Asymmetrical drag from symmetrically placed parts?

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

I have this plane (we can call it a plane) it has the ruggedized wheels. It won't fly all of a sudden. It did before. I look at areo forces, only the wheels on the right side are creating drag?!

I go the SPH and do tests. Slap 2 rugged wheels (mirror symmetry) on anything that drives fast down the runway and look at the drag.

Only one has drag.

 

[NewtSoup]

I just made a quick test.

 

Mk 2 Cockpit

M2 2 Short Rocket Fuselage

Mk 2 Bi Adapter thingy

A pair of reliant rocket engines

4 ruggedized wheels

Jeb and Bill

SAS on, Max Thrust, hit space and the thing took off down the runway like a spanked weasel.  

Did about 20 runs down the runway.

The drag indicators show drag on the right side only.  However the craft veers to the left every time.  This usually happens around 350m/s and I'm really not surprised it becomes unstable at that speed.  Up to that speed it went true down the middle of the runway.  Once the craft went pear shaped and airborn force lines were visible on all four wheels.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the game,  maybe a glitch in the display of aerodynamic forces.

Testing this made me laugh a lot.  Thanks for that

Addendum - Adding Fins kept the craft stable all the way down the runway!  Kerbals launched into the sea at more than the speed of sound! HAHA

 

[NewtSoup]

Even better - Added two modular girder segment XL in the middle and changed the reliants for a pair of Vectors.  580m/s off the end of the runway and got 3.3km away from the launchpad in 20 seconds :D.  And Jeb and Bill survived hitting the sea.

 

[qzgy]

My advice would be to use the debug menu to make sure. Apparently the indicators lie sometimes.

[Nich]

Yes, devs have said aero forces are not accurate/to scale.  I don't believe they have put much work into this.

[KerikBalm]

alt-f12 and have it show aero data in part right click menu

Right click the left and right parts, see if their drag values are actually different.

[LordFerret]

17 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

like a spanked weasel.

I seriously resent that.