Advanced Air/Spaceplane Construction

[Lazro]

Many people have trouble with airplanes, and particularly their construction. Well, if you've ever wanted to fly with the birds, here are some tips to keep you aloft.

WARNING: This guide assumes that you know the basics of the game, including knowledge of what the respective engines need for flight, how to make fine-adjustments to part angling, and knowledge of what the values in part descriptions mean. This guide was not written for Ferram Aerospace, and was written during build 0.20.2 of Kerbal Space Program.

Chapter One: Basic airplane construction

Pick a command module, and start building your plane. Right now it doesn't matter if you picked a rocket engine or a jet engine for your plane, and it is slightly simpler to add a rocket engine. However, this also means that your plane will fly for less time than a jet powered plane, due to overall lower specific impulse.

ENGINES THAT ARE NOT RECOMMENDED:

Solid rocket boosters, including the Sepratron, RT-10, and the Rockomax BACC, due to extreme acceleration and change in weight

Ion Engines, due to extreme power usage and low thrust

Rockomax-sized engines, such as the "Skipper," "Mainsail," or "Poodle," due to difficulties in attaching landing gear.

Now, before putting horizontal wings on, put everything else you'd like to put on the plane, on the plane, including landing gear and a rudder. This is vitally important later on to prevent having to fiddle around with the wings as you add more stuff. After you've added everything you want, click the "Center of Mass" button and the "Center of Lift" button. You will see a blue spherical marker and a yellow spherical marker. Now, add two wings, using symmetry, on either side of the craft. Add a control surface to to both wings. If the Blue marker is slightly behind or inside of the craft, you're set to fly. If not, move the wings so they are. Congratulations! You've built your first airplane.

More coming soon...

[Euel]

Thanks kindly for that tip! Guess I'll be checking out the plane section of the game...

[Supernovy]

Quick point, the aircraft landing gear, the unpowered ones, have no mass in flight. They do move the centre of mass indicator, though, so I recommend putting landing gear on last.