WORKING HELICOPTER in KSP 2!

[@Audaylon]

The madman OG did it! Control surfaces instead of wings can change altitude on the fly. Turn off pitch roll etc and only allow it to be self deployed. . But I haven't been able to keep it attached like you have.

[@originalgrahamster]

No madder than a guy who flies through a pipe suspended from a crane in a plane so hot it's on fire!

[@originalgrahamster]

Fun fact: you can't use control surfaces for this build. I just tried it, but unfortunately it won't allow me to attach the rocket engines to the control surfaces like I can with the wings. But I have changed the rotors and I'm going to try manual control surface (of the wings) manipulation.

[@sonofagun1037]

I remember when the first stock helicopter was made in ksp1 years ago. Landing gears as bearings big ol wings for blades. That wa even before the part asthetic update.

[@Madishmike]

Fantastic job OG! If there was a nobel I mean Kerbel prize lol you would have won it! 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@originalgrahamster]

Thanks man. I'll remember you during my acceptance speech!

[@Smokey957]

Definitely chalk this up as a win 🎉

[@originalgrahamster]

Thanks, I'll give myself a medal (again)!

[@marcgoesblindgaming2076]

If at first you don't succeed, Try and try and try and try and try again 😂, Well done I would call that a result

[@originalgrahamster]

Thank you, thank you! **takes a bow**

[@MinerBat]

Unfortunately in ksp 2, wings only produce lift from translational motion, and ignore rotational motion of the vessel they are part of... The trick to making functional propellers is to make the separate vessels the wings are part of (in the same way that the propellers in your bearings here are considered separate vessels by the game) in such a way that the game considers them to have translational motion rather than (only) rotational motion (it is kind of hard to explain). I managed to make a working helicopter using this technique that i used as a jool return vehicle (it also works on kerbin). You can see it in a video on my channel. The bearing that you are using seems way more stable than mine though so i might try experimenting with that since my helicopters often have wings falling out. The reason why your designs sometimes worked is that they had sideways motion and a lot of wings with very little mass so they were good gliders, but the actual rotation wasnt what was causing the lift, rather the sideways or up/down motion

[@originalgrahamster]

That's awesome info and explains everything - THANK YOU! I'll go check out your Jool-copter!

[@Jaystarzgaming]

Make it long enough with a tail rotor to counter thrust or rotate in the opposite direction of torque.

[@originalgrahamster]

I have tried that (tail rocket instead of rotor - one rotor is bad enough!) It's good when it works but not so good when it doesn't. Turns out there is an inherent problem in the KSP code wrt generating list from rotational motion alone. The engine requires translational motion for lift, which generally only occurs once things start to go wrong.

[@MatthewJamesMullin]

Huh, neater!

[@originalgrahamster]

🤣