[1.7.3] [Stock/DLC] Building Propellor Aircraft

[fulgur]

In this tutorial I am going to attempt to explain a method of building propellor aircraft. I am going to assume you can build yourself an aircraft; if not, consult @keptin's guide to Basic Aircraft Design.

Here is the plane I am going to use. This is the Kestrel. Here I have retrofitted it with Juno engines.

Here you can see that it is flying pretty well, for a propellor aircraft I just retrofitted with Junos. If your propellor aircraft flies horribly, replace the propellors with engines and see if it still flies horribly. It may be a problem with your aircraft, not your propellors.

Here is the Kestrel with propellor engines.

This is how I have set up my craft. The two engines rotate in opposite directions, which cancels the torque. (You can also mount it on a freewheeling servo, like Brikoleur did.) You do this by right-clicking one and clicking the button labelled Rotation Direction. The propellors have been set up so that they are deployed - this means if I change the authority limiter I change the angle they are at. However, they are still at the default position (producing no lift) as the limiter is set to zero. The engines are bound to the throttle and the propellor deployment is bound to [K] and [I ].

Here is the first problem you may encounter.

One set of blades is deploying in the wrong direction. This is a simple fix, you just change either Deploy Direction to inverted, or you invert the controls in axis groups:

Another problem you could encounter is engine torque, which makes one wing hit the ground. Either you re-design your plane to limit the effects (moving gear further out etc.), or you can counter the torque. You could mount the engine on a freewheeling servo like in Brikoleur's guide to helicopters, or you can go the MOAR POWER route and add a counter-rotating engine.

If you find yourself running out of power, you can add fuel cells, RTGs or solar panels. Panels are very good as unless you fly really, really far from Kerbol you will produce way more power than the motors need. This craft draws about 6EC/s and the panels output 30EC/s. If you want to fly at night, fuel cells are very powerful but they do have the downside that you have to refuel eventually. RTGs produce power indefinitely but are very heavy.

For info on flying your propellor aircraft check out my other tutorial!

Edited July 29, 2019 by fulgur