Space Planes, have to redo the flight sim thing?

[davidpsummers]

I want to make a space plane. OTOH, I've done flight sim games already and I'm not interesting learning to land all over again. Will that be necessary?

Edited August 26, 2014 by davidpsummers

[Wanderfound]

Mechjeb has a spaceplane landing autopilot.

However, it really ain't that hard. KSP, especially in stock aero, is very forgiving by flight sim standards.

[cantab]

If you've already played flight sims somewhat, you might be better off installing FAR or NEAR for a more realistic aerodynamic model.

And if you can't be bothered to land properly, you can always stick a few chutes on your plane and come down that way.

[Voculus]

If you have a flight sim background, you'll find landing extremely easy. So easy, it's pointless for me to explain just how easy it is! For my first 500 hours of KSP, I never entered the spaceplane hangar, feeling that I would be disappointed, based on my expectations of what flight should be. Turns out I was wrong, and even the stock aerodynamics model is incredibly fun, and building a jet that can take off and orbit the planet is immensely satisfying.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Voculus

[DaMichel]

I want to make a space plane. OTOH, I've done flight sim games already and I'm not interesting learning to land all over again. Will that be necessary?

No but you will have to learn how to design planes if you don't know already. Check this out http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures. Its a very entertaining read in any case

And i also suggest you take a look at the Ferram Aerospace Research mod. Or the NEAR mod. They will probably make planes behave more like you expect them to.

[capi3101]

It's not hard, though familiarizing yourself with KSP's brand of flight controls will add a degree of challenge to it. The lack of landing guides (you know, an ILS) may also take some getting used to, unless you want to build such a system manually. A flag or base at both ends of the runway makes a good ILS for alignment (especially if you add more markers - one at 1 km, one at 5 km and then every 5 km after that out to say 30 km or so), doubly so if you name the flag/base after the distance to the runway because you can then use it to figure your approach glide slope and tell if you're too high or too low. Since you've got a flight sim background, the specifics of the actual landing should be old hat.