New to the Forum, but not ksp. Any advice on not blowing up tail of spaceplanes

[CmdrLaForge]

I've been a long time lurker, and finally decided to make an account. I've been playing for about 2 months now, and just got into making Space Planes (friggin' hard). Here's my latest creation:

(I know the res is crap, but I was using a laptop)

Inside is a rover intended for Dres. In the back of the cargo bay is the small (0.625m) fusion reactor + generator from interstellar, which I use to startup the 2.5m Fusion reactor which provides thermal power for the 2.5m turbojet. It has like 5000 dv after reaching orbit.

Mods: FAR, B9, KSP Interstellar, Deadly Re-entry

Can anyone with a similar type of plane recommend a way to keep the back from blowing up on takeoff and landing?

[I.T Marcus]

Hello! Welcome to the forums! Let me start this reply by saying, I'm not all that amazing with aircraft but I am reading aerodynamics for beginners

From what I have learned you may get a better result in takeoff/landing if you arrange the wheels so that the wings can provide torque to the craft and allow the wheel to act as a fulcrum. Then just minutely nose up until you have clearance from the ground.

An alternative to that would be to slightly angle the wings to increase the AoA (angle of attack), large planes IRL do this to allow for an almost linear takeoff on the runway but take some effort to get to the required take-off speed

Really hopes this makes your future with planes a lot brighter I'll go find the aerodynamics (with pictures) thread and link it here for you

That thread can be found here: http://www.forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures

Sorry had to hand-type it (Im posting via an Xbox )

Edited July 8, 2014 by I.T Marcus
Link To an Amazing Post

[CmdrLaForge]

Thank you. I have been placing the rear gear in front of the Center-of-Lift, but I seem to always clip my rear on takeoff.

[XtensionCord]

That’s a really clean-looking spaceplane. I think it looks so smooth because it only has the main wing. The single wing gives it a nice space shuttle look.

I was looking over the spaceplanes I’ve made and crashed and it seems I generally do three things to keep the tail from hitting on takeoff and landing.

1: Landing gear far back on the plane.

A lot of my planes have landing gear behind the center of mass and rely on canards near the nose for takeoff. However, this is a pretty inelegant solution and wouldn’t work with your smooth single-wing design.

2: High ground clearance.

Having high ground clearance gives the plane more room to pivot when taking off and landing. However, I’m again not sure if you could do this without hurting the aesthetics of your airplane.

3: Extra landing gear at the tail.

This idea would probably work best for you. Some of my aircraft have landing gear high up on the tail that don’t touch the ground during normal operations but protect the tail from the ground if the plane pivots too far. I think you could probably do this with any high-impact part such as an I-Beam if you didn’t want to use landing gear.

Warning: I’m not sure how these ideas will interact with FAR.