In the ideal world, the wing would also act through this exact point. The aircraft is being pulled down from gravity at this point. The centre of the seesaw is the Centre of Gravity, this point in the aircraft can be defined as the 'point at which the mass of the aircraft acts through'. *Keep in mind, all kinds of drag are irrelevant once we get above 70km, because our profile drag is effectively zero (no air to 'hit' the aircraft), and our incipient drag is zero (wings will not produce lift in a vacuum, so therefore no drag is produced either) Fortunately for us, Jet's produce more thrust at higher speed, which is when we will experience more drag. So thrust is simple - We just need enough thrust to overcome our current drag. This simplifies a lot of our design, but does add some other issues. Lets keep it simple, in KSP, your drag(for a given speed) will reduce as altitude increases. In KSP, the drag model is vastly simplified, and AFAIK is a function of air density and aircraft weight. On earth, this is broken down into profile drag (drag produced by the air 'hitting' the aircraft) and incipient drag (drag caused by the production of lift while in-atmosphere). Our forward thrust must equal the drag on the aircraft. To maintain a steady velocity (we shall call this airspeed from now on). This image will quickly explain forces at play in normal, balanced flight. That's Macbooks for you.įirstly, we shall take a very brief look at how aircraft actually work. No mods are used.Īlso, The screenshots look like I took them with a potato. There will be no inlet stacking, part clipping, and stock parts only. Tired of watching your SSTO design backflip itself to destruction? Struggling with stability? Are you struggling just to get airbourne? This is the guide for you. I might revisit if I feel there is a demand for it.

EDIT: This is quite out of date, for post 1.0, due to the aerodynamic changes in the game, and also the intakes actually working as they should.

Kerbal space program space plane design