Kerbal Space Program - Beginners Guide To Building Aircraft - Part 2

[@Crush3333]

I've been watching for a couple years now. I just noticed how active he is in the comments section after a video is posted. Way to be part of your own community. That's cool. Also realizing how cool it must be to be called "Mr.Manley" everywhere you go lol

[@dogchaser520]

You're actually teaching by getting people to think about the effects of each stage of design. And then improving design as anyone would as they make an aircraft, but explaining what each change does. Very well done.

[@GeekFurious]

I have 56 hours into this game and I just recently landed on the mun and still can't even get into orbit around anything else, much less fly a fixed wing aircraft. I'm hopeless! Thankfully, I am also madly in love with the idea of going to space so...and Scott helps me learn so much about the game and general science.

[@starwars6853]

I think KSP has been improved a lot better because of Scott Manley's imput about the game

[@Jedidiah_Martin_2]

I think many KSP _players_ have improved considerably because of Scott Manley's _output_ about the game lol

[@Starman1941]

Oh yes, he literally just answered all my questions about building planes

[@scottmanley]

You're way ahead on this stuff, in fact, if you've actually studied aeronatical engineering then you'll probably class half of this as 'lies to children'

[@scottmanley]

Pushing force onto them can cause them to toe in, or out depending on the orientation, but equally, you can get this effect with purely vertical gear.

[@geren11]

Even as a fairly experienced kerbalnaut, I have found these two videos very helpful! Thanks Scott!

[@fr3350ul]

i never seen tutorials on KSP like yours.. i really appreciate ur job! well done Scott. Finally i found again something where professional skills meet a true passion..

[@scottmanley]

Yes - this is an excellent recommendation. Also Modular Fuel lets you adjust the contents of fuel tanks before launch, so you can test the vehicle with empty tanks.

[@hotcrossedbuns55]

You are an awesome person. I had thought about not playing ksp anymore because it was to hard and your tutorials have gave me stuff to do besides rockets thank you

[@cvoltage]

This is an excelent series. It's packed with the sort of pro-tips even an experienced player like me can use; all those little tips and tricks we use but may not otherwise be able to explain why they work. Please continue this series in earnest. I look forward to when more advanced designs start to be discussed.

[@scottmanley]

It's a matter of Dev time. Ferram Aerospace does a marvelous job of improving on the aerodynamics, I stronly recommend it.

[@TheLeadTime]

You spend so much time on creating quality content that, even if there was an ad in the middle (there isn't), I don't know why someone would complain about free videos.

[@Sam-jj5bj]

All my amazing-looking planes never worked because I had the wheels behind the flaps. Thanks KSP

[@TheLonelyDeveloper]

same here lol

[@1974moumita]

Same

[@jonsnow1740]

6 years later and i feel your pain lol

[@frndrmn]

Uh uh uh! Thanks _physics_ *.

[@fidelynwa]

You sir, deserve more likes. This tutorial is amazing.

[@scottmanley]

Yeah the main thing is a lot of people don't make the connection right away with the shifting center of mass and the balance problems. I get asked about this regularly.

[@scottmanley]

Given KSP's limited stability control system you want to keep it stable at all times, but the closer you can get to instability the faster it can turn.

[@deady71285]

Thank you so much for your time and effort that go into these videos! Without you and your videos I'd probably be still stuck on KSC after almost a year of KSP. The next thing I'd like to learn from you is calculating fuel for interplanetary missions. I seem to need 100s of times the fuel you use.

[@pilferedserenity1570]

Good series, I liked the way you almost made it like a lab in a science class with the experimentation and you explaining the results.

[@scottmanley]

I'm more just showing the mechanics of the force-lever-fulcrum The wheels need to be aft of the COM so it sits flat on the runway, too far back and it makes it harder to pitch up. But with these huge canards I can put them right at the back.

[@DrempDK]

Hey Scott. For some reason I enjoyed these AIrcraft videos more than your space ones for some reason. Learned a lot of cool stuff, awesome video!

[@jornocolodo6773]

Thx scott i learnd somuch by you you are the best kerman in the kerman family!

[@scottmanley]

Did you get a commercial at the start?

[@Lardverse]

Oh, that explains a lot. I've always had problem with my planes taking off. I thought it was random as to why sometimes my designed worked, and sometimes they didn't. My problem was the location of the landing gears. Thanks for explaining it. (Plus, now I can sound smart when talking about it at school)

[@scottmanley]

use the QWEASD keys, hold shift for 5 degree rotations.

[@aidanpollut5953]

7 years later and this is still helping me

[@Krzeszny95]

Thanks, I needed this knowledge to make my SimplePlanes aircraft work. I didn't even know about the center-of-lift center-of-mass principle because their in-game tutorials aren't great.

