How to steer LY-99 Extra Large Landing Gear?

[XLjedi]

So I have a large craft that needs to use the LY-99 Extra Large Landing Gear. 

I use these as main gear (in the back) and then try to find something steerable for the front.  The biggest available are LY-35 Medium Landing Gear which seem to be way too small.   So I was thinking maybe pair-up the bigger gear in the front and just use right/left braking to control during taxiing, but it would seem there is just no way to taxi with these gear unless you pair them with an unusually small looking steerable set.

So my question...  How exactly were these big landing gear intended to be used during taxiing? 

If it were a real plane, at least the pilot could apply brakes to one side of the plane and possibly cause a slow-ish turn.  

Edited July 8, 2018 by XLjedi

[Dark Lion]

Perhaps you could slap the medium, steerable gear onto a fuel tank under the nose? More intake/fuel, potentially. If not, you're going to have to find a way to lower your plane or resort to using mods.

[XLjedi]

1 minute ago, Dark Lion said:

Perhaps you could slap the medium, steerable gear onto a fuel tank under the nose? More intake/fuel, potentially. If not, you're going to have to find a way to lower your plane or resort to using mods.

Yeah, kinda my point...

In stock, there is no large landing gear that is steerable. 

I shouldn't have to resort to a mod for this.

[bewing]

If you leave the friction on the front wheels set to a low number, then you can "steer" using your rudder.

 

[XLjedi]

30 minutes ago, bewing said:

If you leave the friction on the front wheels set to a low number, then you can "steer" using your rudder.

 

Seems a bit hack-ish, as the front wheel would just skid left or right, but if it works...   

Does that work at all speeds, or does there need to be airflow to assist?

Edit:  Meh, just tried it on a large craft and it had no effect on taxi-speed steering.  ...and barely noticeable at speeds in the range of 20 m/s (45 mph, 72 kmh) which is a bit too fast for taxiing.

In short, that doesn't work at all. 

(Although, I do appreciate the suggestion... thank you)

On a side note, I rather like the solution that was implemented with the largest (and non-steerable) rover wheels that allow them to turn very nicely.  Barring some rather unsightly part clipping, these LY-99 gear seem to only be useable for a high or mid-wing design.   Would be hard to incorporate for a large shuttle-type craft with a low-wing config for re-entry.

Edited July 8, 2018 by XLjedi

[RealKerbal3x]

If you have thrust-reversing engines like Goliaths, you can set up action groups so one side thrusts forward and one side thrusts back, enabling you to turn on the spot.

[Gargamel]

One rather dumb looking plane I made used all heavies to land, but when I wanted to taxi back to the hangar, It lraised the front gear until it rested on a set of mediums, which would steer.   So I had a medium set way out on the tip of the nose, and a heavy set a bit behind it.  

[XLjedi]

4 hours ago, Gargamel said:

One rather dumb looking plane I made used all heavies to land, but when I wanted to taxi back to the hangar, It lraised the front gear until it rested on a set of mediums, which would steer.   So I had a medium set way out on the tip of the nose, and a heavy set a bit behind it.  

That might actually make more sense, as the AoA during takeoff could be a problem with the smaller gear.

[Val]

12 hours ago, XLjedi said:

That might actually make more sense, as the AoA during takeoff could be a problem with the smaller gear.

On large real-life airplanes, the main landing gear is almost always much larger than the nose gear, because the landing gear is arranged so there's almost no load on the nose gear.

If you do the same on your craft, it will be no problem to take-off with a craft, even if it has a short nose wheel, that makes the AoA negative. When there's no load on the nose it's quite easy to lift it gently with elevator input when it's nearing take-off speed.

Here's an example of mine, lifting the nose wheel gently, although that craft has another unrelated feature that also helps with AoA, both during take-off and other flight regimes, variable incidence.

 

[XLjedi]

@Val  Well, first off...  No, your pic is a relatively dinky 737, which is not a large IRL plane. 

There's a pretty big difference between a 737 and a 747 or A380 for instance.

Fewer wheels on the front, perhaps... but smaller?  No, they're pretty much same size wheels.  ...and same length (distance from fuselage) for ground clearance. 

There seems to be a noticeably missing set of larger-sized single-axle steerable front gear in the stock game.  (747 and A380 Low-Wing Aircraft)

There should be a steerable (LY-50?) set with same size wheels similar to the photo above, that would pair correctly with the LY-60's or LY-99's.

Although the C-5 Galaxy is a high wing design, the gear are all mounted low on the fuselage.  ...a design that can't be duplicated with large KSP landing gear.

Yikes!   ...happens to the best of us.  (AN-225 nosewheel landing)  Another high wing design with gear on fuselage that can't be duplicated in KSP with the extra large gear.   If a steerable set of single-axle large gear were availble in KSP, you might use a pair in the front, and possibly a set of 5 on each side for the main gear to mimic the above Antonov design.  Although, I'd probably opt for a half-height multi-axle non-steerable set.

Edited July 9, 2018 by XLjedi

[OHara]

I notice that the larger airplanes have dual-axle gear under the center of mass, but always a single-axle gear at the nose.

The steering mechanism for a dual axle gear would be complicated, usually wheeled vehicles steer only one axle, so I assume only the single-axle nose-wheel is steerable in the photos. 

KSP copies this pattern.  The single-axle gear are steerable.  This leaves an interesting engineering challenge to laying out the gear.

[XLjedi]

1 hour ago, OHara said:

I notice that the larger airplanes have dual-axle gear under the center of mass, but always a single-axle gear at the nose.

The steering mechanism for a dual axle gear would be complicated, usually wheeled vehicles steer only one axle, so I assume only the single-axle nose-wheel is steerable in the photos. 

KSP copies this pattern.  The single-axle gear are steerable.  This leaves an interesting engineering challenge to laying out the gear.

Right, and the gear choices in KSP are missing the larger-sized single-axle steerable gear that would go with the larger-sized multi-axle main gear.

My point was it looks silly pairing the LY-35 small wheels with LY-99's on big cargo and passenger planes.  ...and they're half the height of the LY-99's.  So without excessive clipping, it forces you to use a mid to high-wing design to position the LY-99's on the wing.  Alternatively, I s'pose a set of LY-99's that were not so long would also work, the LY-35 wheels would still look too small though.

Edited July 9, 2018 by XLjedi

[bewing]

4 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Another high wing design with gear on fuselage that can't be duplicated in KSP with the extra large gear.

Of course you can. A bit of clipping here, a bit of clipping there. It works.

[XLjedi]

43 minutes ago, bewing said:

Of course you can. A bit of clipping here, a bit of clipping there. It works.

Yeah, as I said, not without a LOT of clipping.  And if it's a cargo plane, kinda hard to clip into the Mk3 Cargo storage area.  ...so wing mounting are about the only option for the LY-99's.