Testing the future of air travel! 

It’s not ksp not agreeing with physics it’s you not agreeing with tail control surfaces

The way Matt looks at architects is the same way aeronautical engineers look at him.

I mean, I'm not an aerospace engineer, but from what I've read in the pilot's handbook of aeronautical knowledge, you kind of want some rear elevators to control the whole pitch thing. Putting the center of lift on the center of mass works, kind of, but that could potentially be what is making it unstable. Ailerons are meant more for roll than pitch control. You're pretty much getting all of your pitch control from your engine.

Matt went through the entire video with planes that don't have horizontal stabilizers on them. What an architect lol.

the alignment on that "oblique" wing is... special

You should probably add horizontal elevators at the tail and use them to control the pitch instead of the ones built into the wings. It would be way more stable that way. And maybe make the rudder bigger, it looked a bit small compared to the rest of the plane.

The reason the wings were asymmetrical on that plane designed by NASA was because they wanted to test a simpler way of achieving swept wing designs: Having only one moving part which itself is even less complex as opposed to the regular design that sweeps two wings The asymmetry is only a side-effect of trying to sweep both wings with only one moving part: As one wing sweeps back the other obviously needs to sweep forward

i don't understand why he leaves the elevators on the back often off, is he intentionally making Architect planes or what? that is also i think why his SAS system freaks out because it's missing some crucial control surfaces.

Fun Fact: The F-14 actually has sweeping wings, so for low speeds and maneuvers it wings can be swept front so that it is perpendicular, but for supersonic speeds, it can be swept back to be faster. One of the few planes to have changeable angle (sweeping) on its wings.

7:12 RCE: “It is faster when you go higher speed.” 🤔😂

(Nose of the plane)

The original oblique wing actually rotated in flight, so you would take off with wings symmetrical and then rotate them in flight.

5:40 the reason it couldn't lift up wasn't because of the lack of lift, but because the ailerons trying to act like elevators were pushing down on top of the wheels, instead of using the wheels as a lever. So you basically made a car spoiler to keep the wheels pressed against the ground using downforce, instead of using it to lift the front wheel up.

Matt, with all due love and respect, go watch a 10m video on the basics of aerodynamics. Horizontal stabilizers and elevators are generally NOT optional for stability. Move your control surfaces away from the center of mass. Put your rear landing gear behind the center of lift. Maybe try this again after you get a few of the fundamental problems with your plane corrected.

Who’s gonna tell Mat planes have vertical stabilisers

if the oblique wing is meant to reduce losses to drag at supersonic speed, you're going to have a significant loss due to drag from constant adjusting maneuvers which will negate any gains. it's tricky to use a flight stick for KSP 2 but it can be done, but if that's not on the agenda, holding left Alt and using the controls can set the trim of the craft, i.e. the sort of default point it goes back to when you let go. This can give you more fine control over the orientation and allow for level flight. or you can use caps lock to engage fine control mode so the maneuvers aren't as drastic and you have less drag from making them.

11:10 Matt being so close to finally understanding the need for a horizontal stab while also completely avoiding it 🤦🏼‍♂️

The problem is the wing positioning, you needed a shorter wing at a narrower angle. If you look at the oblique asym wing in the video, it's far closer to the body than yours. I'd bring it much closer say 10 degrees of center line for both wings. I suspect, if you did that, and decreased the wing span by about 20% you'd hit 1500 m/s in game.

I was thinking the oblique wing had a "Superman" feel to it, and I'm amused that RCE was thinking the same thing. The engine falling off at the end!😂 I'm reminded of the movie Serenity, at the end, when a piece of the hull pops off as it's taking off, and Mal goes "What was that?"🤣

The long, straight wing is best for subsonic flight as it has more lift, but swept wings are better for supersonic flight. The entire point of the oblique wing was to make an aircraft that could travel efficiently below and above Mach 1. Aircraft like the F14 could do this, but they had two individual wings and needed two pivots, making them heavier and also giving them a higher chance of failure. So, the oblique wing was supposed to do the same but without having as many different parts that could break and needed maintenance. Also it isnt supposed to be 2 fixed wing its supposed to be 1 long wing that can rotate lol.