[@scottmanley]

Many small aircraft splay the rear landing gear for stability but the gear is designed so that the axis of the wheel is perpendicular to the surface, but in KSP there's no option to build splayed gear that behaves like this. fortunately the physics model for the wheels does not care.

[@454k30]

Thank you for the info about Kerbal wings not providing lift. I was going crazy trying to get airborne and I just assumed I didn't have enough lift for the weight of my craft. Now that I know that these are just flat slabs I will have a much better time getting a plane in the air.

[@scottmanley]

Because the aircraft is more than just the tank, the cockpit, wings and engine move the center of mass about. As a thought experiment, imagine a 1.5ton engine on one end and nothing on the other, the mass will move towards the engine as the mass of fuel goes down.

[@kuckian]

Ace video man!

[@neonnerd1159]

Dude you are a genius and a genie for some reason you are a genie

[@rozzaj2856]

The planes baffled me until I watched your tutorials cheers m8

[@AdmiralKnight]

Thanks for clearing up a misconception I had! I thought the landing gear had to pivot around the center of mass, not where the lift is. Make sense. Great video Scott!

[@AAARREUUUGHHHH]

Great timing Scott-_- I spent hours yesterday figuring this out all by my self haha

[@frobie54]

Wow, thanks for this video. This answers a lot of problems I had, with both KSP and my paper airplane designs.

[@Texfire]

Every time I think to myself, "There's nothing new Scott can tell me about X", you always prove me wrong. I foresee another frustrating round of attempts at STTOs in my future... ;)

[@illiminatieoverlordgurglek140]

5:00 The Fulcrum is still in effect. But because you moved the point of lift far to the front the rotation effect is much more dramatic. It's pushing up the nose instead of at the centre of mass. I always tend to visualize a giant hand pulling or pushing on the craft at a certain point. Makes it easier to predict how a certain force will effect the craft.

[@scottmanley]

So you prefer ads in the middle of the presentation instead of before it?

[@alanrobbie4851]

Hi Scott. Thanks for the vid. I learned something from this about landing gear positioning.

[@katana2050]

Regardless of the plan, thank you for taking the time to lay it all out.

[@TheVergile]

I think he mentioned that in the first video on this topic. You could either put a pair of control surfaces/canards to the sides of your cockpit, that will help your nose lift up or try to move the landing gears more to the front of the aircraft. You could also pitch the wings sligthly backwards, so the moving air tends to hit the underside of your wings when you move forward or tilt the whole plane by angling the landing gears at the back of your plane

[@rich1051414]

Wow how did i miss this. I have a few air crafts that refuse to take off, and it was cause the way the landing gear was positioned. A pair of dihedral angled canards fixed the takeoff issue, and made it perfectly stable :) Also seemed to soften the nose lift as well angling them slightly upwards.

[@goeiecool9999]

This is really useful! This answers a lot of questions I've been having. Thanks!

[@GateCrasherVI]

Well, I didn't mean KZbin actually. I actually haven't ever been bothered by ads in KZbin and genuinely appreciate the medium being as "on demand" as it is. It delivers TONS of amazing content at almost zero cost to viewers. I think my issue is with how quickly there are companies ready to take advantage of consumers around every corner. If you talk with some internet advertising agents its almost a no holds barred industry, and that's deplorable for such a promising medium like internet.

[@ViDeOMaStErPaUl]

The plane half way through works pretty much like an Eurofighter, pretty cool

[@thairh-wisan]

It's surprising how much this game changed in such (relatively) little time! It seems like just yesterday that SPP wasn't incorporated, career and science mode didn't exist, buildings weren't destroyable, the launchpad wasn't as aesthetically pleasing, the four different build tools didn't exist, there were no planets, and so many other things!

[@xXbludeathXx]

Finaly! i've been waiting, but i already make good planes, but i dont know the "why do they work" side, thx keep up the good work!

[@budthespud3226]

They have to to compete with AAA developers. They don't have a dedicated fan base yet, and most cases they don't have the kind of financial backing to spend on big marketing campaigns, they do it by primarily word of mouth. And people like Scott here, really help them get recognized and build that fan base. So thanks Scott for sharing KSP with us.

[@xchoo]

A trick I use when designing aircraft and making sure the fuel flows correctly is to put a decoupler between the fuel tanks and the engines, and then manually routing the fuel using the fuel lines (e.g. you can have 3 tanks and have the fuel line originate from the 2nd tank to have sort-of even fuel drain).

[@Mitchz95]

This was an incredibly useful guide. Thanks, Scott!

[@Khether0001]

This video was simply extraordinary!

