Orbiter question

[G'th]

So I'm trying to perfect my orbiter type plane thingy, and I've run into an issue. When I have full engine power (AKA fuel), I can land simply enough. Quite smoothly in fact.

However, like the real Orbiter I'm intending for this thing to not actually have any fuel by the time it comes in to land, and as such I need it to be able to land without the power of any of its engines behind it. However, doing this I can't get my nose up, even with the aid of RCS. With engines firing the gimbal will tilt the plane up, but without them the nose just sinks 30-40 degrees below the horizon (which is where I can keep it pointed. If it let go it drops even lower. Doesn't flip though).

So, how do I deal with this? My COM/COL are spaced just as they should be so that shouldn't be an issue, and this is happening regardless of whether I have a full tank or not.

[Taki117]

Sounds like you need more control authority in the form of either More reaction wheels or more control surfaces on your wings. You should also tweak the fuel levels in the SPH to see how your CoM moves in relation to your CoL, which could be causing the instability if the CoM is too far in front of the CoL (Which is what sounds like is happening)

[Kasuha]

It may be that your ship's center of lift is too behind its center of mass. You can check it in SPH, tweak temporarily all your fuel tanks to no fuel and watch where will CoM go.

[G'th]

Welp after some tweaking I've gotten the issue to stop, even though now it makes for a finicky landing, what with the controls not being fine enough, even with caps lock.

But even so, here's a couple captures of the craft with the COM/COL toggles at full and empty tanks. If nothing else, I'm sure it can be refined.

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[Taki117]

Yep, looks like you need more control authority, especially in the rear. Instead of using that wing segment try building the same basic shape using the structural wings and then add control surfaces to that.