, not in one piece, but i did it. LEft wing was destroyed, top fell off, and thrusters went on there own, but the RayGuard Kermen lived without useing an ejecter seat gona take some more landings to have faith that i can do it but this really helped, thanks.

[Vanamonde]

.16 has made landing even harder. I find the landing gear often sinks into terrain up the wheel housing and rips pieces off. And the faster you land, the harder it is on the wheel mounts, even if your vertical speed is close to zero. Watch the mounts while you\'re rolling, and they shudder and flex in a terrifying way. I find struts are necessary even on small planes, and even then might not be enough. Then when you hit brakes, the plane tries its damnedest to snap over and slam its nose into the ground. In short, I agree, landing a plane is one of the harder parts of the game now.

[Chillayy]

I don\'t find landings to be any more difficult than they were in .15.

Just approach slowly and watch some tutorials from youtube.

I find it quite hard to stop on the runway if I\'m going faster than 50m/s

[Shadownailshot]

My single stage to orbit planes are exceedingly difficult to land because I found that the best way to get them into orbit results in a very far back center of gravity on re-entry. However, the large plane that I launch similar to Space Ship Two can glide almost perfectly level with very little downward speed at between 60-120 m/s depending on altitude. Makes for a nice smooth landing at about 50-60m/s with the plane nosed up about 1-3 degrees (almost level) and a vertical speed of about 1-3m/s.

[naryl]

Try ILS from MuMech. It gives you good hints without landing the plane automatically.

[Shadownailshot]

The aerodynamics model may not be completely accurate, but it\'s close enough that after flying enough flight simulators, it made flying these space planes almost simple (once i figured out how to build a correctly balanced one).

[colmo]

Try ILS from MuMech. It gives you good hints without landing the plane automatically.

Also use the landing system to determine if your plane can land safely - I\'m discovering heavier planes break the landing gear with catastrophic results in 0.16.

Come in low, cut the engines, bring the nose up, hold that position with ASAS if necessary.

Lightweight planes are easier to land in 0.16 (I\'d have said the opposite in 0.15) - I have four in my new 0.16 fleet (link in signature). If you can\'t land the simpler of the two biplanes or the deltawing, you\'ve got issues....

[rkman]

Throttle all the way to zero well before landing.

Wings in KSP have a large amount of lift, most airplane designs can glide unpowered for a very long time.