[@scottmanley]

It's very hard to bleed off speed in KSP most aircraft are landing at 300km/h

[@zaconder]

Hey Scott, you can press space bar to reset any rotations made whilst selecting a part.

[@brauchen9]

This is helpful, you should continue all the way up to getting a successful space plane!

[@GoldSabre]

That landing at 7:30 was pretty much perfect. Wow.

[@tootses2]

Quick tip. To move to center of lift significantly: Get a small control surface and make sure the flap is inside of the plane and it is angled vertically.

[@DMonkey3000]

1 You are amazing! I'm a long time watcher and I'm always learning new things :D 2 OH MY CHRIST those fly by's at the end... Only you could pull those off!

[@ErzengelDesLichtes]

I'd also recommend PWB Fuel Balancer, which can be used to automatically keep your center of mass in a particular location as best it can by transferring fuel around.

[@letmesnitch]

And as allways, great video Mr Manley

[@NeatCrown]

Scott! I know a way to sustain the same centre of mass! For a plane with two tanks, connect them with fuel transfer pipes both ways. Because the way KSP parts work, the fuel will constantly be equal on both sides, no matter how much is used!

[@alexhuff3389]

It was a google survey in the middle of the video Thanks for the tutorial

[@scottmanley]

where do you put the cockpit in that case?

[@scottmanley]

I did not know that, thanks.

[@sarahwright8808]

Scott, remember to mention using WASDQE to rotate the landing gear so that they're all perpendicular to the ground.

[@Forcemaster2000]

A good video on basic aerodynamics!

[@shanks9418]

Excellent pilot. Like you Scott!

[@thelootmaster]

Scott, your awesomeness amaze us as always. Keep up the good work :)

[@rickjames5106]

Scott, I saw a video where a guy uses a modded part that allows rotation to create rotating canards. Useful for moving the plane while in time warp, and possibly stabilizing the plane when unconformities like fuel distribution occur.

[@PinataOblongata]

"TAC Fuel Balancer" mod makes it much easier to transfer fuel from tank to tank and to evenly distribute fuel at the touch of a button. Has a nice menu-type GUI, so no need to click on individual tanks while your craft it spinning madly out of control. Worked in 0.21, likely works in 0.22.

[@Marex333]

You can lock fuel and oxidizer in front tank. That would prevent getting center of mass behind center of lift. Mass would be going to the front. Later plane would be a bit "heavy" to control, but it would be stable. For planes, best engines are jet engines, because their low draining a fuel, so you don't have to worry about changing mass and lift positions, but you know that all very well :)

[@georgemanakanatas1241]

Q,W,E,A,S,D rotate the part in various ways 90 degrees , holding down the shift key and pressing them rotates the parts in the same way in 5 degree steps. The angle snap option also changes the rotation a bit ( now the same rotative effect can be performed by different keys )

[@davetek490]

Another main reason is structural. WW1 features wings that were mostly externally supported. In WW2 which featured internally supported wings, it's much easier and stronger to have the main wing spar (support beam) run all the way through the body of the aircraft. If you want to put the pilot behind a big engine, AND have a small lightweight landing gear, it makes sense to put the wings lower. You can make the low wing monoplane just as stable by adding dihedral as mentioned in the 1st vid

[@scottmanley]

Really? what did you see an ad for?

[@Boemel]

Awesome plane tutorials! Please do more until we can build an SSTO!

[@natesky6603]

Hey scott, I really love your vids, and especially the beginner's guides for stuff as simple as this. Are you going to continue doing these as a series? Because I learn alot of really neat things from your tutorials that otherwise wouldn't appeal to me. I think you could even consider it educational

[@fancycat2319]

I have had the same problem with my gear and have found that putting gear on a part and then moving the part around and resulting the part some times results in the gear being shifted in a very slight way. if you need the whole runway to take off try shifting your rear gear closer to the COM so that when you pull up the wind can leverage your plane on the gear much easier. if ever you have to move a part, even if you put it back, try deleting the gear and replacing them.

[@rhyswelding3657]

Scott, I wanna see you make an ekranoplan. There you go, nice little challenge!

[@frndrmn]

For anyone following this tutorial now and wondering why the landing gear wheels are bouncing/acting weird, I think it has something to do with current version landing gear wheels having a mass, I'm not entirely sure. However the fix for this is quite simple, in-editor right click on the wheels and set the spring/damper setting to override, then set the damper setting to max. Don't touch the spring strength as I do not know what that will do.

[@Makrond]

As mentioned, low-wing designs are a lot less stable. Another way to think of it is that an unstable plane is more sensitive to control inputs - it takes less force to turn the plane. This meant it took less aileron deflection to roll, reducing the strain on the pilot (the stick can get quite difficult to move at higher speeds and deflection angles), and less elevator deflection to pitch (reducing the tendency to stall during sharp turns).

