Hello everyone, I’m Tornait. I’ve only been in this community for about two weeks now, and I’m in awe of the amazing creations this community has created. One question I have is... How do some of you guys make your creations so maneuverable? Sure, the part count of most of my creations is well under the hundreds, but I’m not concerned about that part... for now. Anyone have any tips on increasing general maneuverability?
COM is your freind. Always put it ahead of COL, but the closer it is, the more manueverable it will be. But don't put it to close.
The COM/COT/COL button will be your best friend.
I used scaled, xml modded structural wings
rotators and wings
Be sure that the CoM and CoL are placed properly. Then add more lift, or take off weight to increase maneuverability.
XML modding.(not avalible for IOS)
@randomusername Horizontal stabilizers, particularly the elevators, control how hard your plane can turn. Too small and not only will the plane spin out of control, you also won't be able to turn very fast.
Maneuverability seems pretty simple, but its deceptively huge. Tied into that word are things like stability, acceleration, momentum, agility. But the one thing you should remember is that maneuverability is more than just how fast you can turn.
Planes handle differently at different speeds and different altitudes. So when you design one, try to think "where does this plane live? Does it hug the ground and slip below enemy radar at high speed? Does it carefully sip gas at low speed and high altitude? Or maybe its like the SR71 and it goes unbelievably fast at amazing height? Design your plane to fit in properly somewhere.
The most maneuverable planes are also the least stable. They change direction easily because they are light, and their weight isn't spread out. The easiest way to do this is to keep the blue center of lift just a little bit behind the red center of mass. The further apart these two are, the more stable the plane becomes and the more effort it will take to pull the nose up when you turn. But be careful, if your plane becomes too unstable it will become difficult or impossible to control.
Trial and error
More wing = more lift
The closer the primary wings are to the CoM the better
1: Thrust vectoring AKA putting engines on a rotor
2: ; Larger control surfaces, though this makes the aircraft quite twitchy at higher speeds unless you use an activation group to turn it off.
3: Custom control surfaces AKA wings stuck onto rotors.
4: Gyroscopes, which is probably the easiest method.
With greater or perfect or suitable wing size, more or suitable control surface size, should produce better maneuverability. Also, keep your eyes at your aircraft's CoM and CoL. Be sure to keep the CoM at the front of the CoL, and make sure the CoM is near the CoL, but not too near and not too far ;-)
It is better to have a long and thin control surface, rather than a massive one. Stacking multiple horizontal stabilizers into each other may also help.
Download some maneuverable planes an feel free to dissect them and reverse-engineer them