help me fly this horrible abomination

[king of nowhere]

i will premise that i don't like making planes or piloting them. not to mention, i know them less than rockets. i would skip that part of the game entirely.

unfortunately, i keep getting those "measure something at those coordinates, below altitude X". and i can't do it with a satellite. i am afraid refusing those contracts will drop my reputation, and i feel using cheats to complete them would be, you know, cheating.

so, i tried to make a few airplanes to fulfill those contracts. they fly just well enough to do the task. i finally decided i would like to improve the design

so, here the thing i'm currently trying to fly: brace yourself.

https://imgur.com/a/Qigr20P

it has several problems:

- it won't take off on its own, no matter how fast i go. it needs to reach the end of the lane, and use the drop there to be in the air.

- i need to push up all the time or it will spontaneously angle down. i assume it is a matter of center of mass and aerodinamic push, but when i tried to center the wings better on the center of mass, the plane became much more unstable.

- the bar on top of the plane is supposed to control vertical aptitude. i know in real planes it won't go there, but it will be attached to the tail rudder, and also as an additional surface behind the wings. but i can't seem to be able to attach it there. that was really the only place the game let me put the thing.

- the plane pulls to the right, so that continuous lateral turning is required. i can't figure out why, since everything is symmetric.

- it won't go above 8000 m of altitude. precisely, it will move in a sinusoid, where it goes up to 8000, then it starts falling down to 4000, until it finally manages to get enough lift to stop the fall and start climbing again, in a new cycle.

by the way, the parachutes are my mark3 landing gear. i activate them in mid-air, and land in one piece, if not exactly elegantly. they are a marked improvement over my mark2 landing gear (eject pilot with own parachute, lose plane; improved in that i can recover the plane) and my mark1 landing gear (crash on the ground, hope pilot survives; improved in that now pilot survives every time) . yes, i can't land. i assume the first step to land would be having a plane that can fly at 50 m/s to touch down on the landing strip gently enough. none of my planes could ever stay in the air below three times that speed.

but i don't need to learn to land. if i could manage to go around half the world at a decent speed without fighting my plane all the time along the way, i would be satisfied.

also, since i'm asking, is there any way to make the game stop offering me those contracts? i really don't like flying.

[bewing]

- There is a difference between "not bothering to accept a contract in the first place" and "refusing" a contract. If you don't like a particular type of contract, then don't accept them. Eventually they will disappear. Doing that does not affect your rep. Actually refusing a contract by clicking the button to make it go away will lower your rep.

- Maybe if you got gud at building and flying planes, you would like them more? Building planes is a useful skill. The game is supposed to push your boundaries. But if you are really certain you don't like them, you can play an entire career without every flying or building one.

- You don't seem to quite grasp the idea of a "lever arm" yet. The amount of force that a control surface can apply to a vessel is proportional to the length of the lever arm. That is, the distace from the control surface to the CoM in the direction that the control surface is pushing. For example, your tail has a decent lever arm to the CoM in the yaw dimension. Your aileron is right on top of your CoM (lever arm has zero length), so it has no control authority whatsoever, and I'm surprised this plane flies at all. You either need canards or an actual "stabilizer" on your tail. But they have to be a good long distance from your CoM to work!

- Those particular swept wings you are using are a cruel trick the devs played on new players. Maybe they look better than the squared-off wings, but they are twice as heavy for the lift they give. Try not to use them.

- A single wheesley engine can get you supersonic, if you build a low-drag plane. Two engines is overkill. The heavier you make it, the more of a PITA it will be in every way.

- Ailerons are kinda meant to be attached to the back edges of the wings. That's why you are having a problem attaching it. To make canards and/or stabilizers, use the tailfins or the control surface that you are using for the tail, and mount them sideways to the side of the plane, near the nose or the tail.

- To fly slow: you need more wing area, less mass, better control authority, and lower drag.

- Yes, when you are an airplane newbie the easiest way to land is to put a parachute or three at the CoM, and float down. Landing on your wheels takes practice and some skill. But it's really worthwhile -- especially when you eventually want to build spaceplanes, or seaplanes.

- No, the game has an order in which it gives you contracts, based on your rep. If you have a bad rep, it will only give you "part test" and "survey" contracts. You can't stop it without cheating.

