[1.3.1] Ferram Aerospace Research: v0.15.9.1 "Liepmann" 4/2/18

[Starwaster]

It is easy...

Step 1- Line up for final approach.

Step 2- Decrease your rate of decent to less than 10m/s.

Step 3- Deploy Flaps as needed, and lower landing gear.

Step 4- Just before you touch down, flare your nose up a few degrees to bleed off excess speed.

Step 5- Touchdown! Keep your nose up at 5-10deg until your speed drops enough for your nose to touch down. Apply brakes as needed.

Step 6- Park your craft, get out admire your awesome landing!

You forgot the part about installing a Real Chutes drag chute with automagical deployment on ground contact.

[K3-Chris]

Action groups are a lot less prone to accidental trigger during takeoff.

Air-brakes are nice as well.

[Hodo]

You forgot the part about installing a Real Chutes drag chute with automagical deployment on ground contact.

Not required. You can land a plane without them, I dont think I have one aircraft that has them for landing.

[razorblade75]

It is easy...

Step 1- Line up for final approach.

Step 2- Decrease your rate of decent to less than 10m/s.

Step 3- Deploy Flaps as needed, and lower landing gear.

Step 4- Just before you touch down, flare your nose up a few degrees to bleed off excess speed.

Step 5- Touchdown! Keep your nose up at 5-10deg until your speed drops enough for your nose to touch down. Apply brakes as needed.

Step 6- Park your craft, get out admire your awesome landing!

sorry, i forgot to say that i want to do it with a rocket

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Not sure if this is FAR or something else, but I have a bizarre problem where I build a spaceplane - crappily designed, granted, but it SEEMS like it should fly - and when I try to take off, it absolutely cannot lift off the runway. I've tried adding 3x the number of wings (no effect), a lot more thrust, a lot more control surfaces, etc. and nothing changes: it seems to just stick to the runway. However, when it finally goes off the end of the runway, losing contact with the ground, it CAN fly, maneuver, and climb, and at far lower speeds than it was traveling while apparently glued to the runway's surface. Same is true for landing on random grass elsewhere.

Secondly, the B9 gear I was using seem to incur an absolutely massive amount of drag (as in the plane was capable of 2-3x faster airspeeds with gear retracted). Is this normal? 4 landing gears out = reduce the plane's top speed by 50 or 66% or so?

Not very experienced building planes in KSP, so maybe I'm just missing something, but if that's the case I'd love to know what it is!

[Beetlecat]

Not very experienced building planes in KSP, so maybe I'm just missing something, but if that's the case I'd love to know what it is!

I'm not a pro builder by any stretch -- but do any of the FAR sample planes fare any better? If they also fail, then there may be something glitched with the install of FAR.

Sometimes gear position alone can help a plane get off the ground: slide your rear gear closer to the COM so your plane can simply rock back to increase the angle of attack and rapidly gain altitude. Canards on the nose can also help get a plane pointed in the right direction.

There are some awesome guides available, but my favorite is this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures

[AccidentalDisassembly]

I'm not a pro builder by any stretch -- but do any of the FAR sample planes fare any better? If they also fail, then there may be something glitched with the install of FAR.

Sometimes gear position alone can help a plane get off the ground: slide your rear gear closer to the COM so your plane can simply rock back to increase the angle of attack and rapidly gain altitude. Canards on the nose can also help get a plane pointed in the right direction.

There are some awesome guides available, but my favorite is this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures

Hmmm.. I mean, I followed the ideas in that guide (if not any one particular design) almost exactly, and it DOES fly (awkwardly, a bit, but it flies) so long as it is somehow removed from ground contact. It can maintain steady, level flight at something like 60m/s, but rocking out at 180m/s on the ground it can't lift off. The nose can pitch up, visually, but it seems stuck to the pavement, for lack of a better descriptor. Gear placement more toward the CoM changes visually how much it appears to tip up (slightly greater angle), but doesn't allow liftoff. Will try reinstalling FAR and/or using the example planes and see what happens...

What about the massive drag of the gears? Is this normal? They are not in vaguely lifelike proportion to the size of the body.

[Hodo]

Not very experienced building planes in KSP, so maybe I'm just missing something, but if that's the case I'd love to know what it is!

Ok first I will tackle the issue with the lifting off the runway.

Landing gear placement has a great affect on how and when you aircraft will actually take off. If you have your rear most gear to far from the CoM then the aircraft center of rotation is to far back and the craft is pushing the landing gear into the ground and not rotating around them.

Like look at my XF-145 Tomkat here.

The rear landing gear are just behind the CoM which gives me a decent point of rotation.

SVO-19 here is an example of a bad landing gear setup, but it was designed as a VTOL.

Notice how the landing gear are way behind the CoM.

As for the drag of the gear, I had this issue, but I think it was related to something I installed wrong. Check your Module Manager files, make sure you dont have multiples.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Ok first I will tackle the issue with the lifting off the runway.

Landing gear placement has a great affect on how and when you aircraft will actually take off. If you have your rear most gear to far from the CoM then the aircraft center of rotation is to far back and the craft is pushing the landing gear into the ground and not rotating around them.

Like look at my XF-145 Tomkat here.

http://i.imgur.com/3H4LAi1.jpg

The rear landing gear are just behind the CoM which gives me a decent point of rotation.

http://i.imgur.com/StPvIAs.jpg

SVO-19 here is an example of a bad landing gear setup, but it was designed as a VTOL.

http://i.imgur.com/UPs8NER.jpg

Notice how the landing gear are way behind the CoM.

