Landing planes

[Oddible]

Cannot do it. The least fun part of the game to me. Considering just putting chutes on any plane and letting it just drop from the sky.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Oddible

[Hodo]

Landing is the hardest thing to do with real planes.

The trick is finding a good glide slope so you stall out just before you touch the ground. In KSP make sure your rate of decent is less than 10m/s which would be ideal. I try and touch down around 5m/s just to make sure I dont knock parts off.

[Scarecrow88]

I've found that the secret to landing planes lies in the design. The easier it is to fly, the easier it becomes to line it up for a landing.

[vetrox]

As a rule I always put chutes on my planes now just incase i fumble the last 5000m of height and cant regain control.

I used to find landing hard but noticed a few factors that made things easier.

Being able to adjust your verticle speed easily is usefull. Theres nothing worse than having a poorly designed plane that has to pitch up 40 degrees just to keep a level altitude. MMOOOAAARRR LIFT

Try to aim a couple of km before your target landing spot. That way you can get close to the ground and get your speed reduced to something more manageable. I try to get my speed down to about 40ms before touching the ground. If you cut your engines then your speed naturally works its way down to zero (kind of)

Keep the brakes on so when you hit the ground you come to a stop quickly before hitting a ridge or hill.

If your struggling to land on the launch pad then try landing at one of kerbins poles. Thats where I practice. Km after km of flat ice. Makes landing a breeze plus if you land on the pole you can just watch the sun hover around the horizon.

Well placed landing gear. Where you place the landing gear will effect how will your craft lands

Just like designing a plane, landing them takes practice.

Everynow and then goto your cockpit view and keep an eye on the verticle speed meter. I use this more for flying at altitude but its sometimes helpfull when landing.

Like Scarecrow88 said. The easier the plane is to take off and fly, the easier it is to land.

[Scrogdog]

I've found that the secret to landing planes lies in the design. The easier it is to fly, the easier it becomes to line it up for a landing.

I agree! You should start with the stock Aeris 3A which is essentially a powered glider. Very hard to crash it.

Just make sure that you use power and trim to help you maintain a flight profile as you align and descend (though you might find it useful to cut power altogether and glide in to start). I assume that you know that you don't want the nose wheel to touch down first.

Once you land that plane, you'll get the idea. It will help you with landing the more difficult stuff.

[Oddible]

Do you turn on your SAS while flying the plane?

[Hodo]

One more thing... make note of the speed you actually leave the runway at. You know the speed you actually take off. Because about 5-10m/s slower than that is your landing speed.

[pa1983]

I've found that the secret to landing planes lies in the design. The easier it is to fly, the easier it becomes to line it up for a landing.

Thats why I design my crafts to be easy to fly and almost impossible to crash unless you intentionally do it. My latest crafts descends 5m/s or less going level so you can touch down on all wheels at 45m/s or so. Super easy to land. All those small high speed crafts people usually start out with are near impossible to land. I also find bigger craft easier to land, there not as unpredictable.

[vetrox]

Do you turn on your SAS while flying the plane?

I do, horrible things happen when i turn it off. I found as well that a reaction wheel at the rear of the plane helps with high altitude flight

[Scrogdog]

Do you turn on your SAS while flying the plane?

Personally, no, but I'm not that great a pilot and don't do a lot of flying planes in the game. My advice would be to experiment and go with what works for you.

I wrote a little walkthrough on how to get started with the Aeris 3A. To me the most important things are to observe how trim affects your profile and to enable fine control.

[6677]

Do you turn on your SAS while flying the plane?

Always, with the 0.21/0.22 version of SAS you never really have to turn it off.

Good area to practise landings is to simply take off from the runway, loop around 180 and try to land *next to* the runway, large flat area so its easier to aim for. THen once you are a little more practised attempt a runway landing (come in from quite a way off to line up early). Bit more practise, try the island runway which is easiest to land on in 0.20 in my opinion. 0.21 the island runway is now grass coloured and harder to aim for, plus it has a hill at the end so you cant take off again without turning around (also hard due to width). 0.22 the island runway is easy to hit again, but it doesn't have straight edges so if your aim is off then your likely dead.

[GamerMitch]

I don't think real planes are that hard,I can land a Learjet perfectly in a simulator,but I just leave a grease spot on the runway in KSP:P

[GamerMitch]

Ya I have trouble with planes too, for extra stability turn on the center of mass and center of lift in the SPH and make sure the center of lift is slightly behing the center of mass,that'll help

Edited October 19, 2013 by GamerMitch

[arq]

When lining up on the runway, banking slightly to one side will turn you. I find yaw control to generally be insufficient on its own. Once you're approaching you landing site you should cut thrust, get very low (10-30m), and then try to keep that height to bleed speed. Once you drop below 50m/s, you can let it slowly drift to the ground. If you can't hold altitude at 50m/s, try using a design with more wings first. Faster landings start getting much more dangerous.