 

 

[king of nowhere]

41 minutes ago, bewing said:

- There is a difference between "not bothering to accept a contract in the first place" and "refusing" a contract. If you don't like a particular type of contract, then don't accept them. Eventually they will disappear. Doing that does not affect your rep. Actually refusing a contract by clicking the button to make it go away will lower your rep.

that's great news! now i know how to avoid boring contracts

Quote

- You don't seem to quite grasp the idea of a "lever arm" yet. The amount of force that a control surface can apply to a vessel is proportional to the length of the lever arm. That is, the distace from the control surface to the CoM in the direction that the control surface is pushing. For example, your tail has a decent lever arm to the CoM in the yaw dimension. Your aileron is right on top of your CoM (lever arm has zero length), so it has no control authority whatsoever, and I'm surprised this plane flies at all. You either need canards or an actual "stabilizer" on your tail. But they have to be a good long distance from your CoM to work!

nice, i wasn't aware of that part. thinking about the phisics of it, i now see it should be obvious.

Quote

- A single wheesley engine can get you supersonic, if you build a low-drag plane. Two engines is overkill. The heavier you make it, the more of a PITA it will be in every way.

a single one got me to 300 m/s in the previous version of the plane. i tried adding 2 to see if i could gain elevation, with no avail. in fact, it barely goes faster than it did with 1.

Quote

- Ailerons are kinda meant to be attached to the back edges of the wings. That's why you are having a problem attaching it. To make canards and/or stabilizers, use the tailfins or the control surface that you are using for the tail, and mount them sideways to the side of the plane, near the nose or the tail.

i know ailerons are meant to be attached to the back edges of the wings, but i can't seem to do it with the editor.

I never considered using a radially-mounted tailfin in its place, but it sounds promising.

Quote

- To fly slow: you need more wing area, less mass, better control authority, and lower drag.

you often mention that i should have less drag. well, this iteration of course drags a lot, since it has those 2 big engines on the wings. but the previous one only had the engine on the back, so it should have had a low drag. i mean, i can't see how to possibly reduce drag significantly when i already have a plane as streamlined as possible. i still needed at least 150 m/s to stay in the air (actually, i needed 150 to fall down in a controlled manner: 200 to keep elevation). besides removing those two engines on the wings, how do i reduce drag further?

Quote

- No, the game has an order in which it gives you contracts, based on your rep. If you have a bad rep, it will only give you "part test" and "survey" contracts. You can't stop it without cheating.

strange. i rebooted my career after losing the previous one to an accidental overwrite, and i never lost reputation once. yet, i keep getting those "survey" contracts.

in my previous career, i had a sensibly lower reputation due to killing jeb and letting the game autosave. and yet i stopped getting survey contracts much earlier. anyway, that's also good to know.

tomorrow i will try to fix my plane and see what i can do. and probably i will appreciate them some more, though i doubt i will ever like having to fly across half of kerbin just to take a measure.

thanks!

 

 

 

 

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

- There is a difference between "not bothering to accept a contract in the first place" and "refusing" a contract. If you don't like a particular type of contract, then don't accept them. Eventually they will disappear. Doing that does not affect your rep. Actually refusing a contract by clicking the button to make it go away will lower your rep.

Also it needs to be said, REP ALMOST MEANS NOTHING. Refusing ONE contract is a tiny little drop in a bucket. Refusing 10 contracts is a normal sized drop in a bucket.

And the bucket refills faster the less full it is, so feel free to remove those microscopic drops on a whim.

[bewing]

52 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

you often mention that i should have less drag.

Heh. Well, there's a reason I do that. Drag is the thing that kills airplanes and makes them not fun.

Drag comes from having stuff on your plane. The more stuff, the more drag. The point is that you want to minimize, rather than overkill. For example, I think you have 4 air intakes on your plane -- you only need one little one. 3 engines, and you only need one. When the day comes that you are comfortable removing the parachutes, that will help. Etc., etc. If you keep going with the planes, every few days you will realize, "huh, if I replace those 2 things with this one thing, that'll drop my part count by one." And you try it, and your plane goes faster.

For example, you may or may not be willing to replace your cockpit with a MK1 Command Pod. It weighs less, costs less (especially after you remove the monoprop), has less drag, and has an attachment point on the nose for a small air intake.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

and i never lost reputation once. yet, i keep getting those "survey" contracts

Not quite what I meant. You need to increase your rep to something over 500 before the survey contracts go away. Any rep under 300 is "bad" rep. Usually you start at zero.

 

[Cavscout74]

Another item I haven't seen mentioned yet, your main landing gear should be slightly behind the center of mass not at the tail of the plane.  That is contributing to you not being able to get off the runway till the end.  And yes, you will have to watch you don't over-rotate & smash your tail.

[RoninFrog]

If you have over 1.5 million funds, you probably should be out of the survey contracts.  I strongly recommend just declining a whole bunch (maybe 10) of them, and then the survey contracts won't bother your any more.

[Spricigo]

4 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

If you have over 1.5 million funds, you probably should be out of the survey contracts.  I strongly recommend just declining a whole bunch (maybe 10) of them, and then the survey contracts won't bother your any more.

