Landing planes.

[KSK]

Hey folks.

I was just wondering if anyone had any tips, or could point me at an existing how-to thread on landing planes? Aeroplanes, spaceplanes, whatever - I can build them, fly them, get them to orbit and back where appropriate but I cannot for the life of me land anything but the very lightest stock aircraft!

Any advice gratefully received.

Cheers,

KSK.

Edited January 25, 2014 by KSK

[Jijonbreaker]

Unfortunately, the only thing I truly know about landing planes is essentially the same as landing a real plane. You have to essentially glide down onto where you want to land. To do this, you have to cut back the throttle, and tilt the plane up about 15-20 degrees, so you still attract lift, while slowing down considerably. This will usually end up in a (relatively) smooth landing. This is also why you normally see planes landing on their back wheels first. They are tilting up, so the back touches down before the front.

[Finwolf]

First make sure you're alinged with the runway. Start descending slowly. No more that 5 degrees. You want your nose to be level or a little above the horizon. Your speed should be so you descend while keeping nose pointed above horizon. When you are getting close to the start of the runway start pitching up a little. Make sure you don't descend too fast. When just about to hit the runway slow your descent so you touch the runway as lightly as possible. Throttle up if necessary. When your rear wheels hit the runway press brake.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Use SAS while flying and disable when you've touched down.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Finwolf

[DisarmingBaton5]

-Try a shallower glide, remember to flare before landing. I like to keep it off the ground for as long as possible before touchdown, that ensures a safe landing.

-Touch down only when under 45m/s if you can help it to ensure that your crew survives in the event of Rapid Unplanned Disassembly.

-Always put parachutes on your airplane/spaceplane. If it flies like a lawn dart, you're safe!

[Tex_NL]

Before flight check the relation between CoM and CoL with empty tanks.

[Kasuha]

Scott Manley had a short series about planes some time ago. I believe you can learn about landing planes just by watching how he does it.

[PirateAE]

For the biggest time flying FSX(Flight sim) i had an issue with not letting the plane react. it really counts when landing; and extends to ksp. What i recomend is to picture a kind of glide slope approch, say at 10 KM out be at or below 5000 M; by 5 KM out you should be at halve that and roughly lined up, and aim to be at a safe landing speed (45M/s decent on stock landing gear) by the time your about 1 KM out and 750-500 M up and as best lined up as you can be. on final approch, flare about 5-10 degrees and drift to the runway keeping your vertical speed controled aim for a final vertical touch down of less than 40M/s. Dont aim to touch your wheels on the numbers, this dosnt happen as often as you think. once you have yoru wheels down start breaking but not so hard to snap your front down, and let the front come down from teh flare and then once all wheels are on the rwy, apply full breaks.

[jlrdsr]

What i try to do is come in at a shallow dive, on about 30% throttle, when i get to about 200m up i cut the engine and pull the nose up to about 2 degrees so i start loosing speed, i try to land at less than 100m/s, the slower the better. When im at about 100m i pull the nose up more to about 5 degrees to kill the last of my speed and then level out at the last second and try to tuch down as gentely as i can. This works for me and its quite similar to the kind of approach parth that real aircraft take. Are you useing a joystick? It makes thing soooo much easyer, ive even recovered from flat spins that have been at less then 150m above the ground when they started so id recomend then to anyone with serious aircraft intentions. And what do you mean by big aircraft, how many tonnes?

[Smidge204]

I find landings tend to go a lot better with the wheels pointing down, rather than pointing up. YMMV.

More seriously, you have two speed indicators in KSP: The readout just about the navball, which hopefully is in "Surface" mode and tells you your speed relative to the surface, and the readout to the right of the altimeter which tells you your vertical velocity.

"Surface" velocity includes the vertical component, so it can be a little misleading some times. The vertical readout should be close to and slightly below zero, indicating that you're descending. You want your descent to be as gentle as possible - though the aircraft landing gear bays are stupidly tough (Good for 60m/s I think?) the rest of your craft might not handle the impact so well.

Try to aim for the near edge of the runway to give yourself adequate time to slow down. Apply brakes as soon as all wheels are on the pavement.

Disable the brakes on the front wheels to help prevent nose-diving.

Learn the gliding ability of your craft and cut throttle early, so you come in slow. Nosing up at the last moment can kill a lot of horizontal speed.]

Do your best to line up with the runway early... very early. KSP's runway is perfectly east-west so use the navball for help.

=Smidge=

[Roxette]

This is also a good general guide to landing, covering all the most important aspects:

[Vanamonde]

What kind of trouble are you having? If you come down at less then 10m/s vertical speed (horizontal speed can be much faster than that) on flat ground, landing gear wheels should be able to absorb the impact. Of course, you'd have to be more gentle with larger planes.

[Claw]

- Realize there is no requirement to land on the KSP runway. So feel free to land in the clear grass zones around KSC (or elsewhere) until you get the hang of it, just watch out for small hills. If you are landing on/around KSC, also watch out for the mountains when approaching from the west as they reach pretty high (so aiming to be less than 5,000m more than 10km out is sometimes an issue).

- I would not recommend landing with the nose 15 to 20 degrees nose high unless you've designed your craft for that.

- The speed of your touchdown will really depend on your craft. You want to be as slow as possible, but your plane should still be controllable with no more than 5 degrees of AoA (the difference between the prograde marker and the yellow "V"). This should allow your back wheels to touch down first. As someone said, 100 m/s is a descent starting point. 40 m/s might be way to slow for your heavier craft.

