[0.90] Procedural Dynamics - Procedural Wing 0.9.3 Dec 24

[NathanKell]

That plane will have *severe* mach tuck. Add some canards, and then shift the main wings back a little bit to compensate for the CoP moving forward. Also make sure canards and inner control surfaces are Pitch only, and outer ones are roll only.

Also needs way more vertical tail.

Finally, you might want a higher degree of sweep; that level of sweep would be best for something that hangs around 0.85-0.9 Mach, not supersonic.

[blowfish]

Check stability derivatives at high mach number. You probably have a lot of roll instability which like NathanKell means you need more vertical stabilization.

[Hellbrand]

Hey uhh is there any reason I'm getting two control setting options when i install this mod, I'm running far and a plethorea of other mods but this seems kinda funky

[NathanKell]

You have two copies of FAR installed, or both FAR and NEAR?

[Hellbrand]

Nope Only one copy of Far installed.

Edit#1 oops! wait yes i do.. somehow :V

Edit#2 No i didnt looks like retrofuture didnt change the name over in one of the configs and the module manager loaded two values :V

Edited October 16, 2014 by Hellbrand

[cipherpunks]

I'd like to see Modular Fuel Tanks added to those wings, so that manipulating thickness adds to tank size, and reinforcing (adding weight) subtracts some.

I'd also like mechanization to be more easy to attach (like, say "snap to center/auto-adjust width".

Also, is there any use of flaps really?

I just can't see their benefit (0.25, FAR, RSS, DRC).

[Alshain]

Also, is there any use of flaps really?

I just can't see their benefit (0.25, FAR, RSS, DRC).

Flaps are supposed to make it so your craft can fly at lower speeds while remaining stable, it does this by increasing the amount of lift of the wing... in theory. However even with FAR, for all of it's realism, I've never been able to notice their effect. I find it simpler to just land at the higher speed and use spoilers and drag chutes from RealChute to stabilize and slow down after touchdown.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Alshain

[NathanKell]

Flaps work great. I use them on almost all my designs (except deltas, where they obviously won't work).

[Red Iron Crown]

Flaps don't work on deltas? Why not?

[jrandom]

Flaps don't work on deltas? Why not?

I'm assuming "deltas" means all the control surfaces are at the rear of the plane? If so, a flap would just cause the plane to pitch down. For a flap to work, it has to be on mid-plane wings.

- - - Updated - - -

Flaps are supposed to make it so your craft can fly at lower speeds while remaining stable, it does this by increasing the amount of lift of the wing... in theory. However even with FAR, for all of it's realism, I've never been able to notice their effect. I find it simpler to just land at the higher speed and use spoilers and drag chutes from RealChute to stabilize and slow down after touchdown.

I used flaps to great effect on a subsonic plane last night. They worked about as well as they do in X-Plane, so I'm going to go ahead and assume the behavior is closely mimicking reality.

[TheGatesofLogic]

I'm assuming "deltas" means all the control surfaces are at the rear of the plane? If so, a flap would just cause the plane to pitch down. For a flap to work, it has to be on mid-plane wings.

- - - Updated - - -

I used flaps to great effect on a subsonic plane last night. They worked about as well as they do in X-Plane, so I'm going to go ahead and assume the behavior is closely mimicking reality.

Yup, flaps increase cambre, which increases the lift of an unstalled wing. Higher cambre also has the side-effect of making stall occur at much lower speeds and AoA's however, which makes cambred airfoils far better at producing lift at low speeds and angle of attack, but far worse at providing lift at high speeds and high angles of attack. I believe activating flaps on a wing surface in-game applies the effect relative to the distance from the center of mass, so it does relatively little if activated on a delta-wing craft, but if it did increase cambre on a delta wing it would cause a pitch down moment. This is all VERY apparent if you observe flight data in FAR while still on the runway, as you'll notice that when you try to pitch down your craft on the runway with delta wings the L/W ratio will actually go up, where as if you try to pitch up your L/W ratio will go down. This will occur until some critical AoA at which lift will increase regardless of the difference between the two cambre's caused by the pitch-up/pitch-down input.

This is all, however, just a rough explanation of what i know on the subject, can't guarantee all of that is always correct

Edited October 17, 2014 by TheGatesofLogic

[NathanKell]

Pure deltas, I meant. Assuming you have a canard delta, you could make your control surfaces both pitch and flap, and both roll and flap, and then make the canards both pitch and flap. That would balance the pitch moment while still giving you some added lift.

[Matrix Aran]

I am experiencing a very strange bug with pWings. I've been looking for a way to reduce the part count on one of my heavier designs and so I decided to convert it over to pWings. After fiddling around with the craft and getting it out to the runway, the wings simply fell off the craft. Very odd.

