The Only KSP Plane Tutorial You'll Ever Need

[@N9GamingOfficial]

Additional tips for when you've built yourself an aircraft! ~ Ferram Aerospace's editor UI has a "stability derivatives" tab. It breaks down Stability and side-slip for Pitch/Roll/Yaw at any speed an altitude you input. Red numbers indicate instability. ~ KSP has trim built into stock. If you hold Alt and tap or hold WASDQE, you can level your aircraft or fly really smoothly without any SAS or autopilot. Alt + X resets trim. ~ Decorate that thang, it's the best part ;)

[@ruskiwaffle1991]

NO WAY THE REAL N9 GAMING HIII :3

[@aadvaitture]

wait that trim tip is GODLY!

[@CalvinMaclure]

You complete me. 😘

[@CalvinMaclure]

​@@aadvaittureindeed. I... really should have mentioned it.

[@antoniodraghilev4630]

If you watch this video as entertainment and not a tutorial, you should consider engineering school very seriously

[@CalvinMaclure]

I approve of this message.

[@skslchd7664]

that's literally me lol, i have spent like 800h just designing planes in ksp. Guess what I do now. I build actual competition planes at my uni

[@samuelmilne7166]

RETURN OF THE KING

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@samuelmilne7166 👑

[@gamertardguardian1299]

I came to this video as a KSP player looking for a simple tutorial, and did not expect something that I could deeply relate to as a pilot. You really helped me deeply understand concepts that I already had a basic understanding of with a lot more depth. Its nice to hear bookwork stuff being stated as plain english sometimes by someone who truly understands those concepts

[@CalvinMaclure]

@gamertardguardian1299 that is amazing feedback and I really appreciate it! All the best to you.

[@vuongkyvi]

You can have leading edge slats/flaps by attaching a control surface to the leading edge of the wings and set AoA% to something like -80% or -100% even. The flap will automatically move opposite to the angle of attack. It really helps the plane pull more AoA, stall later and be more agile. You can also enable dynamic deflection and the control surfaces' maximum deflection will exponentially decrease with speed, up to a minimum. For my fighters I usually set up the leading edge flaps to -100% AoA, 40 deg max deflect, dynamic deflection start speed 100 and minimum control 0. The elevators also use dynamic deflection starting at 100 speed and min control 0.6 or 0.7

[@CalvinMaclure]

Pro design tips

[@raidriar01]

Thank you so much for this dude, i’m currently in hs looking to pursue a career in Aerospace but have had trouble understanding the physics and math aspects of it, as a result i have been using KSP to try and teach myself the basics. This vid really helped to explain the basic physics of flight since as of now i only am familiar with the basic physics and chemistry of propulsion.

[@CalvinMaclure]

Really very cool feedback! Thanks for sharing! All the very best. Feel free to reach out any time.

[@malgos6532]

Stratz and Calvin back on the same day?? What is this, a crossover episode?

[@llliiimmmeee]

yes

[@wthall11689]

The world is healing 🎉

[@JustAnotherRich]

This video is insanely high-quality. Well done, mate.

[@CalvinMaclure]

@JustAnotherRich thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@BigMasterSabre]

Thanx for another great video, you have teached me how to actually build a rocketplane in RP-1 few years ago and I still love it!

[@CalvinMaclure]

Awesome to hear! Thanks!

[@Prometheus7272]

The ratio between the quality of this video, compared to the amount of views is insane. Liked 👊.

[@CalvinMaclure]

😊

[@ser_igel]

i just want to clear one thing: spoilers and airbrakes might achieve similar results but they're completely different in their mechanism: the job of an airbrake is to induce drag while the job of a spoiler (the main one, it still increases drag) is to disrupt the airflow above the wing decreasing its lift for example, F-14 Tomcat doesn't even have ailerons, it uses spoilers instead so the wing basically generates negative lift and the aircraft rolls 26:08: T-38, F-14, F-15, F-16, F/A-18 and Shuttle Orbiter are all airbrakes/speedbrakes, while C-5, A380, A330 and C-5 again are all spoilers/lift disruptors but i don't know if definitions differ in NA, after all i'm not an engineer, i'm just a nerd

[@CalvinMaclure]

No, your comment is quite à propos and accurate. They are their own separate things, nevertheless, both spoilers and airbrakes are drag devices. The one big difference, I would say, is that whereas air brakes are only just that, spoilers are more than just that.

[@Nickythegamer6]

Even though I have 1000 hours in KSP, I was able to learn a lot from this video! Thanks!