[Sovek]

If you've spent hundreds of flights in a flight sim before, the principles are the same. If not, yeah, landing can be difficult. First off, find out at what speed gets you level flight with about a 2°-5° pitch UP. thats your approach speed, not more, not less. Maintain that speed and glide to the runway. If you had even PAPI lights, this would be easier. Since you don't.... practice, alot. I prefer an ILS to visuals thought....

Once you are a few meters from the ground, cut any thrust you are producing, pull the nose up to about 10° and let it come down. Your rear gear should hit first, then you can lower your front gear down and start applying the brake.

For those of you wondering what PAPI looks like, And the pilot is too low BTW.

[Shark2199]

Well, I land my raptors while going like 140 m/s, so maybe you are just doing something wrong...

[Oddible]

Are there any good mods to help this? I still don't have a freaking clue how to design a plane. Everyone answers "the secret is in the design" but doesn't say anything about WHAT design secrets! I read some on the wiki that said for a slow plane put your center of lift just slightly in front of the center of mass. Great, done, I still have a really simple design that is darn near unflyable without SAS holding me in place.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Oddible

[Sauron]

@Oddible:

Very briefly:

-Flying with SAS is really the norm. That's not a design flaw.

-Because of how drag works, putting your intakes behind COL (if you can) isn't a bad idea. Helps to stabilize the plane.

-You could do with a bit more lift.

-You have way, way, way too much flap. A pair of small flaps is more than enough.

-Also, moving the main wings backwards and the winglets forward will to better. Currently all your control surfaces are behind COM.

-Forward gear should be closer to COM

[Hodo]

If you've spent hundreds of flights in a flight sim before, the principles are the same. If not, yeah, landing can be difficult. First off, find out at what speed gets you level flight with about a 2°-5° pitch UP. thats your approach speed, not more, not less. Maintain that speed and glide to the runway. If you had even PAPI lights, this would be easier. Since you don't.... practice, alot. I prefer an ILS to visuals thought....

Once you are a few meters from the ground, cut any thrust you are producing, pull the nose up to about 10° and let it come down. Your rear gear should hit first, then you can lower your front gear down and start applying the brake.

For those of you wondering what PAPI looks like, And the pilot is too low BTW.

Old saying about PAPI...

All White, you're in the clouds.

All Red, you're dead.

Red and White and you're all right!

[Tollazor]

VTOL!

Sure they are hard to design, and fly. Take off is a breeze and landing ... landing can be easy or hard depending on how well you fly it.

In all seriousness though, give yourself A LOT of landing room (km's) make sure your design allows your plane to easily fly level without input (or very little) and the responsive to thrust control the easier it gets.

[Tollazor]

oddible, you have to consider fuel tank placement and usage. Your COG will shift if your fuel tanks don't drain evenly. A mod, TAC fuel balancer is a godsend for planes. If you want to remain stock, then use only 1 fuel tank to begin with. Having too strong control surfaces can make your plane excessively twitchy. Your COL doesn't tell the whole story, use it as a guideline. Your plane doesn't have a rudder control, consider one.

If you really want to delve into making planes, consider FAR mod.

[Awass]

Cannot do it. The least fun part of the game to me. Considering just putting chutes on any plane and letting it just drop from the sky.

I think the biggest problem is the shifting center of mass as the fuel is used up. I've had many planes that are stable at launch but become unflyable when their fuel is almost used up.Thus, it is important to distribute the fuel tanks evenly throughout planes.

[Oddible]

Thanks all, huge accomplishment for me...

I don't see myself spending a lot of time in SSTOs.

[GamerMitch]

If you've spent hundreds of flights in a flight sim before, the principles are the same. If not, yeah, landing can be difficult. First off, find out at what speed gets you level flight with about a 2°-5° pitch UP. thats your approach speed, not more, not less. Maintain that speed and glide to the runway. If you had even PAPI lights, this would be easier. Since you don't.... practice, alot. I prefer an ILS to visuals thought....

Once you are a few meters from the ground, cut any thrust you are producing, pull the nose up to about 10° and let it come down. Your rear gear should hit first, then you can lower your front gear down and start applying the brake.

For those of you wondering what PAPI looks like, And the pilot is too low BTW.

I tend to like going visual with PAPI .it's just direct info coming straight from the ground to where you are.Plus, ILS confuses me...