If I recall, the whole point was that it was a rotating wing. So it's straight out to either side for liftoff making it easy to takeoff, then once at speed it rotates the wing to the strange asymmetric position so that it's less surface area than a standard straight-out wing design, closer to what you'd expect from a swept wing. Idea was a single motor handling the whole mechanism with minimal stress, verses 2 very strong motors handling each wing sweep individually. The forces pushing on each wing would roughly be the same, so rotating the wing would only need a cheap weaker motor Edit: 17:23 literally this, yes

I was taught a bit about planes a while back. I learned that the bigger wings don’t control pitch, they control the roll. The pitch is done by tinier wings called elevators or something. Either on the back or front. The yaw is controlled by the tail wing. I make my planes in KSP 2 like this now and they are so much more stable and have a higher tendency to get in the air.

So you can actually trim with Alt + W/A/S/D And one of the jet engines has an afterburning mode, oh and also different efficiencies based on altitude.

Solid work recreating the oblique wing. I think ksp probably won’t let you get an authentic version of it since it would require actually being able to move the wing mid-flight and there is a whole host of minor adjustments to the ailerons. Always a good show Matt, love your channel thanks for hours of fun

I am in a aviation class and Civil Air Patrol so I'm learning about that stuff because I want to be a engineer when I grow up, matt did miss a couple of things that could have made the test for all planes better like the horizon stabilizer but due to the knowledge I do know it wouldn't been better but I might do some testing just in case I've actually have my own wing design which is a mixture of both wings for supersonic and low speed so they are good but I won't say the best because I've made a full custom plane and it works too

I would like to point one thing out. You spoke about the challenge of having the straight wing low speed design, and then taking them back to the angled back high speed design as you get to speed (that backward angle is known as sweep by the way). To counter your point about the challenges of this, I'll point you to aircraft like the Tornado and F14 Tomcat (there are others, but I wont bore you). This is exactly what they do, and they do it pretty successfully.

The idea with the oblique wing was that it could be a normal wing at lower speed, but when it broke the sound barrier it could rotate its wings to be more areodynamic

The more videos I see of this game, the more i feel i need to by it to crush those damn architects

I have no words. Knowing what i know about aerodynamics and the actual plane in question, and watching this was like a train wreck i couldn't look away from.

Trim control in KSP2 is ALT+(WASDQE) to adjust the aircraft control surface trim to continue to apply control surface forces in small amounts in a continuous direction. There's a mod that makes it more visible and tweakable called Trim Controller. Most craft have some inherent instability and SAS can make it worse. Also, as fuel is consumed, the Center of Mass will change, causing increasing instability.

2:24 That wobbling moment there is called PIO (Pilot-induced Oscillation) which is basically the SAS trying to correct itself but by doing so would overshoot, and would enter a feedback loop until it fixes itself eventually (or crash). To fix it, at least in KSP: lower your Authority Limit, and maybe read more about aeronautics.

at 4:51 its hard to pull up cause the CoL is way too behind from the CoG so the aircraft is really nose-havy causing it to dive down. Usually you would want the CoL just behind the CoG for easier take off and easier pitch control!🤩 sick video tho

5:22 wow I actually did the math and .15 is super close to the correct length, it actually rounds to .16 though (for anyone wanting to check, the ingame angle measurement is the angle in degrees divided by 180

I think you missed a few points from the documentary (assuming it's the same one I watched): *They spoke about compensation for the oblique wing *Also the oblique wing won't help take off when it's in the oblique position, it's advantage is that you take off with the wings at 90 degrees, then when the plane wants to go faster you change the wing configuration to oblique... *Also the oblique wing should have the same speed and performance (or similar) as the angled wings, not better... BUT better than 90 degree wings (at high speed)... Keep up the good work!

In the original video the wings were on the top so that the air can flow from one wing over to the other and i think that might be a key feature to the design.

Good to see KSP again, Matt! I know practically nothing about planes but that was a very interesting experiment!

