Hi again everyone. So, ive been playing this game for over 7 years now but almost exclusively with stuff others have built. Ive learned what i like and dislike when it come to aircraft, but im finally at the point where i want to actually try to build them.
So, does anybody have any pointers about getting started? Ive toyed with cockpits before, and of course built some pretty simple stuff, even posted some other peoples stuff with my own twists, crediting the original creators of course.
What am i looking for with my centers of mass, thrust, and lift? How do i make a slick or at least cohesive fuselage? I see some incredible stuff on here and want to leave my own work on the table. Better stuff than my sorry excuse for a B-25.
Any and all info is appreciated.
Also, what the heck do upvotes do? And do i spend points to give them?
Tutorial section of forums and videos, and perhaps some geometry.
Thruster must face towards center of mass (if you don't want to use it to rotate craft), so for forward-facing engines usually center of thrust is directly behind center of mass.
Center of lift is where wing's forces are applied, it moves while you fly.
Usually wing pulls airplane up, so in cruise CoL is near CoM, but such airplane won't decrease pitchrate naturally.
At high AoA both lift and drag are higher, so if CoL is in front of CoM it'll pull airplane's nose back and upwards, increasing AoA even further, which will eventually lead to stall or uncontrollable spin.
If CoL is behind CoM, it will pull tail away from direction of flight, so airplane will be pretty stable, but if CoL will be too far from CoM you won't be able to control it.
In real life getting center of lift is not that easy, so usually it's recommended to get center of mass around quarter-chord behind midpoint of leading edge.
I can't really say much about it. Fuselage is 28-sided (circular ones are 24-sided), in newer versions you can "slice" specific part from it with four planes. Greater ones are using hollow fuselages as plating (e.g. screenshot from this post), but it will require either a lot of time or geometry knowledge and calculator to align them properly.
They do nothing but they're used in rating, both for crafts and users. You don't need anything to give one.