Odd gliding

[noxcarakus]

Ok so I found an interesting issue with a jet/rover design I've been tweaking for a few days now. Finally have it relatively stable on takeoff and landing, but doing some gliding tests yielded a surprising result... Was flying at roughly 5 km above the surface of Kerbin, and decided to cut all power but the lowest tick, and set the trim up 1.5 notches, speed dropped to 52 m/s, and long story short I glided at the same altitude almost no power same speed until I ran out of jet fuel. After a success like that, of course there has to be the failure...Ended up trying to land on the side of a mountain going uphill, and didn't have the pitch to stick it. R.I.P Bill Kerman

[Aphox]

Planes with a high relative lift surface area are prone to glide at low speeds for quite some time. I've had designs that could glide for several kilometers with no thrust input, without exploiting any kind of clipping or infiniglide stuff.

[koshelenkovv]

Ok so I found an interesting issue with a jet/rover design I've been tweaking for a few days now. Finally have it relatively stable on takeoff and landing, but doing some gliding tests yielded a surprising result... Was flying at roughly 5 km above the surface of Kerbin, and decided to cut all power but the lowest tick, and set the trim up 1.5 notches, speed dropped to 52 m/s, and long story short I glided at the same altitude almost no power same speed until I ran out of jet fuel. After a success like that, of course there has to be the failure...Ended up trying to land on the side of a mountain going uphill, and didn't have the pitch to stick it. R.I.P Bill Kerman

Yes, with a lot of lift and a tiny weight you can glide for very long time.

This simple plane can do totally unpowered reentry and landing

It just have 4 big wings while weighting only 4.5 tons

[satcharna]

This is partially because of how control surfaces work. Basically, they exert a small amount of force on your craft. By using just two wings and two standard control surfaces, you can make planes that move 250m/s without engines or fuel. Hopefully they will fix this in the aerodynamic update. Below is a miniature plane that can do this on Duna without a problem.

[MGUARN]

This is partially because of how control surfaces work. Basically, they exert a small amount of force on your craft. By using just two wings and two standard control surfaces, you can make planes that move 250m/s without engines or fuel. Hopefully they will fix this in the aerodynamic update. Below is a miniature plane that can do this on Duna without a problem.

thoses struts in the center look so complex.I bet thats for stability.Also i made a glider that used the that bug/glitch/weird aerodynamics in Kerbals space program bug only to break the sound barrier ,and flip,dive,spin,whip up,whip down,then hit the ground at an angle so that the wings get out of the atmosphere at ridiculous speeds.I might have my craft/safe file somewhere in my very large Archive of Kerbal space program /old mods /pictures /text files that i don't why there there but there there/craft files that are broken.

[satcharna]

All the struts are just for aesthetics, none are needed for stability. I just wanted a crash cage, and some "wires" between the controls and the surfaces, like in real gliders.

[noxcarakus]

*double post*

Edited July 24, 2013 by noxcarakus

[noxcarakus]

Guess that means I'm starting to do things right finally. Just started messing around with space planes for my new mission lineup, and most still end up crashing into the other failures at the end of the runway. I don't know about lift surface area, I'm just using the 4x6 delta wing from the B9 pack and the smallest control surface from it as well for my wings. Any bigger and it gets too maneuverable. And of course quantum struts and the door hinges from DR, gotta have folding wings for a rover jet