I think the oblique wing was supposed to be used similar to the swing wing design? From what I understand it's one continuous overwing with an electrical motor that would rotate it, letting the wings be perpendicular to the fuselage during takeoff, then at a certain speed, I believe just before trans-sonic speeds, the wing would rotate and become oblique. The leading edge would then only create one vortex at the non-leading edge, making less aerodynamic friction with less turbulent air as the air must travel all the way down the leading edge to the tip at the tail end. I think they were supposed to create a more laminar airflow over the wing, also reducing drag and increasing the flow of non-turbulent air over the wing itself.

Dear Matt, the oblique wing is a different approach to the Swept wing style planes (f-14) the best of both worlds. The Oblique wing would start in a symmetrical mode as to get rid of that unwanted roll at slower speeds, for more maneuverability and for slower flying capabilities. The Oblique mode is there to allow it to travel faster as soon as it gets up to speed, for better stability at higher speeds but also to use less fuel as there is less Drag.

the point of the oblique wing is to make taking off easier with the symmetrical wings that rotate in flight to go supersonic

I think it’s more about high speed control than actually gaining speed. With flat wings the shockwaves form over the whole wing which effects control surfaces, with angled wings they form at the tips, but there’s less lift and control at lower speeds

I think you got that mustard video wrong. You'd have to try it in KSP 1, where you build an oblique wing on a hinge. You'd take off with the wing perpendicular to your plane. That way, it's controllable and takes off quickly. Then, as you pick up more speed, you would have to rotate the hinge, and that way, you could fly faster in a more controlled plane... Also, as other people mentioned, adding elevators wouldn't hurt. But what do I know? I'm a mere mechanic. Ps. By using the hinge as mentioned in Mustard's video, you wouldn't have any problem, with center of lift shifting, which is way too cool.

KSP back on this channel warms my heart

A solution to the second aircraft having bad lift and pulling down could be sitting the wings lower on the fuselage, as center of mass, thrust, and lift are also affected by vertical alignment

When I made my first really fast plane, Also the plane that made it into Orbit. I painted it Red. Really bright red. Now, I am not sure if it was the small refinements to the air frame, or the decisions made on the engines and intake, or the fact that it was all red. But that aircraft exceeded 2200 m/s. Maybe if your plane was red it would have gone faster. Also maybe kicking on the afterburner on that Panther could have helped before you changed back to the Ramjet engine.

So, when I saw that same video about the oblique wings i rushed to try them on Flyout (which is a game i recommend) and they do seem to work, although the point of rotation has to be behind the center of the wing for the CoL and CoM to be somewhat balanced in both modes, also, the controls get a bit wonky on full oblique mode, but its fixable, and, of course, it goes without saying you cant use any dihedral, so the roll stability has to be considered All this to say, try FLYOUT, its a really cool game

recently found your channel, and while watching a random assortment of older videos, at one point after testing a plane you just did a nose dive into the water, and that gave me an idea, can you make a submersible in Kerbal Space Program? I don't have the engineering know how, the time, or the game, to attempt it, so I thought I'd pitch it to you (if it hasn't already been done) i'm assuming game mechanics won't let you given the premise, but again, I don't have the game, so my guess is solely based on seeing you crash things meant for the air into the sea.

The video was talking how rotation of a single wing was lighter and have less fail points than two wing pivots to make a plane operate at both speeds

From me watching the video, what the video was arguing was that an A cemeterial wing would work just as a jet wing would. once at that mock 1 and above. The idea of the oblique wing was to have a simpler design for jets. because the aerodynamics dosent care if the plane is cemeterial. it only cares whether which wing produces enough upwards thrust. So, the wing would stay flat for takeoff and landing when going under the speed of sound, but after you reach the speed of sound you would turn the wing so that it would be A cemeterial, the reason for this idea to my knowledge was that with the Airforce. We have made wings that hinge for takeoff, landing and supersonic speeds. but they were prone to breaking, because they were so complex. And the maintenance was astronomical. I remember talking with an aerospace engineer about shuttles and the wing design and they said that that type of wing design wouldn’t work because the wings being at a 90 degree angle then turning 40 degrees, they basically said that it would break under the force of escape velocity. But she said that the oblique wing would be promising if they could get funding for it. I think we would use an oblique wing for shuttles because takeoff would be fine with the wing flat, once at mock one you would turn the wing oblique. Then at escape velocity you should be fine. Though I am no aerospace engineer, I’ve only talked with some. I may be wrong I am no professional or expert in this field. I just watched a video and talked with some people, I know nothing.

