Help: Water landings

[sloth]

Ive been practising water landings with space planes and can not seem to manage it. The pilot usually survives but the plane pretty much disintegrates down to the cockpit and maybe one or two extra parts still attached. How slow do you need to go for a safe water landing? (As an average guideline, I understand sturdiness in the individual plane design is a factor).

Edited September 27, 2012 by sloth

[EvilotionCR2]

You need lot of structural fuelsages.

[Xeo]

I used this system on my Vulture MkII spaceplane : gliding a low speed a few meters above the water, then deploy a chute juste high enough for the plane to hit the water nose first with almost no velocity. The engines are the only things that do not survive every time. If you want to see that in action, check the thread linked in my signature. There are pictures and a video of the Vulture.

Note that this is only an emergency landing system, not something you would want for an amphibious plane.