The Ability To Land Planes.

[foamyesque]

15 hours ago, bewing said:

On those occasions when I want to launch a largish SSTO spaceplane, I launch it from the VAB to the launchpad, then drive it onto the grass to take off.

Doesn't work when your spaceplane is too big to fit on the launchpad

[archnem]

Late to the thread, but landing planes/shuttles on the runway was a big source of frustration for me until I mastered it.  Now I can pretty much do it without trying, so let me share a few of my tips-n-tricks.

1) Create a vehicle in the SPH that is just a command pod.  Launch this vehicle, and EVA your kerbal.  Walk/run at heading 270 - the runway is elevated slightly, once you go down the embankment, walk just a bit further and plant a flag.  I name mine "KSC ILS-W", but you can name it whatever you want.  Recover the kerbal and vehicle.

2) On reentry/approach, target this flag.  This will put a target marker on your navball, which you can use to line up your approach and see if you're long/short, etc.  At landing, your prograde marker should be just slightly above this target, and the target should be just slightly below the horizon.  You should line up the target directly at 90' or 270' depending on which way you're approaching the runway.

3) Airbrakes are a great way to bleed off speed before touchdown.  I aim for around 80m/s when the wheels touch down, but your vertical velocity matters WAY more than your horizontal.  I've touched down as fast as 150m/s, but just barely descending.  Be careful, airbrakes are also a great way to stall your aircraft.

4) A couple of radial drogue chutes on the back of your plane are highly recommended - deploy these at touchdown to help stop quickly and keep your plane from veering at touchdown.  The stock brakes on landing gear are a bit...strange.

5) DON'T panic.  DON'T over-correct.  Most of my crashes came from last-minute panic maneuvers.  You want to be really gentle with the stick/keyboard.  Turn caps lock (fine control) on if it helps.

6) If all else fails, put a few radial chutes on top of your plane.  This is cheaty, but you can just chute down onto the landing gear.  I still put these on sometimes as an emergency measure, or early in the tech tree when I have the earliest, stupidest landing gear.

7) Don't skimp on landing gear.  Big planes require bigger gears. Nothing like watching your plane explode after a perfect approach because your gears are too small.

8) Practice, practice, practice.  Take off, circle around, and try to land.  If the circling messes you up, take off, get out to sea and just pull a loop to practice your approaches.  Quicksave at a good point in your approach (or a bad point if you want to practice recovery), and load from this spot until you get comfortable and can land the plane consistently.  Also, make a training plane to practice with that doesn't have lots and lots of TWR.  A small-engine craft that can't go supersonic is alot more forgiving than a jet fighter.

9) Don't give up.  It takes a while to really get good.  Even now, I still put jets on my space shuttles "just in case".  I haven't had to use them except rarely, but even after hundreds of landings, I still don't totally trust my skills.

Hope this helps.

[Kryxal]

Personally, I don't find myself using caps lock for fine control, I use trim for fine control since it resets the "neutral" point and you can hold an attitude easily.

[ForScience6686]

On 12/15/2016 at 9:48 AM, AeroGav said:

The thing is, landing on the runway isn't great practice for a rough field landing.     Landing on the runway teaches you 

 I'll say it again, the grass around ksc does not equate to rough field landings at all, not one bit.  All it is is a grass covered parking lot.  No where else will you find terrain like that.

a) to manage the plane's kinetic energy so it touches down reasonably near to start of the paved surface reasonably close to landing speed (ie not coming in hot, not overshooting)

 very important so you have time to stop before flying off the next hill.

b) how to line up laterally with this long but very narrow strip of tarmac.  Ie. to line yourself up so you don't land to the left or right of the runway and also touch down with a lateral heading of 90 or 270 degrees so you don't run off the side after touchdown.

very important when you want to miss all those trees.

For off airport landings, body attitude on touchdown, control of forward velocity and rate of descent are the only factors under the pilot's control that really matter.  Much comes down to aircraft design (stable gear config, strong structure, low landing speeds) and luck plays a part too.

You have more control than that, or at least I do.  You must a find a good lane, one without too big of hills or too many trees or such.  That's where learning to hit a small paved runway adds value.  

Minmus landing - 

You don't really have much idea of what the terrain under your wheels will be like at the moment of touchdown,  it's not really under your control.

 Again picking the right lane, controlling descent, all things learned by landing on the runway.

The thing i'm getting from the OP though, is that his landings are "99% fatal".    This should not be.     My bad landings (on kerbin) result in tail strikes, break the wings or gear, and result in self disassembly, but the crewed parts survive.  Which makes me think he's designed something with a really high landing speed.       Whilst you can do that if you want,  bear in mind it is not necessary to sacrifice low speed handling to that extent to make a space plane.       Fully loaded interplanetary nuclear SSTO...

agreed.

[tab]

You can also use parachute for landing. Take an eng with you to restore it.

[Old Farmer Monkey]

Does anybody know how to flare the plane for landing?

 

[Old Farmer Monkey]

Also, try to not turn when you just landed and haven't breaked yet in a fast or slow plane. It can completely ruin the landing.

[Snark]

Since this question was asked (and answered) nearly three years ago, everyone involved has presumably long since moved on. Accordingly, locking the thread to prevent further confusion.

If anyone has further questions or comments about this subject, please feel free to spin up a new thread.