Yep! It seems the OP done so many of those that the game think "that is the kind he likes, let's offer more of it." Declining a bunch will show what you really think about those stinky survey contracts. 

Meanwhile, if you don't mind borrowing someone else craft to practice: KarlJatho (not the fastest plane but since I only use for gathering science near ksc in early career, that is not a problem to me, easy to fly and easy to land) , P-99.(This one  can cruise supersonic..if you  manage to take off with the wheel issues currently affecting it)

[jimmymcgoochie]

Try using one of the stock planes, playing with the design until it breaks. Because it’s stock you always have an un-broken version to fall back on and they exist to be examples and learning aids.

[king of nowhere]

14 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Also it needs to be said, REP ALMOST MEANS NOTHING. Refusing ONE contract is a tiny little drop in a bucket. Refusing 10 contracts is a normal sized drop in a bucket.

And the bucket refills faster the less full it is, so feel free to remove those microscopic drops on a whim.

something else that i learn. i was looking at the reputation percentage, and i got the impression that it was the ratio between gained and lost reputation. so even just losing a tiny bit of reputation would affect the percentage badly. so i was trying to lose nothing, ever.

now i also know why my reputation still is not climbing as fast as i'd hope.

13 hours ago, bewing said:

For example, I think you have 4 air intakes on your plane -- you only need one little one. 3 engines, and you only need one.

For example, you may or may not be willing to replace your cockpit with a MK1 Command Pod. It weighs less, costs less (especially after you remove the monoprop), has less drag, and has an attachment point on the nose for a small air intake.

 

great. when you use a rocket engine it is written clearly how much it consummes, how much thrust it will provide, how many seconds it will work with the available fuel.

but for planes? nothing. there aren't even any tutorials on them in the stock game (not that the tutorials on rocketry ever taught me anything i didn't knew, besides how to do it in the game). i have no flippin idea how many air intakes are needed. i saw my plane losing performance at high altitudes, slowing down, i thought "maybe that's because the engine can't get enough air" and put more intakes. so, another good thing to know.

as for the command pod... it looks less aerodinamic than the plane command pod, the plane command pod looks more thematically fit for a plane... /headscratch... again, the game provides no informations. is there any way to learn those things besides asking in the forum?

[Spricigo]

23 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

is there any way to learn those things besides asking in the forum?

I supposed "reading the wiki" and "watching youtube tutorials" are not the answers you are looking for.

What can  I say? Devs decided to make a game where you learn by messing with the things...*shrugs*

 

 

[king of nowhere]

5 hours ago, Spricigo said:

What can  I say? Devs decided to make a game where you learn by messing with the things...*shrugs*

messing around with things is the best way to learn.... but only if you can figure out what you're doing wrong.

if you have a bad plane, and you realize you have a bad plane, but you have no idea what you're doing wrong, you can't fix it. the chances of fixing it by tampering randomly are very tiny. well, evolution works like that, tampering randomly and keeping whatever works better. but evolution got 3 billion years; i'd get bored much earlier.

 

thanks to all your advice, i cobbled together a flyer that i would hazard to call "passable"

https://imgur.com/a/pWZrvHL

it goes at 300 m/s at 10000 meters of altitude with its single engine. the sceince instruments are into the cargo bay. it is stable and will keep flying straight without me tampering the touchboard all the time. i can set game speed at 4x while flying it, which makes survy missions much less annoying.

i still didn't manage to take off before the end of the landing strip, though. and it accelerates very slowly - i guess because the engine cannot take in enough air at low speed. i still don't think i could land this thing without the parachutes (also in the cargo bay). but at least making survey missions with this thing is not a chore

EDIT: now it's dropped to 200 m/s and 7500 m, and i can't get back again, nor i have any idea why it won't go as high or fast as before. and we really need a headscratching emoticon. EDIT2: now i did figure it out: i forgot to refold the wheels (we also need a facepalm emoticon)

 

Edited July 2, 2020 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

i even managed to bring it to 550 m/s, at lower altitude (around 800). after that, if i climb slowly i can keep the speed up to 10 km, before it slows down again. with fuel mostly spent it goes a few km higher, and i even managed to reach 17,4 km and fulfill a contract above height (which i would do with satellites otherwise). but still, despite lower drag, the engine does not provide the same push higher. i assume it's not getting enough air in the thin atmosphere; i wonder if more air intakes and larger wings would let me fly faster and higher?

[FleshJeb]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

messing around with things is the best way to learn.... but only if you can figure out what you're doing wrong.

You're 100% right. One of the reasons that this sub-forum is my favorite place in the KSP social sphere.

Just now, king of nowhere said:

the engine does not provide the same push higher.

