Spaceplane aesthetical question

[How2FoldSoup]

For starters I have to say that I rather enjoy making spaceplanes and that it's my favorite part of KSP..

Right now I'm attempting to create a dropship/shuttle craft sort of ssto and I have a few prototypes but none that I'm real happy with or fly nicely. My question is to you spaceplane design experts how to play wings to make your crafts look so sleek and smooth while still maintaining function. I am using b9 and pWings and would prefer those modded craft for examples but anything can help my inspiration. I'm not sure if this is the right forum either but oh well.

Soup

[Taki117]

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Is capapable of carrying smallish payloads to orbit. One option though is to clip the wings through the body of the plane (By placing them on one side and then rotating them 180 degrees) Note my SSTO uses the Space Shuttle Engine Mod. (In addition to others that can be removed without penalty if you want the craft)

[SpenSpaceCorp]

Generally, I tend to:

-Make sure wings go (from front - back) short to wide, rounding inwards instead of outwards.

-Angle wings either up or down, depending if they are located on top/below the craft (for example, dropships tend to look good with wings on top, angled downwards, and shuttles with bottom wings flat/angled slightly up)

-(Maybe) Add canards in the front or elevators in the back

-Shape the rear of the wings so that (for example) they slant outwards slightly, instead of remaining 90 degrees to the body.

-For larger craft, use multiple wings to make a larger or sleeker tail fin/rudder, or use multiple tail fins.

-And as a general rule, (especially with stock), don't be afraid to clip wings (whether you use part clipping or not, it can still be done for looks and functionality)

[Kasuha]

Most important thing is that (at least in stock aerodynamics) passive wings generate lift only in one direction. It is irrelevant whether the wing is going through air "forwards" or "backwards", you get lift both ways. But you get no lift if it goes "sideways".

For instance the Wing Connector part:

...only generates lift if air passes it along its long edge, not in perpendicular direction even though common sense says that should generate lift too.

Active control surfaces are even more finicky - you need to always mount them the right way. A backwards mounted active control surface, even if uncontrolled, generates lift in completely different direction than where you would expect it to go.

[Hodo]

For me it depends on the design I am going for. If it is a cargo hauler I generally design the wings bigger than needed for the craft empty, that way it still generates more than enough lift for when it is hauling its cargo. But for my crew shuttles and science craft, they can very from the interesting to the boring.

Here are a few of my favorite designs.

SVO-22 Thrush

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SP-406 with its 108 ton cargo hauling capacity.

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SVO-21 my commsat launcher.

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To my first SSTO for the Real Solar System scaled Kerbin, in other words it is the same scale as Earth.

The X-4.

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And the last working SSTO for the RSS sized Kerbin before I went full Realism Overhaul.

X-6

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Even my old work horse, which was my first working SSTO, that I just kept improving, SVO-25/SP-301.

[cziken20]

What i do i noticed i don't put engines on back and instead put on wing connector. Then i add rudder and elevators on the end of it. I often also do a biplane simply putting two wings one up and one down and on the ends i put small wings angled down or up to connect the two wings in a => pattern. then i put fuel tanks betwenn them and put engines on fuel tanks and air intakes. But bigger planes... hmmmm... i always put wings on bottom and hide part of them under tha plane body and angle ends up.

[Overfloater]

There's one tip I could give you about connecting wing parts:

To connect wing parts properly, the part you're connecting to must be STRAIGHT. It must not be in any sort of diagonal/sloped position, otherwise the wing will be in a weird angle or in the air. 1st connect all the wings you need, then change angles to whatever you like.

Hope this helps a bit :^]

[Voculus]

Inspiration (image spam) incoming!

[How2FoldSoup]

Thanks for all the replies guys! I love everyone's craft!

I guess what I was really after was inspiration on more than anything. I should have also probably mentioned that I use FAR as well so real aerodynamics are a thing.

I just have a hard time putting pWings together to make something I'm happy with.

Here's what I have currently that I'm having a few problems with. First off, the b9 airnozzles aren't refilling with air and I don't know what to do about that. Secondly, whenever I try to yaw it goes almost the opposite direction so I have 0 yaw control even though I have rudders.

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[Voculus]

Is it possible that FAR is in conflict with the B9 air nozzles? I have no idea, since I've never used FAR before. Maybe a reinstall of B9 would help. By the way, Infernal Robotics has been updated for 0.23.5!

[How2FoldSoup]

I don't think so, one of my other craft(The arrow) has b9 air nozzles which work just fine. They will not, however, work with this one I can't figure out why. I've solved the yawing problem and the only thing left to do for this craft is fix the air nozzles.

I saw that! That and the fact that I have some free time today is why I'm building...this is actually another foldy wing craft. I seem to be obsessed with them lately but oh well. Here's a short album showing foldyness.

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Edit: I just realized this post was my 100th post and that your last response Voculus was your 100th post...

[Voculus]

Do you have hinges and Q Struts tucked away inside the fuselage? I love the idea of having a small ship berthed in a large ship, but haven't figured out the wing voodoo you seem to have mastered.

[How2FoldSoup]

Yes the hinges are inside the fuselage. The main wings are actually on a hinge that's on top of a cubic strut which is attached to one of the wingsections that cover the bottom of the engineblock. I have Qstruts on the outside of the plane just inside the covered wing section to block them from view. I tried running Q struts inside the ship onto the hinges themselves but I ran into a really funny bug. Whenever the Qstruts were on, the ship would just stop where it was. I could be flying and then activate them and I would suddenly stop and float there. Thrust, torque, rcs nothing mattered it was really funny.