can't get my SSTO to turn in atmosphere

[Edberg]

Hi guys and gals.

I've built an SSTO that I can get into orbit with quite easily but it flies like a brick. I start and tilt up and from there go up into orbit but if I want it ti behave like a normal plane it fails miserably.... it wont turn, when i try to roll and pull back to turn it just won't budge from it's current heading, it just flip flops and then its back to it's original heading. what am I missing here?

[RoboRay]

It sounds like your Center of Lift is too far back. You want the CoL to be a little behind the Center of Mass for positive stability, but it it's too far back then the craft becomes so stable that you can't turn.

Note, however, that you can't simply yank a plane around into any arbitrarily sharp turn... there are aerodynamic limits on your rate of turn. If you try to exceed them, the craft will "weathervane" back into the limits. If this is your problem, you can try using the Avionics Package. With SAS mode on, it limits your attempted attitude changes to stay within the limits.

Edited April 22, 2013 by RoboRay

[Zephram Kerman]

Maybe your plane is working just fine. Consider how fast your vessel is moving. If you pull back on the stick and get four Gs, that's just fine. It might take a while to actually see the effect, but that's just because of the huge amounts of kinetic energy involved. If it took five minutes to get moving that fast, why shouldn't it take a while to reverse it?

Otherwise... what kind of control systems are you using? Avionics pack, ASAS, MechJeb, etc.? Rocket-style ASAS will try to maintain the heading when it was activated, while avionics pack attempts to keep reasonably close to the direction of travel.