Longer runway?

[dazhat]

Yes we definitely need a longer runway. There are two reasons:

1. New players will find it easier.

2. It's more like real life shuttle runways.

[ElectricFPSMatt]

How are you not managing to land on the current runway? it is easily long enough...

Matt

[Kasuha]

I think it is long enough - if you don't fit, you can always land on the green surface.

But technically it would be possible to add a longer one perpendicular to the current one, running south from SPH along the academy and R&D center towards the beach.

[Zaeo]

With the introduction of tweakables in .23 that was mentioned, spaceplanes should become viable and MUCH easier to control. atm, all surfaces contribute to pitch, yaw, and roll, And with tweakables, you can separate that out to each axis on a joystick, or individual keys. takeoffs will become much shorter, and controlling your vessel will be SIGNIFICANTLY easier.

[Sathurn]

Yes we definitely need a longer runway. There are two reasons:

1. New players will find it easier.

2. It's more like real life shuttle runways.

I disagree.

1. When I was learning to Fly, what really help me was not the 150' wide, mile long runway. (In a Cessna 172 you can't miss the damn thing.) What really taught me to land was the 15' wide 1500' long country airport. (The wingspan was wider than the runway.)

2. With the much smaller world the runway is already "longer" than the space shuttle landing strip.

[TimMartland]

The current runway is plenty long enough in general, I think.

[Daniiren]

When I was learning to Fly...

Landing a spaceplane and landing a Cessna are very different things. In a Cessna, you can do a touch and go. Not so much in a spaceplane, and especially not with KSP's aerodynamics.

2. With the much smaller world the runway is already "longer" than the space shuttle landing strip.

It's more about the size of the planes you're trying to land than the world they're landing on.

Let's look at some ratios. 15,000 ft / Earth's radius = 7.2E-4. 2500 m / Kerbin's radius = 0.004. Larger by a factor of about 5. This indicates that the KSC runway is plenty long enough.

The space shuttle is about 37m long. This is the same size as any spaceplane you'll launch from KSC (to a decent approximation). Landing speeds are comparable. So we're landing spacecraft of the same size and speed on a much shorter runway. Yes, if you touch down you'll probably stop because of the outrageous brakes, but most of us aren't good enough at the whole piloting thing to bring an unpowered craft from orbit onto a runway that seems only marginally longer than your shoelace with enough room to stop. Practice makes perfect, and I'm well aware that KSP's learning curve is nearly vertical.

And no, I don't build rockets with wings.

[PDCWolf]

Runway is already long enough, you can land giant things without missing it.

As you can see, a huge 10 engine aircraft can stop on a really short space (That was keyboard and mouse and the landing was pretty hard).

What really bugs me and I say this on every thread about the runway is the freaking elevation. It should be flat to the ground, not on an elevated surface. Look at lukla, gustaf III, courchevelle, etc. One of the exceptions being madeira because they didn't even had a surface to build their runway to begin with.

[razark]

I'd love to see a huge dry lakebed area with multiple runways marked out, like Edwards AFB.

[coolitic]

Yeah I think it should be at least a bit longer.

[coolitic]

Yeah I think it should be at least a bit longer, mostly for taking off as I dont have the skill to land =P