VTOL Landing Help

[Comrade_]

Any tips on how to make my vtol landing a bit more easier? It's hard to stop the horizontal movement and parachutes just rip it apart cause its moving too fast on the horizontal. Takeoff is nearly perfect FYI.

[bsalis]

Is the problem that you want to land at a particular spot but keep overshooting?

Or having difficulty keeping it steady? Or something else.

edit: ... or does it pitch nose down if you descend vertically too fast?

[Comrade_]

I have difficulty stopping the horizontal movement when I'm landing. Like lets say I'm trying to land on the VAB, I can't stop myself from drifting over it. I can control the descent rate just fine, its just the movement on the x axis that I can't control too well.

[bsalis]

Well there are different techniques that can be employed.

To start with try bringing the craft to a stable hover short of the VAB, at the height of the VAB. To transition from flight to hover, hold a constant altitude, by increasing pitch as your airspeed decays. Then start swapping in vertical thrust to compensate for wing lift as airspeed drops very low. Once you have a stable, slow-flying-hover, you then just shuffle over your landing point and put it down.

More than anything else it takes practice.

[GeneralDisorder]

I agree with bsalis. It takes a while to master.

In my experience, getting the balance of your plane just right also does wonders. I had the same problem when approaching 0 m/s horizontal speed. It would slightly dip forward and pick up speed again making me overshoot. Once I completely balanced my VTOL out it was considerably easier to keep in one spot.

My plane is a little bigger though and the smaller your craft, the more precise you'll need to be.

My two cents