[@CalvinMaclure]

@Nickythegamer6 That's awesome! Very glad to hear it was helpful!

[@karlack2682]

Thank you. Knew the mechanics of all this and that you could set up ksp to use flaps and stuff did not know how to do so in game exactly.

[@VelocityLP]

This video was SO GOOD, and not just in being informative but it was also *really entertaining*, that did not feel like 43 minutes. Excellent work!

[@CalvinMaclure]

@VelocityLP Thank you for that! Glad it was helpful and entertaining!

[@vaos3712]

This …. this is amazing! 🤩 You’ll be the next scott manly before long. 😊

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@vaos3712 Ha! Mate, I appreciate that. Means a lot. Cheers!

[@noname117spore]

So, I know you showed several planes with them in the video, but I do feel you forgot to mention in the elevator section that you could also place them as far forward as possible. You know, canards. Also I tend to find slats in KSP work very similarly to flaps.

[@Octanis0]

Front canards don't naturally stabilise the plane like horizontal stabilisers do though, so I feel like its one of those - if you don't know if you should, you're not ready for them - things.

[@CalvinMaclure]

I didn't get into slats for the simle reason that they don't actually behave as they do irl. To get them to actually do anything, you have to invert the motion which I find silly. Also... choices were made for the sake of time.

[@sirgouki6207]

"The Only KSP Plane Tutorial You'll Ever Need" except its not, because you're using parts you created yourself through the procedural parts mod, which most people wouldn't have installed, and thus you have access to a ton of options that are NOT available to regular players. While I got some ideas, there are some concepts that just do not apply: 1) trim. In stock KSP parts, the trim is on what ever is set as your pitching parts, while this isn't necessarily true (no fighter jet I've seen landing uses the elevators for trim) in real life. So you're stuck using action groups (like you mentioned) to trigger them... but trim in real life is *also* used to reduce having to constantly hold back or forward on the flight stick. For example, if your jet is constantly trying to slightly nose down, you could use trim to create a stable level off. 2) air brakes/spoilers. There's only one airbrake in KSP, and while you could use it on the wings, you'd be better off using a different control surface, such as the same ones you'd put on the wing for roll (the small ones), have them maxed out on "Deploy Angle" and toggle deploy with the brakes action group. This is actually one of the ideas I got from watching your video, that I'm surprised I haven't tried yet 3) Wing curving and thickness. In stock parts, there is only ONE thickness to all the structural wing parts, the only way to get thicker (which if you decide to do for some reason, should be done NEAR the fuselage, not near the tip) is to clip structural wing parts into the ones you've already got placed, then rotate them appropriately. As far as the anhedral vs polyhedral wing setup (wing curvature), this IS actually doable in stock KSP, but it's a bit of a pain. Set the base of your wing on the fuselage with snapping turned on (keep the wing on the center of the fuselage for now). Then, change to the rotation tool, and while holding shift, click and drag slowly on the axis you want to change. This will keep it snapping, but it will make much finer adjustments, you only want between 1-4 clicks with the amount and the direction BOTH dependent on where the wings will be - completely centered should have no curve, assuming your CoM is in line with the vertical center of the craft, if your wings are higher than CoM you want them to tilt toward the ground, otherwise they should tilt up... they should also move TOWARDS CoM. You can either do this with just the base wing structure in place first, or build out your wings then make these adjustments (the more structural wings connected to the base one, the easier this will be obviously). Now, move your wings and make sure the tips are just inside the CoM if you applied wing curvature. Another way would be to keep the parts touching the actual craft (I got tired of typing fuselage) level, and for each section away, tilt them one click until the tips are inside, but not passed, the center of the CoM indicator. If you look at the examples of this video, or pull up your own images of aircraft, you can find examples that match both shapes you get from this - I've noticed lighter jets seem to have the whole wing surface curved, while heavier jets like the C-130 have a level surface that goes into the anhedral curve. 4) this is probably the biggest issue, and one of the first complaints I had with KSP - there is NO stock wing surface that holds fuel. It is extremely frustrating, as this is how every jet that I've controlled (as in directed, I've never flown my own unfortunately) and every jet my father worked on (he was an aircraft mechanic) worked. However, there's a work around. You'll need to upgrade one of the buildings to tier 2 (I can't remember which one) so you have access to fuel transfers, as this also gives you access to flow priority. Now, just build your jets with fuel tanks that are odd in number in the fuselage (there it is again), and set the outer ones to a higher number than the central one (the one where you want CoM to stay), with the highest ones being furthest away. For example, if you have 5 sections for fuel, and your CoM is in the 3rd section, your priorities should look something like: 30-20-10 (KSP usually defaults them to 10 for some reason) - 20 - 30. I go up by 10 because I've noticed that's when KSP actually seems to obey it if you're making adjustments in flight. For any fuel tanks that are for some reason not inline with the center of the craft, set those to the highest priority (for example, the engine nacelle), or drain their fuel in the VAB/SPH before launching. Obviously, this is only for if those are not your only fuel tanks. If you're mounting fuel tanks to the wings (I see a lot of people do this) instead of using the fuselage ones, you'd do something similar here: 20-10-20 for a 3 tank part. You *could* make some monstrosity out of wing structures and clip fuel tanks into those, but I highly doubt you'd be flying without the kraken ripping your wings clean of in that set up, if it even got off the ground due to the weight or the shape of what you'd have to make not being properly calculated by KSP's physics. Your video unfortunately highlights a major flaw in KSP - they designed it with really just rockets in mind, and planes of any form were an after thought. As such, you don't have any good ways to replicate much other than the space shuttle without a lot of clipping and finetuning. Having said this, I've made the SR-71 blackbird with stock KSP, with as close to public knowledge specs as I could get it, and it actually exceeded public record specs. But it looked very bad compared to the real-life counterpart due to the limited amount of customization (i.e. paint), and all the z-fighting that was going on with the textures due to all the wing structure clipping I had to do to make it.

