Plane wings help with FAR

[RTK]

Hi All,

So been getting a little issue with wings being ripped off my plane designs and is sending my mind in circles as to the issue/cause. Mods I have are FAR, Aviation Lights and Kethane and yes I love FAR. Unfortunately I am unable to post pics. The general issue appears to be weight however regardless of where I position wings on more complex crafts where CoM has either moved up or down slightly the wings are promptly removed upon take off.

Here is a summary of what I have attempted:

CoM and CoL on same level with CoL a touch forward or back and even smack on CoM - no success

CoM with CoL below and no success

CoM with CoL above with no success

also attempted with overkill on wing design in which ridiculous amount of lift with no success

So if people could share their thoughts and experiences on why wings would be pulled from a craft upon take off would be most great as I would rather understand than be told how to fix a particular craft.

I have searched through the tutorials and searched the forums endlessly (spent about 3 days searching in total) looking for more information or similar experiences to no avail and I have only come across this issue more frequently while using FAR on complex crafts.

Cheers

Edited August 30, 2013 by RTK

[luckyhendrix]

simple suggestion : not enough struts ?

[thescientist]

With FAR make an aircraft is 10 time harder, however, have you tried to increase the wing area? Without a decent one you can't take off. Another thing, Each plane CoL-CoM position must be fixd with some test, because FAR change a little the flight behavoir of each plane basing on real world physic

[Hodo]

In FAR, you dont need a great deal of wing surface area to achieve as much lift.

I find you will need to strut them, I usually strut from front to back on top and bottom, then from the center of the wing to the main body of the aircraft.

Rarely now to my wings get larger than 3 panels out from the aircraft. But I also find that if you use "fine" controls you can reduce your G force loads on your wings when taking off and turning.

The best place to have the COL is just behind the COM, or right through the rear of the COM ball, with the COL arrow pointing straight up. You can also have the COL just to the front with the arrow pointing through the back of the COM.

Also use flaps they are helpful on take off and landing if you have wings that are designed for high speeds, in otherwords the center of lift arrow points towards the rear of the aircraft at a 45deg angle.

Hope that helps.

[RTK]

Thanks for the input all I have decided that I will return to vanilla and do some further comparisons between vanilla and FAR as I believe something quirky is going on with the CoM and CoL indicators within the SPH and it is possible the various upgrades to the mods may have caused some inadvertent bug.

All suggested above have been carried out and it is correct FAR requires much less surface area of wings to generate lift however I could only place 1 wing piece anything further would tear off, leading me to thing it is a conflict/bug of some type.

Will update this post again in a few hours time after reverting back to vanilla and only using FAR hopefully will be able to shed light. May re-build an earlier designed 3 man SSTO craft using vanilla stock while I have the chance as flying it was a treat and not to mention the ease to glide back down to Kerbin from orbit and land at KSC so some may be interested.

Thanks again all, will update again soon.

[Hodo]

The only issue I have found with the game glitch on the COL and COM, is sometimes the COL and COM will not be correct until you reload the craft. I often launch then revert to assembly just to get the correct COL and COM.

[RTK]

Hi All,

Ok pretty much resolved unfortunately CoL and CoM do not update live as Hodo has already pointed out generally either reloading or launching and reverting back to assembly will update these correctly.

Also in relation to wings being ripped from the craft it is a case of figuring out the best way to lift a craft with even spread, I thought I had that down pat but alas was caught out on missing a wing connector above and below the craft design.

Strange as it is after using FAR for such a long time and only recently getting caught with this issue just goes to show others the more you play the more complex designs will become. Also what appears to be a massive failure can be easily resolved with one or two parts, just have to be right ones at the right places. FAR does make the craft more sensitive/realistic during flight and making planes with it is much easier for me alas spent 3/4s of the day mucking about without FAR and actually found myself installing promptly after about 4 hours of failure using vanilla KSP....lol

Cheers again for the thoughts and inputs all,