Wow... It Flies!

[The Jedi Master]

I was attempting to build a(n?) SSTO. After two attempts to get it to fly right, about to scrap it, it's areospike fell off... then it took off just before hitting the water. I don't know how it took off, and it didn't fly well at all... but it FLEW!

Flight Characteristics:

• Must constantly pull up, lest it start flapping around like a drunk albatross
  
• Not very good at turning
  
• Cannot land
  

Can anyone figure out why it flew, and, more importantly, how I can make it better?

[Vanamonde]

Some suggestions: Too many control surfaces actually start yanking the plane around in violent shakes instead of making it more maneuverable. Try putting the control surfaces farther from the COM instead, to give them more leverage. Small control surfaces up front may help with your nose-down issue, but so will taking those two upper engines and moving to the same spot but under the wing. There, they will apply a bit of torque to help hold the nose up while under thrust. You don't need that many wheels for a plane that size, so you could remove some of those. And putting a spacing part between the fuselage and the front wheel will raise the nose while sitting on the runway, which helps generate lift for takeoff. What kind of trouble were you having with landing?

Edited April 24, 2013 by Vanamonde

[The Jedi Master]

Some suggestions: Too many control surfaces actually start yanking the plane around in violent shakes instead of making it more maneuverable. Try putting the control surfaces farther from the COM mass instead, to give them more leverage. Small control surfaces up front may help with your nose-down issue, but so will taking those two upper engines and moving to the same spot but under the wing. There, they will apply a bit of torque to help hold the nose up while under thrust. You don't need that many wheels for a plane that size, so you could remove some of those. And putting a spacing part between the fuselage and the front wheel will raise the nose while sitting on the runway, which helps generate lift for takeoff. What kind of trouble were you having with landing?

Thanks for the advice. My landing woes? Well, it just wants to flop all over the place.

[rryy]

Try putting the rear landing gear closer to the center of mass if it has trouble taking off. Also, try angling some of the rear wings downwards a bit to help with the pitch problem, and/or add some canards in the front and angle those upwards.

[The Jedi Master]

The New and Improved JebShip Two:

It's first flight:

At least Jeb was able to eject just before total failure.

[thes50]

Having wheels at an angle sometimes causes problems with planes when moving across ground. Try only having one wheel instead of two for the center tank.

[EndlessWaves]

With aircraft it can be hard to tell from screenshots as force balancing can be harder to get right. If you can share the craft file it would be much easier to identify the larger problems.

That's looking much better, although you do want to try and keep your wheels attached to the lowest stiff point and pointing straight down as it's easier to land with high ground clearance.

Edited April 24, 2013 by EndlessWaves

[ROFLCopter64bit]

Maybe you should try modifing the stock planes first to get something you like, so you understand how spaceplanes work. After learning some stuff about that, come back to this and try again. You should know more about how space planes work after that.