[@theepicslayer7sss101]

the only part i REALLY struggle with is YAW at high speeds. (using FAR) my guess is that air is pushing the front side to side but even so, feels like the tail can't keep it strait, if i try to YAW it back it kinda rolls and there is no way to have a inverted ROLL output per YAW input... still very useful video, quite a few tips i learned and a few of them i knew without knowing "why" it was always suggested or worked well when i did it randomly.

[@JYF921]

This video is cool and all, but I'm also curious about optimizing wing sweep, area ruling optimization (according to far), as well as the optimal intake area and placement.

[@CalvinMaclure]

Indeed. I wanted to cover the essentials. But you're correct. Might have to do a follow up video

[@ben4R]

@@CalvinMaclure Please do a follow up video for that FAR transonic drag reduction! All of the stuff in this one is super helpful for people with no plane experience, and even with some I found a couple things I'd been overlooking, but the part I've really been struglling with is interpreting the data from FAR transonic tab. I can move things around and see the numbers go up and down, and I've got the general idea that the smoother the lines over the fuselage the better, but that's about all, and not nearly enough to optimize to the degree I wanted to. I have mostly figured out the stability derivitives based on making extremely stable and unstable designs and comparing numbers, as well as the L/D ratio at various angles of attack, but I don't know what the numbers in the transonic design mean, and if I should be making them go up or down.

[@CalvinMaclure]

@ben4R excellent suggestion, and yes, after seeing how popular thus fat this tutorial has been, a follow up seems most appropriate.

[@CalvinMaclure]

@JYF921 yep! Great points. Working on a follow up tutorial to cover these more advanced topics.

[@JYF921]

@@CalvinMaclurethank you for your response. I suggest centering your following tutorials around the XB70 or even faster aircraft that can fly well beyond supersonic. I am curious if and how air intake placement relative to other parts and unique geometry by procedural wings affect aerodynamic characteristics.

[@wthall11689]

God bless you for this, I'm going to watch this a few times!

[@CalvinMaclure]

Enjoy!

[@akwakatsaka1826]

This video is pure gold

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@akwakatsaka1826 much obliged!

[@benjaminrickdonaldson]

Good to see you back Calvin!

[@CalvinMaclure]

Ayyyy! It's good to be back.

[@1dK628]

just keep adding engines until it works

[@CalvinMaclure]

F-4 Phantom approves

[@ben4R]

@@CalvinMaclure But that's only two engines, at least bring up the Dassault Mirage IIIV, or maybe the Dornier DO-X, with most engines per crew member and most engines per aircraft respectively.

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@ben4R 😄 touché!

[@theboneguy8253]

Guess whos back... BACK AGAIN!!!!

[@CalvinMaclure]

Mmm... is it... me?

[@malgos6532]

Shady's back, tell a friend!

[@droppedpasta]

That was super interesting, thanks

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@droppedpasta you're welcome!