- When you get close to your landing area, you want to use your prograde marker to fly off of. When you're 50 to 100m up, move your prograde marker to the horizon and slowly zero out your throttle. This should slow you down and let you sink slowly to touchdown. You'll have to adjust your height and throttle based on how big your craft is. I find using throttle to land helps out a lot if you're using the keyboard to fly.

- You can activate your brakes before you land and they will start braking right away. Watch out for the SAS to sneak up here and throw your airplane all over the place.

[Javster]

Try to avoid a vertical speed of greater than -5 m/s

[katateochi]

It's tempting to completely cut throttle before landing, but that can be your downfall if you plane doesn't generate enough lift at low speeds. You need just enough power to keep your nose up while gradually descending at a few ms.

I found that practicing just gliding over the ground as low as you dare without actually landing has helped me a lot.

Also put reaction wheels in your planes, it helps deal with shifts in COM and gives you more control at lower speeds.

Once you're lined up pay close attention to your vertical speed indicator, if you're well lined up then you can almost forget about the runway and just try to keep your vertical speed between 0 and -5ms (10 is ok too, just a bit rougher).

Disable the brake on your front landing gear and just brake with the rear wheels.

Don't worry about how much horizontal speed you have so long as your vertical is lower than 5-10ms. You can land at over 150ms horizontal so long as you have enough runway left to brake!

[KSK]

Thanks everyone.

I think katateochi nailed it with the warning against cutting your throttle too far and therefore (as others have warned against) coming in with too high a vertical velocity. I'm having a hard time getting my speed below 70m/s anyway (even with my engines switched off), so I'll try shallow and fast rather than too steep and only-a-little-bit-slower and see how that goes.

Leaving this thread open for now - more troubleshooting may be required!

[KSK]

Ahh - the sweet, sweet smell of success! Managed to fly and land an airplane built using Mk3 cockpit and fuselage. Secret was a nice wide undercarriage and (I hate to say this), struts to keep the whole contraption a little more rigid upon landing. Also landing in daylight is way easier (who knew?)

Next challenge is to build a bigger one, land it, then load it up with right mix of highly explosive propellants to get to orbit!

Thanks for all the advice.

KSK.

[Claw]

Congrats! I'm glad it all worked out.

[Anton P. Nym]

One small tip, for what it's worth; I parked a rover at the end of each runway and renamed each as a base, using the strip and heading for each. (Ex. "KSC Beacon 09" for the one at the east end.) Before descent I select the appropriate rover as the plane's target; makes it easier to find the runway from over the horizon and line up early.

-- Steve

[ComradeGoat]

Build your plane with the rear wheels as close to the wingtips and as far back as practical (within the confines of needing tone able to rotate to lift off).

Unlock steering on the nose wheel only, and disable brakes on the nose wheel only. This aids stability on the ground.

Land with a positive angle of attack, to slow your horizontal speed as much as possible.

[KSK]

Pics or it didn't happen.

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Edited January 26, 2014 by KSK

[zaky133]

Pro tip: I find that if you keep pitching up while braking, you are less likely to tip over

[palioxis1248]

I usually clear the mountains west of KSC travelling at 1000+ m/s, so my landing technique may not apply for everyone.

1. Pull up ten degrees with throttle on full, until the point where your orbit touches the ground overshoots KSC and is in the sea.

2. Level off, cut power and glide towards KSC. Roll left and right as needed to adjust your prograde marker. Some bank-and-yank may also be required, depending on the plane.

3. When the KSC drops into visual range (a bunch of flickering pixels), begin lining up with the runway, which should be a more line-ish collection of pixels. Bank-and-yank conservatively.

4. All this while, keep the plane more or less level. It may be necessary to occasionally fire up the engines, if you've done some extreme maneuvering.

5. When you can finally see the landing lines, point your plane at the number on the runway (can't remember what it was, 06?)

6. Descend, slowly pitching up as needed to avoid losing too much altitude. This is generally just a matter of gut feeling.

7. When in close vicinity to runway, release gear (but not before, to reduce drag and increase glide time). Begin pulling up above the horizon, to decrease vertical speed.

8. Turn on landing lights (U as default). This helps gauge distance above the runway. You could also just use shadows, but lights are easier on the eyes.

9. Keep pulling up slightly until vertical speed is somewhere between -2.5m/s to -7.5m/s

10. Hold attitude until the wheels touch ground, then activate parking brakes. Landing speeds of less than 100m/s are usually fine. If your plane has any drogue chutes, deploy them a moment before the wheels hit ground.

11. If the plane veers, activate SAS and Yaw left and right to steer the landing gear.

In a worst case scenario, i.e. something happens with plane while sliding along runway at unsafe speeds, JUMP!! (It works 50% of the time.)

[ComradeGoat]

Pro tip: I find that if you keep pitching up while braking, you are less likely to tip over

The tipping force often comes from pivoting forward onto the nose wheel.

An easier way to avoid this is just disable the nose wheel brake in the SPH, using tweakbles.

Instant stability!

[ComradeGoat]

Others have commented on a slow, nose-up approach to scrub off your horizontal velocity. Here's what it looks like if you get it right: my Labrys Mk-III spaceplane gliding into a landing. It landed at about 20 m/s, SAS held the nose wheel off for a bit longer, and it drifted to an uncomplicated stop. Obviously it lands a bit faster with fuel on board, but a good design should still be able to glide to a landing at about 30 m/s horizontal.

Kerbal Engineer Redux really helps with this (as seen here on the left):