How ever fly a plane?!

[koshelenkovv]

Maybe stupid question, but how you ever fly a planes?

They all seems absolutelly uncontrollable, even tiniest ones! Even stock models - Aeris, Ravenspear MK1.

Controls is too sensitive and Caps Lock does not help. Plane spinning and tumbling like overcaffeinated squirrel, SAS and avionics helps only very slightly.

To make all worse, when fuel burns up, plane tends tilting on nose or tail, and this tilt NOT compensated by SASes.

Regarding non-stock planes built by myself, they all cannot ever get off the ground. They ALL ALWAYS sways to the left, falls from runway and explodes or drives in circles. (And yes, I know how to use symmetry tool.)

I have no problem handling 20-tanks asparagus rocket without ASAS, except maybe spinning, which I not always can overcome, but this ok while rocket pitching and yawing as needed. And then I absolutelly cannot control simpliest planes!

Its all even not frustrating, its INFURIATING as hell.

How do you guys piloting planes?

[ferram4]

First off, welcome to the wonderful world of planes, which is harder than rockets. We all understand how bad it can be, so infuriation can be justified.

That said, here is what I have learned:

Don't put SAS modules on. Avionics is OK, but you don't need the SAS. From what I have heard, it was broken in 0.17.

• Smaller planes always tend to act like over-caffeinated squirrels because their control surfaces are much larger than they should be. Fewer control surfaces generally help here.
  
• Build a larger plane with longer wings. The larger the plane is, the less it handles like an insect and the more it handles like a flying barge.
  
• You may want to try trimming the plane for level flight by holding ALT + WASDQE to give it a minor amount of constant pitch-up or roll if necessary.
  
• Make sure to turn on the Center of Mass and Center of Lift indicators in the SPH (bottom left corner). The CoL must be behind (but not too far behind) the CoM for your plane to fly. If the CoL is in front, the plane will do un-ending backflips; if the CoM is too far forward, the plane won't take off.
  
• If the plane is going off course on the runway, there are four reasons that I can think of:
  1. There is no vertical tail to keep it pointed in the right direction.
  2. There are not enough struts holding the wings together, which allows them to bend into an asymmetric shape.
  3. The main landing gear is too close together, allowing the plane to tilt.
  4. The SAS is doing something screwy.

If you post a picture of one of your custom planes, most people here will be very willing to give constructive criticism and help you out. Hope what I said helped.

[Nibb31]

I might try building planes when they implement half-way realistic flight aerodynamics. The way it is now, planes do not behave like planes, so there really is no point in having them.

[koshelenkovv]

[*]Smaller planes always tend to act like over-caffeinated squirrels because their control surfaces are much larger than they should be. Fewer control surfaces generally help here.

Thanks, it worked, plane not overreacting now.

[*]You may want to try trimming the plane for level flight by holding ALT + WASDQE to give it a minor amount of constant pitch-up or roll if necessary.

I have not knew what I can use Alt button in flight %\ It hugely helps!

Still hard to control, though.

[*]If the plane is going off course on the runway, there are four reasons that I can think of:

2. There are not enough struts holding the wings together, which allows them to bend into an asymmetric shape.

Wings are not so big..

3. The main landing gear is too close together, allowing the plane to tilt.

No

4. The SAS is doing something screwy.

Even with avionics turned off this plane tends to turn left on runway

Here the other plane - it rolls nearly straight on runway and even flies, but absolutelly uncontrollable without avionics. With avionics it reacting as drowsy hippopotamus.

Nevertheless, I managed to takeoff, to make some turns, then full circle and then to crash on the runway

Thanks for suggestions

Edited October 11, 2012 by koshelenkovv

[ferram4]

I think I see the problem with this one. It has a "conventional" landing gear with two landing gear parts near the front and a single one on the tail (a tail-dragger), rather than the more common "tricycle" type of landing gear, unless I'm seeing wrong. This makes me add another reason:

5. Conventional landing gear is unstable on the runway. Planes with that type of landing gear setup want to swap ends.

Try getting rid of the tail landing gear and putting a landing gear part underneath the cockpit. Move back the landing gear on the engines just a tiny bit. That should fix it.

Edit: Try adding more vertical tail and using ALT + WASDQE in the editor to tilt the horizontal tail downwards a bit. Also try using the same controls to tilt the wingtips upwards a tiny bit, so that the wings look more like the way a Boeing's wings are angled. It helps make the plane more stable.

Also, remember that avionics tries to counter any motions, including the control inputs you give it, so you might want to turn it off for some maneuvers.

Edited October 11, 2012 by ferram4

[koshelenkovv]

Same problem manifests with 4 chassis.

plane4 have langing gear as you said and runs straight

[Wayfare]

Looking at your pictures, I've had more success with planes that have their center of lift very close to their center of mass - maybe a little bit behind, but certainly not as far as yours. Inside the "ball" at least. I think yours would want to tip down on its own.

As for runway sway - correct with your rudder (A or D). Even a "perfectly balanced" plane will have its slight quirks one way or another. It should even out once in flight.

[Markus Reese]

Myself for highly sensitive rockets when I was on keyboard required use of an ASAS. Turn it on and for any maneuver, use the Fkey which toggles your ASAS state while it is held down for longer duration flights. For turning, if your plane cannot maintain a banked turn stable without spinning out of control, that is a design issue.

[Qumefox]

From what I can tell, to really get a stable aircraft in KSP currently, the plane needs to be relatively long, and have roughly equal lift sources both in front of, and behind, the center of mass. Short planes with only one primary lift source (one set of wings) centered at the center of mass tend to be VERY sensitive to up/down pitch.. It's like trying to balance something on the end of your finger.

I think the issues right now are due to the inadequacies in the current (lack of) aerodynamic modelling. Parts are given simplistic behavior performance criteria (lift, drag, mass) which leads to workable designs in KSP ending up totally different than what you'd expect in reality.

Vertical stabilisers for instance. In reality, to put them on the back and they help keep your plane pointed in the right direction thanks to the lift/drag they cause.. in KSP, well, it doesn't really seem to matter a whole lot where you put them. A lot of the better flying planes i've built don't even have them.

[koshelenkovv]

MOST of my aicraft tends to turn left on runway. This only slightly depends on chassis construction.

And I've noticed that those planes tends to bank right in flight directly proportional to runway swaying.

I've built these planes very carefully and absolutely sure that they all are symmetrical.

I don't know, maybe its somewat linked to recent Windows update of dotnets - after update I cannot rotate parts slightly - no shift/alt keys affects WASDQE anymore.

Now I building biplanes, they quite easy to control and easy to land on plain ground (those rare ones that have no tendency to swaying/banking)

Edited October 13, 2012 by koshelenkovv