So, I went crazy with planes...

[A380YURY]

...and at last they payed me back.

Basically, I've been fooling around with circular (or is it closed?) wing design for a few weeks, and two of them even were controllably hanging in the air. As long as deviation from the "flight path" is no more than 15 degrees ((all stock, so it's an easier feat.))

Now, I decided to make something smaller and easier to control. Surely enough "something" went wrong. More precisely, is that after take-off (at around 140 m/s), plane starts deviating to the left in the yaw channel violently. SAS and manual controls both fail to maintain this thing stable. Flight ends briefly a couple hundred meters away from the endge of the runway. Ouch.

Here are obligatory pictures of the airpane and a couple of screenshots of the "test flights"

Any ideas on how to fix that, other than "stop wasting your time and go make something that makes sense!"? Thanks in advance.

Edited February 17, 2014 by A380YURY

[Wooks]

Do it. Do it NOW.

[Kasuha]

I think those diagonal wing segments are causing it - try to replace them by structural panels and perhaps it will improve.

[capi3101]

With that design, your vertical control surfaces are aligned too closely to the center of mass, thus you have lousy yaw authority. Not sure how you could go about correcting it without adding a tail section; if you're going for TIE Advanced, you may simply be out of luck.

Actually, some "lasers" forward might help - maybe a pair or quad of RCS cylinders. Move your center of mass forward a bit. Worth a shot and it wouldn't screw up your design too badly. Your CoL is already ahead of your CoM which means the design should be flip happy as it is.

[A380YURY]

Do it. Do it NOW.

<pic>

Never remembered it, but that's how initial design went. But I was mostly inspired by that little thing:

((I know, there are older projects like that, but it's An-2 remade by Belarussians. How one can resist using it as an example?!))

I think those diagonal wing segments are causing it - try to replace them by structural panels and perhaps it will improve.

Didn't really need that idea after all... But thanks, I always end up forgetting about these panes actually existing!

With that design, your vertical control surfaces are aligned too closely to the center of mass, thus you have lousy yaw authority. Not sure how you could go about correcting it without adding a tail section; if you're going for TIE Advanced, you may simply be out of luck.

Actually, some "lasers" forward might help - maybe a pair or quad of RCS cylinders. Move your center of mass forward a bit. Worth a shot and it wouldn't screw up your design too badly. Your CoL is already ahead of your CoM which means the design should be flip happy as it is.

Previous iterations had less problems despite simillar arrangements... Guess it has something to do with the lesser mass of the "mini" version.

And yap, guess it was the yaw control after all. Version with an extra balancing fuel tank at the front had the same problem, just more slowly developing (thanks, added mass!). Adding yaw controls far away from CoM solved the probem AND gave the RingWing Mini some stylish moustache. Still needs SAS on for keeping it under control, as it reacts too happily even with "caps-lock-mode" on... But hey, at least it can follow a straight line, and turn when I want it to!

Thanks for help, and sorry for wasting time on something that obvious...

[Kerba Fett]

Try adding a couple more reaction wheels to overpower the weak yaw control.