Spaceplane Design Tips?

[Vanamonde]

Avionics *IS* ASAS, but a version altered for aircraft. ASAS will try to return you to the heading you had when you turned it on, but avionics will try to hold you to the heading you have currently. Say you've got SAS mode on while flying and apply, whatever, yaw-right. As soon as you take your hands off the controls, ASAS and SAS will try to turn you back to your original heading. But avionics will just keep you going on the new heading that resulted from your manual course change. Avionics is very handy for planes because it serves as an autopilot-assist to keep you on course, to prevent overly radical manuevers (it resists change a little), but still allows you to make manual course changes without having to disengage SAS mode. You can fly rockets using avionics instead of ASAS and it works pretty well, but is not as steady-on-course as SAS, which was, after all, designed to be used on rockets.

[kodemunkey]

Ah, thanks again. I was testing out a smaller version of my space plane, currently it keeps pitching forwards and to the right, i'm assuming i still need to find the aircraft's centre of gravity? And would this be helped by putting vtol engines on the side?

Incidentally, how the heck do i actually make VTOL work?

[Vanamonde]

If your plane is pitching in flight, that's a balance issue. If it's consistently rolling ever-so-slightly even though you built it using symmetry, that appears to be a weirdness-possible-bug that a couple of us have noticed in .16, and I'm afraid I have no advice about it but to wait for it to be fixed. VTOL engines might help attitude problems, but only as long as the engines are running, and proportionally to your thrust setting. If you don't want the plane to go in and out of control as you power up and down, you're better off balancing the plane without VTOL engines, and add the engines later, if you're inclined to try that. I haven't experimented much with VTOL myself. At least with stock parts, the inability to throttle horizontal and vertical thrust separately is a pretty big obstacle, and the ability to VTOL isn't called for on a planet where there are few obstacles to hop.

[kodemunkey]

Yeah, i'm aware of that. I was wondering about using it on a flat planet before i go moon surfing (providing i can learn how to actually get the frak into orbit first, then out of it)

[Omega500]

Also if you put some control flaps on the back of the wings it would help get it of the ground and give better control. the down side is they may rip of the wings if they have got struts to help hold them on

[Flowz0r]

You can actually completely eliminate the side movement on the runway by putting two sets of landing gear on every point, instead of just one.

Here's a space plane I made that can get into a stable orbit around Kerbin, or even Mun if you're careful, no ASAS required.

http://www./?s042lixobhtxb9o

As you'll see, it goes perfectly straight on the runway 90% of the time, could probably make it so it always does by adding a few more struts, too.

[Suzaku]

The correct solution isn't to grab as many mods and to throw parts at it until it works. Your plane is aerodynamically unbalanced relative to your center of lift. It also looks like it was designed for looks more than functionality.

[Shadownailshot]

My first SSTO look kind of similar to that. It worked in .15, and still works in .16. It's only a 1 man craft though, I'm trying to look for a 3 man craft design, but it's tough with the fuel glitch, as I can't tell if the design I have actually works, or if it's because of the glitch. I think it's the glitch though.

[kodemunkey]

I almost have a working vtol prototype, i'll post a link in a while. it has swept wings, one forward facing jet engine and either 4 or 6 vtol jets.