As for the drag of the gear, I had this issue, but I think it was related to something I installed wrong. Check your Module Manager files, make sure you dont have multiples.

Thanks for the pics, that is helpful - though on the plane I was using, the gear were fairly close to the COM - very tippable (visually). I reinstalled FAR and noticed that it had fewer configs in the base directory than my previous install - result: lost some aerodynamic info on some parts in flight (no lift/drag on right click). No clue where they came from.

However, I think the problem is related to the gear itself. I used a FAR example plane (Thunderbird) - no problem, took off flawlessly. I replaced the gear with the B9 gear I was using on the other plane: stuck like glue. No change in mass, only small change in gear placement. This happened with all the B9 gear variants I tried. I had just assumed because of the insane drag (which did not happen with the gear on the FAR example) that this was a FAR problem, or some weird interaction, but I guess it's not!

I'm using the B9 repack from here: http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/220473-b9-aerospace-repack

Has this happened for others with B9 gears? Maybe the repack is the problem, if it hasn't...

[Hodo]

Thanks for the pics, that is helpful - though on the plane I was using, the gear were fairly close to the COM - very tippable (visually). I reinstalled FAR and noticed that it had fewer configs in the base directory than my previous install - result: lost some aerodynamic info on some parts in flight (no lift/drag on right click). No clue where they came from.

However, I think the problem is related to the gear itself. I used a FAR example plane (Thunderbird) - no problem, took off flawlessly. I replaced the gear with the B9 gear I was using on the other plane: stuck like glue. No change in mass, only small change in gear placement. This happened with all the B9 gear variants I tried. I had just assumed because of the insane drag (which did not happen with the gear on the FAR example) that this was a FAR problem, or some weird interaction, but I guess it's not!

I'm using the B9 repack from here: http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/220473-b9-aerospace-repack

Has this happened for others with B9 gears? Maybe the repack is the problem, if it hasn't...

I think I know what is happening.

Do you have the current Firespitter.dll file? If you don't those things will act all wrong.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

I think I know what is happening.

Do you have the current Firespitter.dll file? If you don't those things will act all wrong.

I replaced the Firespitter DLL - maybe I didn't have the latest version, the one I downloaded from http://snjo.github.io/ --> download plugin was slightly different in size.

However, the wheels still stick and produce humongous drag. Tried with KAX wheel as well, which does almost the same thing: no liftoff, less drag though.

Tried using the Firespitter version from the main Firespitter download (http://kerbal.curseforge.com/ksp-mods/220252-firespitter/files) (May 23 version) too, same deal... Guess I'll try a different DL of B9?

[Hodo]

I replaced the Firespitter DLL - maybe I didn't have the latest version, the one I downloaded from http://snjo.github.io/ --> download plugin was slightly different in size.

However, the wheels still stick and produce humongous drag. Tried with KAX wheel as well, which does almost the same thing: no liftoff, less drag though.

Tried using the Firespitter version from the main Firespitter download (http://kerbal.curseforge.com/ksp-mods/220252-firespitter/files) (May 23 version) too, same deal... Guess I'll try a different DL of B9?

Which Module Manager are you using? Do you have more than one MM?

The latest Firespitter.dll from Firespitter should fix it. But it maybe an issue with the MM.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Which Module Manager are you using? Do you have more than one MM?

The latest Firespitter.dll from Firespitter should fix it. But it maybe an issue with the MM.

2.1.5 is the MM version I'm using - only the one copy. I've got a bunch of mods; maybe there's more than one mod applying some kind of properties to those gears? Or is there an even newer version of FireSpitter somewhere...?

[Aghanim]

Does FAR simulate variable-sweep wing correctly?

[NathanKell]

Yes.

10char

[Hodo]

2.1.5 is the MM version I'm using - only the one copy. I've got a bunch of mods; maybe there's more than one mod applying some kind of properties to those gears? Or is there an even newer version of FireSpitter somewhere...?

Sounds like there is a corrupted file somewhere causing this. I had this happen with the stock KSP landing gear after .23.5 for some reason.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Sounds like there is a corrupted file somewhere causing this. I had this happen with the stock KSP landing gear after .23.5 for some reason.

Hmmmmmm.... All right, time for some deeper investigation, then. Thanks for the help!

[Hodo]

Hmmmmmm.... All right, time for some deeper investigation, then. Thanks for the help!

No problem wish I could have helped you figure it out.

[razorblade75]

that red circle ,from what mod does it come?

[Taverius]

RCS Build Aid

[Starwaster]

that red circle ,from what mod does it come?http://i.imgur.com/UPs8NER.jpg

RCS Build Aid

And it means your engine thrust is off balance and your plane wants to rotate in that direction.

[razorblade75]

no no, luckly is not my plane

[Hodo]

no no, luckly is not my plane

Nope it was one of my old ones.

The funny thing is it flew just fine, it was the RCS thrusters that were off that would cause that motion. If I just used RCS for transitioning it would have a tendancy to rotate forward.

[rhoark]

Some info about shuttle orbiter stability derivatives

[Starwaster]

Some info about shuttle orbiter stability derivatives

Thanks for that! Very useful looking. Be interesting to see how the component shuttle stacks up under FAR