The wings while not attached to the craft, still continue to act as iff they are a part of the craft. Strut connectors will stretch infinitely behind them and if FAR is loaded about 500m down the runway it will begin to do very strange things that will cause the remaining powered portion of the plane to flip about through the air and crash.

After trying for some time to remake the wings and get them to stay attached, I gave up, figuring it must be a corrupt craft file and started fresh. I built another design, mocked up the wing shape, and again the wings fell off. I then went and created a very simple 6 part craft and the wings managed to stay on. Very odd.

I moved the craft file over to my unmodded KSP install to test whether it was something to do with FAR or the other mods I have loaded. If I load the craft directly from the runway, the wings will fall off. If I enter the editor, and load the craft, the wings will stay on the craft and it will fly and orbit just fine, even if I add FAR back into the mix. I can even load it directly from the runway just fine, even though I have not re-saved the craft file.

However, should I close the game client and reload the craft on the runway, the wings will fall off again until I do the above. If I resave the craft file and try to load it back in my modded save, even from the editor, I'm not able to get the wings to stay on.

I've tried adding some mods to the clean copy of KSP, but I've yet to create a new craft that replicates the bug in the clean copy. That said, with two craft producing this error in my modded save, I'm confident it's not just a freak corruption.

output_log.txt

.craft file

[Hellbrand]

That is absolutely Splendiforusly hilarious

[AetherGoddess]

I am experiencing a very strange bug with pWings. [...]

if you figure out how to reproduce that, share. that's hilarious.

[Matrix Aran]

if you figure out how to reproduce that, share. that's hilarious.

I spent another two hours on it after I made that post and I'm still no wiser as to what exactly is causing them to fall off. If anyone has an idea where to look, I'm all ears.

[Wermut]

I just experienced this detached wing thing too just now.

I made this spaceplane here: http://imgur.com/a/Ha6Nu#0

The canards (allmoving style), a few of the control surfaces (b9 style) as well as the outermost wing tips on the rear set (sp+ style) are procedural wings.

This thing flew into space, landed, and I exited back to the space centre (did not recover). I turned the game off for the night after the successful flight. Today, I loaded back into it to from the space centre main view (as opposed to the building with the scanning dishes, though not sure if it matters) and saw that the rear set of pwings were detached, but the other pwings that I used remained attached. The biggest difference that I could see between what detached and what didn't was struts. I had reinforced the connection between the pwings and regular wings of the set that bugged out, and didn't reinforce the connections of the ones that didn't bug out. I'll try another quick test shortly.

[blowfish]

I've seen that issue before, but it seems to have gone away when I revert the launch.

[djphllps]

So im running into an issue. When i move the shape of the wing around it has absolutely no affect whatsoever on my center of lift. However if i save it and reload it THEN it will show an updated center of lift. This starting happening when i updated FAR to the first version they made for .25, however far seems to be working as intended. A theory may be that when far added the feature of changing wing mass and strength that it somehow affected Procedural wings. My friend is also having the exact results with the exact same mod list. Is anyone able to confirm this?

[NathanKell]

I'm working on a patch. FAR has changed a fair bit since 0.9 was released.

[smunisto]

Sorry to be a pest with this thing, but at this point I accept any advices and PWing usage tips in order to prevent the no-collider trailing edge that larger wing portions always form.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/21dko0lqeq6c2rl/Screenshot%202014-10-18%2018.26.04.png?dl=0

How to get my elevons to attach to the orange line, where they should be, instead of the red one:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sbhp87ssqdrtnn/Screenshot%202014-10-18%2018.27.10.png?dl=0

I accept any advices. What would work? Making the wings more modular - more pieces attached to each other, or what?

[NathanKell]

Increase wing root. Attach control surface. Decrease wing root.

[Hyomoto]

Well, I'm surprised more hasn't been made of this but I can't get Procedural Wings to work with FAR at all. I know this is being mentioned above, but the problem for me appears to be the center of lift moves around. When you first place a surface it shows up in the right spot, and it seems to update correctly while you are adjusting the piece. However, if I try to take off my plane will go wildly out of control. If I revert back to the hangar, the CoL will be off to some direction. The problem clears up immediately when I remove FAR, and the normal wings work properly with it installed.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Hyomoto

[Guest]

Try copying (ALT-click) one of the wings, removing the original pair and reattaching the copied one. Seems to work for me.

[Hyomoto]

Try copying (ALT-click) one of the wings, removing the original pair and reattaching the copied one. Seems to work for me.

After some tests, it was late when I posted that and I should have tried this first, it appears it is the 14.3.1 update of FAR causing this, even 14.3 works fine. Someone else made mention of a similar/the same issue so this one is most likely on ferram's end. Sorry, red herring.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Hyomoto