Flying Wing Aircraft Design and 6th Generation Fighter Jets. (FAR)

[bartekkru99]

Lately, I started my new tailless fighter, but I don't know how to get rid of the tail fins from it without loosing the yaw control and getting into horizontal spin (I'm using FAR) . I heard, that some already existing aircraft in flying wing configuration like B-2 Spirit are using their spoilers for that purpose, but it isn't very practical in KSP due to control limitations. This is where my inspiration came from:

And I want also ask, what are the advantages of not having tail fins (not counting reduced drag)?

Thanks for any will to help.

[UmbralRaptor]

Radar cross section reduction. It's optimizing for something that isn't an issue in KSP.

[Alshain]

In the real world flying wings use computer controlled thrust vectoring at a level that is not possible in KSP. I'm not saying it's impossible to build one, but it's not gonna be easy.

As UmbralRaptor mentioned, not having a tail reduces radar detection, which is why it's usually military planes.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Alshain

[Wanderfound]

As Alshain says; very hard to do, not a lot of benefit, but maybe an interesting challenge.

If you're willing to loosen the requirements a bit, wingtip rudders work well and maintain most of the tail-less aesthetic:

[Lohan2008]

Reason for flying wing design: Radar cross section reduction.

[LethalDose]

I've actually found pitch authority can also be an issue when designing flying wing aircraft due the small amount leverage allowed by the relatively short body. Though the few flying wings I experimented with were more similar to the YB-49 and B-2 than what's presented above.

[bartekkru99]

Ok so it isn't really possible to make a proper tailless aircraft in KSP?

[jman508]

can i just say that almost all of my planes are tailless?

what i normally do is get the long short wing things from the sp+ mod (the one that was implemented in .25)

put them right next to my engines and it hides them.

[bartekkru99]

can i just say that almost all of my planes are tailless?

what i normally do is get the long short wing things from the sp+ mod (the one that was implemented in .25)

put them right next to my engines and it hides them.

Then it's not tailles and propably, won't work with FAR...

[Hodo]

Ok so it isn't really possible to make a proper tailless aircraft in KSP?

It is possible, just VERY difficult.

You can do it but you will need a few mods and a lot of patience.

The biggest thing is you will need engines that have a large gimble range that let you control the YAW with them. And you will need a fuel balancer mod to let you keep the CoM EXACTLY where you need it at all speeds. I would also suggest a PID tuner which will let you adjust the SAS torque and control surfaces torque.

[Van Disaster]

FAR doesn't do yaw control spoilers at the moment ( I have asked! ) so as Hodo said, you need to cheat somewhat with reaction wheels - even then good luck with it unless it's very small. You might be able to do it with action groups and some joystick mod if you can map action groups to an axis, but I have zero idea if that's possible. I'm not sure if it's possible to fool FAR a little by working with dihedral so that surfaces have a little vertical component, might be worth trying.

[Kegereneku]

As was said earlier modern air fighter (and even airliner) are controlled mostly though very complex flight computer system. Human skill are unfortunately not capable of the minutes control needed to achieve greater performances.

In the case of Tail-less plane, the flight computer can have several mean to control the plane, be it thrust vectoring, varying engines thrust, using aerobrake as control device or playing with complicated aerodynamic effect.

Things being that tail-less plane do not in fact fly the same way than other design. Just like a delta wing also fly differently from straight/sweep wing...etc

To achieve this in KSP you can try the normal thrust vectoring or cheat with hidden control surface.

[bartekkru99]

Gah... I hate this game.