[@Zerepzerreitug]

Cool :D This will hopefully help me stop my spaceplanes from constantly flying towards the ground ;)

[@ooSicknesSoo]

I learn so much about KSP from your tutorials!!! Thx Scott!!! (And beam me up plz)

[@AshtarothRift]

Go into Settings from the main menu, and activate "Terrain Scatter- WIP". It'll add trees on Kerbin, rocks on the Mun, and various other stuff in other places.

[@Frellnikky]

Something I always do in my planes is angle the wings one increment upwards. I find it adds lift and maneuverability particularly when gliding, and also means you don't have to fly at a 20 degree increment to make your plane fly level. Real plane wings are actually angled up a little bit too.

[@scottmanley]

Should be great!

[@jasminlemieux3700]

Hey Scott, why not try adding fuel lines from the back fuel tank to the front tank, then one from the front tank to the engine? It makes the plane a bit nose heavy during flight but at least it's not unstable. With 3 tanks, the middle one could feed to the engine and the COG won't move much at all. I've found it works fairly well.

[@fundeath712]

wait, you might not be able to control the pumping with action groups, but you can tell the plane not to draw fuel from a specific tank, so if you designate the front most tank to never deplete, and only allow it to be depleted when the rest are out of fuel, you wont have to worry about strange fuel placement and pumping. The button to disable fuel flow is on the top right of the menu when you right click the piece.

[@scottmanley]

You should try telling Lockheed & Boeing that there's no keel effect, I'm sure they'd be red faced to realise all their scientists have been wasting time accounting for it in aircraft design over the last century or so.

[@nerys71]

and unless it gets DRAMATICALLY nose heavy you can adjust for that with trim and control inputs. nose heavy is always preferred to tail heavy. you still retain "some" control when nose heavy. almost none when tail heavy. with good SAS (this game lacks that) you can go slightly tail heavy and be REALLY maneuverable but you need fast fingers for that. OR build the plane slightly tail heavy and rig tanks as I suggest so as you burn your CG gets better and better for when you need it. (burn out)

[@Drmalathjaradat]

great one scott

[@Internetzspacezshipz]

There are some mods that make fuel pumping insanely easy, I suggest you get one... You can make it so all tanks drain into one, or you can make it so one tank is unused ect. ect. It basically makes normal fuel tank operations about 10x easier because 1. the buttons aren't moving around 2. you can do a bunch of other useful functions.

[@PinataOblongata]

If you use the "RCS Build Aid" mod, it shows you a second, red COM ball that denotes where the empty COM is. Might be handy for you if you design like that. I'm picturing a long row of vertically oriented small tanks. These ideas will be interesting to try :)

[@MAUTxxx]

Thanks. I learned so much here!

[@fancycat2319]

air breathing engines are incredibly more efficient for all purposes however it is recommended that if you try to lift with jets that no matter how many jets you use you should end up with shutting down the outer ones so that only one jet in the center is still active at high altitudes. that way if it flames out you can avoid flat spin.

[@Fireheart318]

On my planes, I put fuel lines going from the rear tank to the front to cancel out CoM shifting

[@scottmanley]

+Fireheart318 If you use Jet engines then fuel draw is balanced so that helps.

[@AussieAnnihilation]

could you explain why one might prefer the aerodynamic design of high and low mounted wings to provide stability and control respectively to the designs of anhedral and dyhedral designs that produce a seemingly identical effect. eg: if i wanted to make a stable plane, whats the difference between high mounted wings verses upswept wings? Is there a purpose to high mounted downwardly swept wings and low mounted upwardly swept wings? etc.

[@tristanplays7377]

Scott Manley how do you pitch a plane like what key u press for (up,down,left or right)?????

[@theexplosionist2019]

A guide on heavy planes would be useful. It seems once aircraft reach a certain weight (200T+) in this game they suddenly develop the aerodynamic characteristics of a large brick with wheels

[@olimar123456]

Try to avoid pitched landing gear, ksp often lets them slide on take off, but still great aircraft building video I thought my crafts werent quite stable and I figured the problem was between the chair and keyboard

[@RKH1502]

This video came at just the right time for me. I'm trying to build a spaceplane in KSP but it keeps falling apart before takeoff.

[@kmodo93]

While the information is duly noted I don't normally move parts that have the wheels on them unless it fails miserably on the first shot (which it usually does) and the sheer size/weight is what I believe is part of the problem with needing the entire runway but thanks for the info I try that too

[@scottmanley]

Wrong and, wrong. (yes you can trim control surfaces, but that won't save an unstable aircraft when the AOA has exceeded the stability threshold)