Planes and rockets behaving differently (badly) in 1.8

[Raptor kerman]

Has anyone else noticed that planes, even rockets behave very differently, much more sluggishly in the Kerbin atmosphere to the point that it rives me crazy. Even my supermanoeuvrable aircraft and rockets  act sluggish, no matter how much I play around with cog/col, wing area, control surface authority limiters etc... 

It feels like forces are applied perpendicular to the CoG and any control surfaces placed (say at the far back of the plane) no longer create a torque, or at least a visible one that I can feel and react to. Nothing rolls with any particular speed or responsiveness, planes that could previously sustain an AoA of ~45° now only ~5°. Yaw doesn't seem to be affected but pitch ALL my creations don't pitch about the CoG anymore. When I apply pitch they simply increase in climb rate while staying flat as a pancake. Great if i want a flying wing, not so great if you build anything else. Sidenote: flying wings require serious work to get right, I doubt they've been unaffected either.

Even my U-2 look alike plane which is one of my successful designs (40 m.s^-1 lift off, 24 000m cruise altitude, 20° max AoA, 1200m.s^-1 cruise speed [for a glider with an engine!]) fly's like a winged brick carrying  a particularly obese blue whale. Even the vertical speed is gone. 

I'm not much of a rocket scientist, but I've made working ICBM's with working MIRV warheads that impact Kerbin ~1600/2000 m.s^-1 and they don't work anymore either. For rockets this is less of an issue but the same sluggishness is found in most of my designs. And max AoA seems to have been at least halved in most designs. 

Is anyone else getting this or similar? Is this something that has been mentioned in patch notes? Has it been changed but NOT mentioned or is this a bug? 

Genuinely would appreciate as many answers on this to try and build up a picture of the wider community. I'm not much of a rocket scientist, but I've made working ICBM's with working MIRV warheads that impact Kerbin ~1600/2000 m.s^-1 and they don't work anymore either. 

[AHHans]

The change of the unity engine from 1.7.3 to 1.8 did change the aerodynamics. Quite a bit of that was then reverted with the change from 1.8 to 1.8.1 (i.e. my planes fly better in 1.8.1 than in 1.8), but it is (still?) not the same as 1.7.3.

[Raptor kerman]

58 minutes ago, AHHans said:

The change of the unity engine from 1.7.3 to 1.8 did change the aerodynamics. Quite a bit of that was then reverted with the change from 1.8 to 1.8.1 (i.e. my planes fly better in 1.8.1 than in 1.8), but it is (still?) not the same as 1.7.3.

No visible difference between 1.8 and 1.8.1 on the controllability side but some (not all) planes appear to behave slightly better when it comes to pitch responsiveness. This is mainly related to blended wing bodies and ultra high speed (+1500 m.s^-1) aircraft. Which is what I'm concerned about as it's what I make the most. Although this could be a false positive as I played around with control surfaces and angle of incidence on those aircraft. Also it seems the atmosphere is much thicker than before. Could be the unity change as you say. 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Raptor kerman