[@ratemisia]

Putting the pivot point of the aircraft on takeoff as close to the CoM as possible (or even better, ahead, as in a taildragger) is important in stock KSP for very different reasons: Putting extreme downforce into your rear gear on takeoff from both sides is very dangerous, as it can lead to "gear driving" where Unity's suspension physics glitch and cause the plane to constructively bounce and jitter on its wheels until your plane either breaks apart from the forces or flips and crashes on the runway! Overloaded suspension is one of the most powerful forces in KSP, and can eat your planes before they ever get off the ground.

[@ratemisia]

I call it the "gear driving" force because it's most famously used in gear drives, a type of Kraken drive that deliberately presses on and overloads landing gear to generate extreme forces, being able to throw payloads across the solar system without consuming fuel. The forces involved are immense, which is great for exploiters, but not so fun when you accidentally create one on the Runway.

[@30Salt]

Solid video and I couldn’t agree more with your choice of mods 👍

[@30Salt]

How would you compare atmospheric autopilot to mechjeb autopilot?

[@CalvinMaclure]

​@30Salt Atomospheric Autopilot has been my go to FBW mod. It's just absolutely amazing and leaps and bounds better than stock SAS.

[@oasntet]

The KSP demo is really a demo of B9 Procedural Wings. Does vanilla KSP even have flaps? Maybe use aileron parts close to the wing root, set them to react to nothing, but then bind them to another control somehow?

[@CalvinMaclure]

Fair point, but I must say my channel is pretty much exclusive to RO, hence the excessive use of Procedural Wings/Parts. BUT, a lot of the flight dynamics/theory side still very much applies.

[@guardianofgames7452]

I quite like this video but i have a two things, doesn't your flaps stall immediately at 60 degrees deflect? *EDIT: This next section is about tuning landing gear but I forgot to mention that stock landing gear is different and wonky and that my advice applies to the adjustable landing gear in Kerbal foundries. Didn't want to completely contradict Calvin I think his advice is sound!👍 And about landing gear in particular, I use to think that when tuning suspension i should do what it appeared you did which was a fairly similar or even smaller spring rate to damper rate ratio and its better than stock but I've found that generally damper ratings should be like third of the spring rating or less, enough to keep the spring from bouncing excessively, and the spring rating should just be high enough to not bottom out on most landings immediately. That makes landing a lot easier i never bounce off the ground that way and i find the suspension action super satisfying to watch. I just get so much joy out of it had to share here!

[@CalvinMaclure]

Flaps don't stall. Canards would stall, yes, but not flaps.

[@guardianofgames7452]

@@CalvinMaclure really? Cuz that's a common occurrence for me? If I don't design something carefully enough and my flaps are too aggressive for the specific design and flight envelope they'll stall when I'm trying to land and I crash. I know it's the flaps and not the main wing by using FARs stall highlight and surface stall indicator in the part menu. Is there anything I'm missing?

[@CalvinMaclure]

@guardianofgames7452 what's happening is the increase in drag is slowing you down so that the plane loses sufficient lift. You can have a flight control surface stall without the plane itself stalling, but that can't happen with flaps.

[@guardianofgames7452]

@@CalvinMaclure I swear I know what you mean, but I've done tests with an autopilot. This is all assuming we're using FAR like you were in the video. I can be traveling a constant airspeed and I'll deploy my flaps gradually through the 3 settings. My AOA decreases like expected, but if my setting is too aggressive then it crosses a threshold and the flap itself begins to stall. I'm assuming this is because angle of attack has diminishing returns and eventually the gains and lift don't decrease the AOA enough and the relative AOA of the flap is too high and it stalls, so I lose all the benefits of the flaps, my craft AOA rapidly increases causing the rest of the wing to stall etc. I can see it on the right click menu where it says stall% that its stalling. You know what I mean yes? And I was under the impression things like slotted flaps aren't modelled so I can't use that?

[@SlickCoco]

This deserves a sub. 👍

[@lululegende]

Awesome stuff, glad to see you again! Do you have any link to the mod list you use to make airplanes?

[@CalvinMaclure]

It's all procedural parts, so everything that comes with the RP1 install.

[@BigTylt]

"I want you to put the word out there that we back up" -Calvin Maclure, 2024

[@CalvinMaclure]

@BigTylt we never left, we just lazy!

[@troggns]

HE UPLOADED‼️‼️‼️‼️

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@troggns ... I know. I'm... speechless!

[@zvezdashutzl]

This is super helpful wow

[@CalvinMaclure]

Glad to hear it!

[@josephschaefer9163]

I ended up deleting FAR because either the plane couldn't pull up, or would flip and explode at high speed

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@josephschaefer9163 that shouldn't be. Something somewhere is wrong, either with that plane, or with the install.

