how do i build a working plane?

[Riksuki]

so, i bought ksp about a month or two ago, i played around 10 hours and  i have not been really successful, all my attempts at building a plane so far have failed, mostly because none of my planes are able to turn and about half of them aren't even able to keep flying for very long and really struggle at gaining lift, whenever i try to turn with my planes they mostly just turn sideways and crash in the water shortly after, i have absolutely no idea what the hell i'm even doing tbh

also, sometimes my plane starts to wobble a lot just as i go to the runway

here's some footage of my current design

 

[dci]

Hi. Seems like center of lift is too far away from center of mass, try move main wings towards the cabin. Check if wheels are all parallel and move rear wheels closer to fuselage.

[18Watt]

 

 

 

 

[Leganeski]

1 hour ago, dci said:

Hi. Seems like center of lift is too far away from center of mass

This is the only problem that I could see.

Because the center of lift is so far back, it's constantly trying to tilt the plane downwards. On the ground, this means that the front wheel is supporting most of the weight of the plane, and one wheel isn't enough to maintain stability. In the air, your control surfaces are fighting as hard as they can to counteract the downwards tilt, and are just barely succeeding. When you use them to do something else like turning, they can no longer provide enough pitch torque, and the plane pitches downwards and crashes.

Still, the fact that you managed to actually achieve level flight after only 10 hours is very impressive! It took me a lot longer than that.

[Riksuki]

2 hours ago, dci said:

Hi. Seems like center of lift is too far away from center of mass, try move main wings towards the cabin. Check if wheels are all parallel and move rear wheels closer to fuselage.

40 minutes ago, Leganeski said:

This is the only problem that I could see.

Because the center of lift is so far back, it's constantly trying to tilt the plane downwards. On the ground, this means that the front wheel is supporting most of the weight of the plane, and one wheel isn't enough to maintain stability. In the air, your control surfaces are fighting as hard as they can to counteract the downwards tilt, and are just barely succeeding. When you use them to do something else like turning, they can no longer provide enough pitch torque, and the plane pitches downwards and crashes.

Still, the fact that you managed to actually achieve level flight after only 10 hours is very impressive! It took me a lot longer than that.

thank you! i moved the wings a bit further towards the center of mass and now i am easily able to take off and not only that but this little plane can travel at nearly twice the speed of sound! i was almost able to land, but i didn't deaccelerate enough and ended up bouncing off the ground and crashing, but it works!!!!! thank you soo much

[DeadJohn]

[note: I wrote this before seeing your reply. Glad you already found one solution.]

There are a lot of ways to get a good plane in KSP, and even more ways to get a bad plane. The prior comments in this thread are good.

The triangle formed by the 3 wheels should be longer than it is wide. Move the nose wheel forward and shift the 2 wing wheels inwards toward the fuselage. That should improve ground stability.

The center of lift is too far behind the center of mass, causing the tail to lift and nose to droop. Others have suggested bring the wings forward. That might worsen your landing gear position. Alternatively, leave the wings where they are but move the tail elevators to be nose canards. That will shift your center of lift forwards, as well as put the control surface further away from the centers of mass and lift for better leverage.

Congrats on your 1st forum post.

Edited December 19, 2022 by DeadJohn