How to calculate lift?

[Radam]

I think its vertical, as its lift. I dont think programmer wanted to complicate that much. Lift and drag are calculated separate. And drag acts a brake...

Also it would be possible to make a Lift/Drag versus AoA graph.

Question tho, How to get from Lift to force in ksp? Any factor missing in my calculations above?

[ChevronTango]

CrossProduct(velocity, wingRight) is the key here, if you draw a plane between the velocity vector and the line from the wings center to where it joins the fuselage, then the lift is othogonal to this plane, in the direction that the angle of attack logical indicates as up (so simply, flying straight and level with a positive angle of attack the lift would indeed be up relative to the planetary body.)

I'm currently working on a relatively advanced Simulation system which would take a craft file, along with various inputs such as height, planetary body, velocity, velocity direction etc and it'll calculate lift and such. It may become a plugin aswell but I'm still not sure where I'm heading with it. The original plugin I submitted in an earlier post on this thread still does a very good job at demonstrating the lift vectors so if you have any queries about directions, where the force is applied, or scaling, I suggest you go play with that to get a better idea of exactly what we're talking about.

[hydropos]

CrossProduct(velocity, wingRight) is the key here, if you draw a plane between the velocity vector and the line from the wings center to where it joins the fuselage, then the lift is othogonal to this plane, in the direction that the angle of attack logical indicates as up (so simply, flying straight and level with a positive angle of attack the lift would indeed be up relative to the planetary body.)

I've been trying to calculate a few things myself. It seems like you're always better off using a rocket design than a spaceplane. Maybe on takeoff from a really high gravity/atmosphere planet like Eve, things would be different, but it's not looking very likely.