Please see the graphs here: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/J-33_"Wheesley"_Turbofan_Engine

[king of nowhere]

since i had a decent flyer, i decided to also try landing. the thing can fly at low speed, with the tanks mostly empty. i managed to hit the landing strip many times, at around 30 m/s. sounds pretty good. always, though, the plane bounced in some bad way and crashed. my best attempt (before i decided to do it with the parachutes) ended with me losing a wing and the engine.

well, my stint with flying wasn't all that bad, but i think i'll stick to driving rovers in the future. though now that i think about it, i may make an exception to explore the worlds with atmospheres

19 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

Please see the graphs here: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/J-33_"Wheesley"_Turbofan_Engine

nice. only one thing is not clear: how many m/s is mach 1? on earth it is about 300, but this game has some slightly different physical constants.

Edited July 3, 2020 by king of nowhere

[FleshJeb]

5 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

nice. only one thing is not clear: how many m/s is mach 1? on earth it is about 300, but this game has some slightly different physical constants.

Like the real world, it varies with temperature. They modeled the atmosphere on an Earth standard model with different heights. Check the atmo charts here: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbin.

One really useful tool is the stock AeroGUI, which you can get to with Alt-F12, and it's under the Physics tab.

It's turned on in this screenshot, and it's showing the speed of sound at sea level to be about 352m/s: 

I have another one showing speed of sound as 299m/s at 21.5km altitude. Although, temperature varies with altitude, time of day, and latitude. 

[bewing]

30 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

i decided to also try landing. the thing can fly at low speed, with the tanks mostly empty. i managed to hit the landing strip many times, at around 30 m/s.

30 m/s is plenty slow enough to work. Now you just need a lot of practice. Don't land on the runway. Land on the grass while you are practicing. Then taxi onto the runway after you are firmly on the ground. It's easiest to climb onto the runway from the ramp at the mountain end of the runway.

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

messing around with things is the best way to learn.... but only if you can figure out what you're doing wrong.

That's so true, and one of the biggest problems with complicated sandbox games - of which KSP is a prime example.

If your plane doesn't work, a new player could have any combination of:

• Misunderstanding about aerodynamics and physics
• Misunderstanding about how the game is different from realistic aerodynamics and physics.
• Simply a bad idea for a plane.
• Poor piloting skills.
• Poor control interface.
• Game bug
• Mod bug
• Mod interaction bug.

...and I'm probably forgetting a few. A seasoned player can actually rule out a lot of those problems, at least on a first pass. A new player not only has to consider every problem, they have to consider that it may be more than one of those problems. And the player is even new enough to not even know what all of the problems are.

But that's why we're here Well, in the case of planes that's why YOU ALL are here.

[Spricigo]

If you didn't found this classic yet: 

Just ignore the part about drag.

 

 

[Klapaucius]

17 hours ago, Spricigo said:

I supposed "reading the wiki" and "watching youtube tutorials" are not the answers you are looking for.

What can  I say? Devs decided to make a game where you learn by messing with the things...*shrugs*

 

 

It is true though that in the early career it is more difficult to make a good plane. It gets easier with some of the later parts.  

[Spricigo]

29 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

It is true though that in the early career it is more difficult to make a good plane. It gets easier with some of the later parts.  

Not at all. You need later parts to build bigger, faster planes. For a good basic plane, aviation is enough.

[king of nowhere]

i take the chance for an additional, related question. i still have some survey contracts to fulfill that require height above 19 km. is there a practical, reliable way to get this high with only the weasley or juno engine? or should i just fulfill them with a satellite?

[king of nowhere]

actually i reached over 55 km once i made my plane lighter. i got to reach 600 m/s at 17 km, at which point the engine shuts down because it's too outside its optimal parameters, but by now the atmospheric drag is fairly low, so i keep the speed, and my wings are large enough to keep providing lift. so i keep climbing to 50 km, until i fall back and the engine reignites.

it feels like it could be a bug, but it's reproducible.

EDIT: it must definitely be a bug, because if i reload a save once the engine has stopped, it won't keep climbing forever, but it will stop pretty soon. even then, i can get to 20 km, which is more reasonable

Edited July 3, 2020 by king of nowhere

[Bej Kerman]

Needs more wingspan, your plane is gliding on a pair of twigs and the minimal surface lift of the tanks.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Bej Kerman

[Klapaucius]

8 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Not at all. You need later parts to build bigger, faster planes. For a good basic plane, aviation is enough.

If I remember from the one career game I attempted, early on my only gear option was the LY fixed gear, which has serious bouncing issues even with a lot of tweaking.  I've built a lot of planes in KSP and pride myself on my ability to get almost anything to fly, and I found early aviation a challenge.

 

To be fair, it was in real life as well.