Ability to toggle between control surfaces and flaps [hear me out!]

[Rdivine]

Hello everyone!

I have a suggestion that i've been dying of wanting it in KSP. KSP should have the ability to toggle between control surfaces and flaps. When you right click a control surface to access its tweakables, there are 2 new settings. 1st is to allow it to act as a flap. The second is to adjust the angle of the flap. Furthermore, it can have action groups assigned to raise/lower the flap.

Here is a brief introduction on flaps.

Flaps are generally areas of the wing that can move up or down, similiar to a control surface.

Flaps are installed in most aircrafts today. They are lowered during liftoff - landing or while cruising, to buffer the lift generated by the wing itself, hence reducing the need to constantly pitch up to increase lift. They are essential in all aircrafts flying today and is a very important part of the plane. If it fails, the plane may not be able to land safely.

Aircraft flaps look like these

If the windflow is hard to visualise, here's a graphical representation of flaps.

As you can see, the windflow is directed downwards, hence increasing lift.

Flaps are very essential in flight as it aids with takeoff , landings and low speed flight. It acts as a surface to deflect air downwards, thus enhancing lift. When a flap is lowered, its angular drag is increased, hence it slows the plane down slightly. Drag increases with the angle off attack. Hence a flap lowered to 50 degrees has more drag than a flap lowered 20 degrees.

I think this will really help very much as most of the planes in KSP are very hard to take off, and they rely on the sudden drop on the end of the runway to take-off. It will also allow better flying as the angle of incidence can be closer to 0 at cruising speeds, hence reducing the need of reaction wheels or even RCS to keep the plane's nose up.

Although it is a very simple idea, it is nevertheless essential to flying our spaceplanes so we can crash it. .I don't think it is very challenging to implement in KSP , and many people will appreciate the addition.

Thank you.

Edited June 21, 2014 by Rdivine

[r4pt0r]

if only AOA or drag or anything worked properly in ksp's "aerodynamics"

[allmhuran]

Indeed, flaps and air brakes would both be nice-to-haves.

[cpast]

The reason planes only take off at the end of the runway is that main landing gear are too far back, meaning that it's hard to pivot on them. Nothing that flaps would really solve; you just need to reconfigure your landing gear.

On flap design: The flaps don't even have to slide back. Flaps that just tilt down (increasing wing camber) work fine as flaps.

[Rdivine]

The reason planes only take off at the end of the runway is that main landing gear are too far back, meaning that it's hard to pivot on them.

-Point taken. What i meant is that some planes have difficulty taking off due to very little lift from the wings. so the planes can lift its nose up, but can't actually leave the ground. Thanks for the feedback.

-Also the AoA is just an analog, which don't really need to be implemented in KSP, also i'm pretty sure it has been partially implemented.

Thanks for the feedback guys! I really appreciate it.

[cpast]

Yeah, I'd be excited to see this sort of thing (mod or stock, either one) implemented - then, I could use the half-width surfaces on wings, with outer ones being ailerons/elevons and inner being flaps.

[Rdivine]

Yeah, I'd be excited to see this sort of thing (mod or stock, either one) implemented - then, I could use the half-width surfaces on wings, with outer ones being ailerons/elevons and inner being flaps.

FAR supports flaps,and i've seen scott manley use it, but it also comes with some mystical aerodynamics that guarantee all my planes crashing. Also it just lags my computer badly.

edit: also just found out you can actually have profile pictures in this forum!

Edited June 21, 2014 by Rdivine

[Sky_walker]

-Point taken. What i meant is that some planes have difficulty taking off due to very little lift from the wings. so the planes can lift its nose up, but can't actually leave the ground. Thanks for the feedback.

1. If plane can't leave the ground - flaps will make no difference. Problem isn't in game lacking this feature - problem is in your design.

2. You're confused what flaps are suppose to do. They don't magically make planes take off. They increase the lifting force for a price of drag. And that increase isn't as huge as you think it is.

3. In current aerodynamics system - flaps are impossible to be implemented in any reasonable way. And when they get around fixing aerodynamics - your plane that barely can get airborne now most likely well be very firmly sitting on a ground.

[Javster]

I would like flaps. They're pretty important for flying planes and especially landing.

[technicalfool]

On flap design: The flaps don't even have to slide back. Flaps that just tilt down (increasing wing camber) work fine as flaps.

See also Flaperons. Basically ailerons that have a flap function mixed in, like Elevons on delta aircraft mix the functions of aileron and elevator.

And I suppose it could be a nice idea for larger aircraft designs, presuming it works at all with KSP's current aerodynamics model. Maybe it could be hacked in by increasing both drag and lift when flaps are deployed.

[RocketPilot573]

No point... Does KSP even have aerodynamics? Flaps at the moment would be the same as pitching down (Nose dive). But if we get something like FAR, then yes, this is a very good idea.

[Rdivine]

I've tried lowering control surfaces on my planes so i can imagine them as flaps. When they are lowered, my plane magically takes off from the ground. Therefore lowering control surfaces do help to increase lift. I'm not sure about the drag, however.