How I land planes in KSP

[jdsutton]

Every time.

[CalculusWarrior]

Now that's something that needs to be added to KSP, wind!

Note to devs, please no. Landing planes is as hard as it is anyway.

[Lambert2191]

With difficulty

[DisarmingBaton5]

Pfft.

[razark]

That's absolutely nothing like a landing in KSP.

Dumb pilot managed to screw up and miss all the grass. Got tire marks on the nice clean runway!

[Justin Kerbice]

I see I'm not the only bad pilot on Kerbin

In order to land safely, you need to slowdown you plane (of course !!), in KSP, you can cut the jet engine(s) off 1-2 kms from your landing spot if you are high enough (>800 m above actual ground level), rise the nose, let the plane moves down, and make the wheel contact (don't forget to lower landing gears !) at 60-70 ms/s max, not too much nose up (or bye bye tail engine(s) !) then use brakes, more or less hard, depending on plane weight, shape and balance.

In fact, a big miss is the airbrakes FireSpitter provides, you can always add FS part to other planes, it may help.

[The Destroyer]

I'm pretty good if the aircraft is good, helps to have 100s of hours in flight simulators and flight is my passion

...I WANT CROSSWINDS! Yeaa that would make it so much harder and fun!

[federally]

At least you get the opportunity to try and land. A significant majority of my attempts to fly in ksp ended on the runway during take off.

[m4rt14n]

The trick to land planes in ksp is.... to build a plane that can land.

Make sure your plane can achieve stable flight with CoL behind CoM when the fuel is full and also almost empty. After that it needs to be flying in straight line and dropping less than 5 m/s. Aim to touch down with the back wheel first and in VAB disable front wheel brakes.

Watching Cruzan youtube videos, posted in tutorial section, is a very good way to get the general idea. He also posted some fancy aerial manuevers you can try to train your landing faster.

Also always try to fly and land small planes first. There is a reason why real pilots fly Cessnas before Jumbo Jets....

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I can land on the runway and stop in time (mostly) but I've yet to land a non-VTOL safely on the new island runway.

[Othuyeg]

How I land them: http://www.twitch.tv/othuyeg/c/3868521

[Merinsan]

No need to show off your aircraft piloting skills, being able to land on the runway and all...

[problemecium]

Guys guys guys.

THIS is how you land a plane:

;P

[m4rt14n]

Guys guys guys.

THIS is how you land a plane:

http://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/17/27/45/47/screen45.jpg

;P

Lol thats awesome

[Othuyeg]

No need to show off your aircraft piloting skills, being able to land on the runway and all...

A spectacular failure can sometimes be more entertaining than a simple success:

http://www.twitch.tv/othuyeg/b/510239254

edit: I know my streaming rig is one of those failures.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Othuyeg

[MGCJerry]

Gravity and engine assisted nosedive...

All landings are a "controlled crash", except mine lack the "controlled" majority of the time.

[jdsutton]

I really wish we could reverse the engine thrust when landing like real jets do....

[Jordanpumah]

I really wish we could reverse the engine thrust when landing like real jets do....

you mean those huge things that land at over 500 km/h?

they kind of need those, but afaik, small fighter jets do not have reverse thrust, just freaking huge airbrakes.

[SkyRender]

I don't usually land spaceplanes at the KSC, but when I do, I land them on the beach mere seconds before colliding with the ocean. --Jebediah Kerman

[jdsutton]

Airbrakes would be great too. Anything that helps me explode less often.

[Jordanpumah]

Airbrakes would be great too. Anything that helps me explode less often.

if you're okay with mods, b9 has some nice big ones

firespitter's okay too

[jdsutton]

I had firespitter and it worked once or twice, then the next time I opened KSP it failed to load the parts on every one of my ships and I lost everything. Wouldn't work until I deleted the firespitter files. Don't really trust it now.

[The Jedi Master]

At least you land them...

[GarageBay9]

The truly proper Kerbal way is to build a replica of the SR-71, spend 90 minutes in real time hand-flying it around the equator of Kerbin at approximately Mach 4, and then at the last second, crack up the landing at KSC, killing two of your senior Kerbonauts, losing you all the science, and ruining the entire record attempt.

/I am not the slightest bit bitter, I swear.

[Wallace]

Most of my spaceplane landings have been on the wrong continent. I've only once returned from orbit and landed on the runway. I did have to turn around and cross a fairly large amount of ocean after i was back in the atmosphere. I found it very easy landing on the runway compared to landing on lumpy plain or in the desert.

I did once land a small test plane on the side of a mountain, and I mean a near-vertical cliff, I had just a couple of parachutes that were supposed to be for braking to help, but this was not a parachute decent, I was in fact travelling upwards from the base of the cliff at the time. I didn't get a picture of it landed, as it only stayed on the cliff for about 5 seconds before tubling to it's destruction. Just long enough for the pilot to jump out, surviving a rather long slide...

Here's the pic from about 5 seconds before touchdown..