[@josephschaefer9163]

@@CalvinMaclure I would have a stable plane, play the next day and then the same plane would be wildly unstable

[@anoneamose4866]

EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED WHEN I NEEDED IT!

[@CalvinMaclure]

I aim to please.

[@BluePinkAndWhite]

Oh this is a real video lol i thoughtbit was gonna be a meme

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@BluePinkAndWhite 😆 Sorry to disappoint

[@Speed_Walker]

yes

[@NoBasicInfoContentMaker]

low poly ahh gameplay

[@connormartin9644]

What mods are you using for the plane's fueslage?

[@listener-tt1gw]

@@connormartin9644 procedural wings

[@sirdemoman659]

I dont know. Try Procedural Parts with a painting mod. I think its how he's doing it in the vid.

[@CalvinMaclure]

Procedural Fairings

[@user-xz6jc9hw7q]

What's your game version, i just couldn't grasp it by the video, and what are yhe mods if you have any

[@CalvinMaclure]

This was done on 1.10 as that's (still) the version my RP1 series is in, and so these were built in that version. All procedural parts.

[@ryarth23]

I felt pretty confident in my KSP planes... Until I watched this video

[@CalvinMaclure]

😄 Hey man, we alllll start somewhere! Ain't no shame in that.

[@Spacewalker1870]

making planes and then flying them is cool 100th comment i think lol

[@Jonassoe]

This video assumes you are using FAR, yes? Because a lot of the physics you talk about here (especially wing shape) doesn't really matter in stock.

[@CalvinMaclure]

@Jonassoe Yes. FAR. This was all made in Realism Overhaul.

[@sirdemoman659]

Can I get the mod of the landing gear? Is it KAX?

[@CalvinMaclure]

Kerbal Foundries, iirc.

[@Capatat]

If you swap the timestamps in the description so that the time is the first part of the line and the name is the second part, then youtube will do chapters for them automatically, in case you want to do that.

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@Capatat ah! Ok then! Thank you!

[@lucacostanzo7684]

where can i find ya mods for the wings etc?

[@CalvinMaclure]

It's Procedural Wings! Part of the RP-1 install.

[@Opusss]

Great video! I noticed your Valkyrie. Is compression lift modeled with FAR?

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@Opusss Not that I know of. I'd be surprised if it were.

[@pedro16797]

SimplePlanes thumbnail on a KSP video?

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@pedro16797 nope! It's a KSP of mine. Fast forward to the design portion for a peak.

[@alexblakfire]

Thx for the amazing tutorial ! Just a thing : I cannot find the Mass Strength multiplier (23:16). Is this a mod ? Edit : I have a lot of things not present like the flaps button this is strange maybe I have to enable something in the setting of the game ?

[@CalvinMaclure]

@alexblakfire are you sure you are using the movable parts? Not all wing pieces are flight control surfaces, though they are all wing pieces. The mod (which is part ofnthe RP1 INSTALL) is Procedural Wings.

[@alexblakfire]

@@CalvinMaclure Yes I am sure it's a moving part because I do have the other options : pitch roll etc... I am starting to think that some other mods I have installed (Kerbalism) may remove those options... Strange :/ Anyway i will find a solution thx for your time

[@A.af-space]

Do you have a modlist anywhere?

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@A.af-space Have a look at what comes with the RP1 install. It's all I use. The planes you see in this are entirely made with procedural parts.

[@A.af-space]

@@CalvinMaclure thank you kind person, I shall use this information wisely (maybe)!

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@A.af-space good luck (hopefully!)

[@listener-tt1gw]

I appreciate all of those contents,but there are another question to be asked.in case of rp1,how to make planes cheaply? Even making a derwent jet would cost me 500 in a conventional design

[@CalvinMaclure]

@@listener-tt1gw I'm an engineer, not a project manager 😉

[@listener-tt1gw]

@@CalvinMaclure Okay after some hours I figured it out…Remove All stabilizers, including vertical and horizontal ones,remove flaps, make a single delta wing design. Although making a tailless delta wing without vertical stabilizer may result in tailspin easily, it is still worth it because it saves more money compared with risking to lose money on a dead kerbal.

[@fablearchitect7645]

What about SAS and PID control?

[@CalvinMaclure]

@fablearchitect7645 Stock SAS will work for most stable craft (as in aero stable), but nowhere near as good as AAP.

[@gamesofte]

The music is so annoying