Fliers

Flying is easy. Good flying is hard.

Planes
There are several things to keep in mind when building a fixed-wing aircraft, hereafter referred to as a 'plane.'


 * 1) You need enough engine power to push you forward.
 * 2) You need enough wings to keep you in the air.
 * 3) You need to balance the weight.
 * 4) You need to balance the thrust.

On the right there is a basic plane that has all of those. it flies straight, and takes off easily. Have you noticed that those old real-world planes were tilted back when they sat on the ground? If you build like that, you will take off really easily. Though driving on the ground can be a pain.

Engines
The thrust part is the easy part. To a degree, you can just bolt on engines until it flies. The thrust balance is the problem. See below.

Take note: Make sure your engines point forward. On the ground, they will work backwards if need be, but once you are in the air, they will only work 'forwards' for their specific facing.

So if you build a plane with rear facing props it will take off, then crash.

Wings
More wings equal more lift and more turning/roll power. But they also add weight and drag. Rudders can also be used as small wings.

You can also use Venture spoilers as wings. Use a spoiler upside down or backwards, and it will supply lift. Unlike a dedicated wing, these 'wings' don't roll, so they can be used for very stable fliers. They also have an incredibly low stall speed, so a flier fitted with these can glide very slowly and rarely falls out of the sky.

Weight Balance
This bit's not too complex. Generally, if you have a big bunch of weight on one side, the aircraft will tilt that way. This leads to the plane nosing down if there's too much weight on the front, nosing up if there's too much on the back. Or turning to the side, if the weight sits on the side.

Generally if you keep your vehicle symmetrical down the center-line, it should at least go straight. If your plane keeps tipping nose down, you need to remove some weight from the front, add more to the rear, or move a few blocks further back. And if your plane goes nose up, do the reverse.

Another option, if it's really nose planting, or going super nose-up, move the wings forward one block, or back one respectively. Additionally, you can tack on a GSO miniwing, an upside-down Venture spoiler, or a rear-facing Venture spoiler to get a bit more lift at the front or rear.

Thrust Balance
Similar to the weight balance issue. Thrust needs to go along the centreline of the aircraft, or at least average out that way. Think of the wings as a pivot.

If the engines are below that pivot, they will push the vehicle forward, and nose up. If they are above the line, they will push forward, and nose-down.

It is possible to use thrust to counterbalance weight imbalances. As a general rule, it's a good idea to build so that the plane is a tiny bit tail heavy, then compensate a little with thrust. This way, your plane flies straight, and glides well.

A plane that naturally climbs for the sky takes off easily, but it can be annoying to keep having to constantly nose down all the time.

Maneuvering: When you press left or right on the keyboard, the wings will use their ailerons to roll the plane to the left or right and you can turn by pulling up. Adding vertically aligned rudders will yaw (turn) the plane as well, improving the 'turn' part of the turn.

Multicopters/Drones
Balance is important for planes, but for copters, it's vital.

This Drone flies fine, is fast, and uses only basic parts.

Note that it is perfectly symmetrical. Any additional weight on one part of the drone needs to be balanced by an additional weight on the opposite side. A more efficient, faster and more responsive drone can be made by removing the blocks and replacing them with brackets. If you've unlocked them.

Brackets weigh very little. 10 brackets weigh only as much as one block, and weight is a major factor in both speed and maneuverability, so use them whenever possible.

Steering: Unlike planes, 'drones' steer by using thrusters.

Thrusters apply significantly more turning force than rudders, but they rely on fuel, which runs out. This can mean a sudden loss of steering ability in the middle of extended maneuvers. You can add fuel tanks to give your unit more fuel, but unfortunately this is more weight, so it's a careful balance between maneuver power and speed.

One thing you can do to increase maneuverability without adding more thrusters and thus fuel consumption, is to put those thrusters further out from the center of mass, typically on lightweight brackets. This gives the thruster more leverage.

