Does wing direction affect lift, or is it just Lift Rating?

[Mikemc]

If you are using triangular wings as decoration or part of the body, will they affect how well your Spaceplane flies? How does the game determine which direction is forwards if the design needs them turned 90 degrees or some wonky angle?

[Clouds]

I don't know the game's programming, but wings seem to simply resist motion relative to their angle - very little drag if they are traveling edgewise through the air, and maximum drag (but not in a useful way) if traveling completely flat-side forward. The lift comes when they are angled slightly off of the direction of motion, so they "resist" in a way that applies force mostly upward but doesn't cause too much drag.

It can affect how a spaceplane flies in atmosphere, because they will cause extra resistance and maybe weird turning forces.

[vexx32]

DUe to the currently flawed Lift model, wing orientation will affect it. Upside-down wings will actually generate a lift force that presses downwards, for instance. Wings at right angles to their normal placement orientation will generate none, and so on.

[Volt]

I have a wing pointed directly backwards in one of my small, heavy craft... it seems to fly fine, and it most definitely would not fly with 1.9 less lift.

[vexx32]

Ah, but there's a caveat: Wings oriented backwards still produce the same lift. Forwards and backwards are identical, and angles on that plane will simply reduce the amount of lift (IIRC), and upside down will give negative lift. That's about all I know about it, though I've not done extensive tests on it myself...

[lolmama]

It will effect the lift and

what i usually do if my plane hasn't got enough lift

i get the wings or canards and hold SHIFT and then W,A,S,D,Q,E to change it position slightly

[Vanamonde]

Forwards and backwards are identical, and angles on that plane will simply reduce the amount of lift (IIRC), and upside down will give negative lift.

Backwards produces lift but upside down does not? So if I place a part and rotate it 180, is that backwards, upside down, or both??? Do I have to rotate it in the horizontal plane to keep it upright?

[Melfice]

You're thinking too linear, Vanamonde.

In this case, "negative" doesn't mean "absence of", but "opposite of", with no lift being the neutral state. Positive lift - No lift - Negative lift.

So, instead of pushing upwards, a negative lift pushes downwards. But it's still producing "lift"!

Think of spoilers on the back of cars, if you know how those work.

[Vanamonde]

That clarifies the terminology, but not the problem. How do I avoid inadvertently putting down-pushy (by any name) on my aircraft if there's no visual indication as to whether a piece is upside down or not? Must I, as I noted, be careful to only rotate them horizontally?

[Melfice]

Fairly simple... don't flip the parts over. If you're not sure what's up or down, press [space] and it'll reset it's orientation.

[Vanamonde]

Okay, I'm experimenting, both with wings and imgur, so please bear with me. I took one of my tested planes and stripped off the wings. I put the wing segment on the upper left in place with a hardpoint near the tip to indicate its orientation, then copied (alt-click) it so that the wing panels should be identical except for spatial orientation. With the left wing "forwards" and the right wing "backwards," http://i.imgur.com/GRgN9.jpg, the plane does indeed fly straight and level, indicating lift is equal on both sides. However, with the left wing "upright" and the right wing "upside down," http://i.imgur.com/ruiWU.jpg, the plane still flies straight and level. My main concern was, since they all look identical, that I might accidentally take something off and put it back on upside down in the confusion of modifying a plane and moving pieces around, but upon experimentation, I have to say that I see no difference in performance either way.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Vanamonde

[Clouds]

Indeed, as far as I'm aware, vexx32 and Melfice are mistaken - wings don't lift any differently than a piece of cardboard, in my tests. There's no up or down, just the angle between the wing and the airflow.

Canards and other control surfaces are different, but I don't really understand those.

[colmo]

Okay, I'm experimenting, both with wings and imgur, so please bear with me. I took one of my tested planes and stripped off the wings. I put the wing segment on the upper left in place with a hardpoint near the tip to indicate its orientation, then copied (alt-click) it so that the wing panels should be identical except for spatial orientation. With the left wing "forwards" and the right wing "backwards," http://i.imgur.com/GRgN9.jpg, the plane does indeed fly straight and level, indicating lift is equal on both sides. However, with the left wing "upright" and the right wing "upside down," http://i.imgur.com/ruiWU.jpg, the plane still flies straight and level. My main concern was, since they all look identical, that I might accidentally take something off and put it back on upside down in the confusion of modifying a plane and moving pieces around, but upon experimentation, I have to say that I see no difference in performance either way.

This seems to suggest that wings generate lift, as defined in their .cfg parameters, regardless of their orientation, at least on the forward-backward axis. I'll have to get round to some forward-swept wings to make use of it.

I'd like to see a test with the structural wings rotated 90 degrees on one side, and maybe some tests to see if wings with more or less sweep than intended generate less lift, due to not travelling in exactly their optimum direction. There is nothing in the .cfg to indicate "This way is forward", except the orientation of the attachment point.

One thing I've been testing is anhedral (downward sweeping - unstable and agile, wants to roll over) and dihedral (upward sweeping - stable, self-leveling) wing placement - this definitely has an effect similar to their real-life counterparts. I built one deliberately unstable fighter (based on the Eurofighter) with anhedral wings which I dubbed the 'Widowmaker' due to it's propensity to fall out of the sky. Avionics didn't help, it just made it reluctant to turn.

[vexx32]

I have seen someone asking about this before, and Capt'n Skunky informed the unfortunate person who was having troubles that upside-down wings DO in fact create negative lift. If you aren't noticing it, then it's your design. I assume this hasn't been fixed yet, since it's nowhere in the 0.16 changelogs. The angle is also funny in the way it affects the lift, too. There's no stalling angles whatsoever -- a wing that is moving almost at right angles to the airflow will actually produce more lift than a horizontal wing in some cases.

Oh, and... the game determines orientation and the way lift affects it by the model itself, as I understand it. For proper confirmation, we'll need one of the Squaddies over here.

[Mikemc]

Wow, lots of good info, thanks! And thanks to Vanamonde for inadvertently informing me that alt-click is how to copy .

I asked because I'd like to make something larger but will have to use wings to form the body, like that B-52 someone posted. Perhaps theirs doesn't fly too well because the wings are rotated all over the place!

Hey!... If an upside-down wing generates negative lift, could it be used to hold land vehicles on the ground when turning at high speeds?

[vexx32]

Theoretically, yes. Don't know if it'll work like that practically, though. You'll probably just tip it over REALLY badly.