How to lift off ?

[Akalaël]

Hi every one !

After having a lot of fun colonising all the planets in KSP with a lots of damn good rockets, I decided to get back to the only thing that resists me (what a modesty !) : the SSTO !

So I buit a simple plane with space ability, it works actually quite well, 20 tons, with around 500 D-v left at a 150 km orbit.

Good.

Next step : a kind of a cargo, with the capacity to lift off a playload...

Impossible to lift off with it.

Did I made something wrong ?

Is there a kind of relation between the weight of my plane and the number of delta wing that I should use ?

Or is there a relation between the speed at take off and the number of delta wing that I have on my plane ?

Any help will be highly appreciate !

Edited May 8, 2013 by Akalaël

[EndlessWaves]

Wings horizontal to the airflow produce no lift, if you want to take off then you need sufficient power (pod torque, jet thrust vectoring, tilted control surfaces) to rotate the plane around the rear wheels. This is obviously more difficult the further away they are from the centre of mass.

[RocketPilot573]

You probably need to move the landing gears closer to the center of mass. This should help the plane rotate off the runway. If this doesn't help, then maybe the plane is just too heavy?

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

It looks like there's enough lift on it, but I'd put some more control surfaces on it. If you make the front wheel slightly higher (so that the nose faces upward) than the rear wheels the takeoff will be easier too.

Edited May 8, 2013 by ThePsuedoMonkey

[Akalaël]

Thanks guys, it seems effectively working... sometimes

Can anyone answer about the ratio delta wing needed/weight of the plane ? Or speed needed at take off ?

And I wonder, as I start from scratch, have you any link to some tutos that I can use ?

Building an SSTO seems very difficult and I am sometimes totally lost.

I had a monstruous luck on the first I made, I gess