Gyros: These little packages constantly apply pressure to try and keep anything they are attached to upright. This is useful for leveling off a plane, and sounds ideal for a drone right? I mean they uses gyro's in the real world, right?

Nope.

They seem like they're amazingly useful, but unless you are building a little hover unit to putter about your base, they are no use for making flyable drones, that you want to take exploring.

The drones shown above are almost all engine, and fly fast, and at almost 90 degrees to the ground. Yep, they're tricky to learn, but once you get the hang of them, you have a fast, maneuverable aircraft that can land vertically. Very handy for scouting out dispensers.

If you add a gyro, it will seem easier to fly, in that if you let go of the controls, it will stop moving sideways and stick to a nice safe 'up'. But what you get is a drone that will only move horizontally as long as the thrusters are pushing, and the fuel holds out. Which is no good for actual exploration. Drone piloting Demo

Gyros are however, totally necessary for Helicopters. More on those, and the differences to follow.

Handling: 'Drones' as labeled here, steer in a particular way. Specifically, they don't rotate. They tilt forward, backwards and sideways. But they don't rotate to turn. In order to rotate the vehicle to a new heading, you tilt the drone to 90 degrees, and then tilt sideways to turn.

Helicopters
Though similar, these aircraft operate on a very different principle to 'Drones.' While a Drone basically goes straight up, and uses thrusters to tip it over, a Copter is built on a tilt and permanently moves forward, much like a plane.

Here is a very simple copter. The rotor is off center and tips the whole craft forward. It is prevented from going too far forward by the gyroscope. Thus the rotor lifts the vehicle, and also generates forward thrust.

Here's an award winning Copter, the 'Thief.' Note the silo block. Silos can carry blocks that you find, and things carried in silos do not have their full weight. So this recon vehicle can carry home blocks you find, as well as carrying supplies with you, such as a solar tower and Tesla for recharging in the field. Moving a block forwards or backwards can give more tilt and speed, or more lift, and can therefore be used as flight trim.

Copters maneuver differently from drones. Typically they don't tilt, they use forward mounted thrusters to turn the nose, and thus rotate the whole vehicle.

Thruster tip: Thrusters in the air act to shove the whole vehicle in the direction you hit the key for. Thus, on a copter, you should only put thrusters on the front. Any rear mounted thrusters will fire in the same direction and counter the ones in the front. You could put all your thrusters on the back, in which case it will turn in reverse.

Flight Dynamics: Because the engines tilt the copter forward, landing can be a problem. To combat this, build a copter that is mostly vertical and a spoiler or wing to the rear, angled to tip it forward in flight. Thus you get a vertical landing/take off vehicle which automatically tips forward for maximum speed.

Hybrids
It's easy enough to make a hybrid vehicle, by adding vertical propellers to a plane, or wings to a helicopter. Drones do not handle hybrid designs well though. Their handling style doesn't mesh well with other aircraft types.

VSTOL
One of the simplest hybrid designs is a VSTOL aircraft (Very Short Take-Off and Landing) in essence, this is a regular plane, with up pointing props or fans. The vertical thrust allows them to take off very easily and with enough vertical thrust, they can take off vertically, and then fly forward.

Vstol aircraft make for great explorers, but they handle differently from regular planes. Because part of their lift is provided by propelers or fans, the amount of lift they generate is not entirely dependent on forward movement. While this allows for short take-off and landing, it also means than when you are in the sky, a turn can lead to you drifting sideways, rather than turning, and you may end up flipping in a steep climb.

Aircar/Barge
One of the difficulties with aircraft is controlling the roll, which often leads to crashes. A way to avoid this, and have a much simpler, easier to control aircraft, is to use mini-wings or Venture spoilers as wings. While they provide lift, they do not respond to controls, so when you turn using rudders or jets, you don't roll. The rudders and jets can produce roll if not balanced, so most designs like this rely on Gyros to stabilize them.

Falling With Style
 Achieve unpowered flight for 500m (Campaign only) 

Completion criteria:
In campaign mode, glide for 500m without activating propellers or thrusters.