13:30 you can use sensitive control mode or lessen the AoA of the controll surfaces

Hi, sweept wings aren't for supersonic flights. The sweep angle is used in plane like 747 in order to delay the effect of compressibility (mach 1) and go in faster subsonic. Another reasons to use the sweep angle is to move the center of lift behind the center of mass, as shown in all-wings plane. Figther jet use Delta wings, which have a different phisic behind them (even if seems that those are similar to sweept wings), in this why they have better performance in supersonic flights

the whole point of the oblique wing is efficiency not speed, you can have the wing straight at take off and low speed to give more lift and control, then above supersonic you rotate the wing to increase efficiency

*@Real Civil Engineer* 13:55 You could just throttle down (green bar) to like 25% thrust, to become within the 100-300 m/s speed range. Then you can just change the throttle, without messing around with changing the airplane, a new engine means other weights & other thrust measurements ans such, lots of pollution in that data.

The main advantage is being able to have a continuous wing shaft on a supersonic plane, and being able to take advantage of its better lift at low speeds when rotated

real engineering has a really good video on the oblique wing

Matt, You should add elevators to the tail, but make them oblique also.

Wing sweep is specifically advantagous for the transonic regime, not so much for fully supersonic. Most "supersonic" aircraft like common modern fighter jets spend most of their high speed time transonic; transonic also has the highest drag coefficient so that is what gets optimized. A true mach 2 supersonic interceptor like the F-104 had straight short thin wings. Fighters that can super cruise generally still need afterburner to get through the transonic range of M0.9-1.3 then cruise without afterburner above.

10:30 if you would actually listen to that documentary they are saying that the design has one fatal flaw and that is the corkscrew effect

FINALLY! Please do more, I enjoy these videos so much

On Stability: you didn't put the horizontal stabilizers on the tail. The elevators also help with take-off. The NASA oblique test has them.

To be faaaair, as a Canadian from Ontario, I really appreciated the Letter Kenny insert. :)

Our local airplane museum has one of these on display. By far one of the craziest looking planes I’ve ever seen.

You did confirm oblique wing handled takeoff astronomically better than the symetrical triangle though. While still performing near identical to the supersonic wings. Which was the whole point of the video, that they are better at BOTH speeds, subsonic and supersonic. Whereas symetrical you must compromise one or the other.

As an aircraft mechanic who’s studied aerospace engineering… you may have forgotten the horizontal stabs on the tail to control pitch lol “Pull up! Pull up!” -you Yeah… you’ll find that quite difficult lol Though I suppose the eurofighter and other delta wings don’t have horizontal stabilizers, but they do have canards in the front for quick maneuvering

Oh I love your editor adding in the Letterkenny reference!

Finally!!! I've missed the KSP videos soooooo much!!! Pleeeeeeease please please please do more videos!

I watched that video as well. Fascinating indeed.

This is neat. I saw that oblique wing video, and my first thought was "RCE should make this in KSP."

omg i watched that video a long while back. cool that your testing it

as usual for ksp videos, here's another list of nerd things to take into consideration for this design: - to get your center of mass and center of lift aligned in swept wing design, try to keep the front fuel tanks empty - use dedicated tail control surfaces (elevators and rudder) instead of relying on the wing control surfaces

Finally its back, please keep uploading on kerbal matt its hilarious 😂.

I'd be interested if this had the ability to simulate a FreeWing; a wing that freely rotates on its span-axis relative to the fuselage, so that it can be controlled through or trimmed for angle-of-attack. Imagine being able to takeoff without tilting the whole plane, just the wing.

Go through the missions in ksp2 now! They're surprisingly good and fun. After the first few it really ramps up.

1:59 LOOKS LIKE NO ENGINE FOR YOU MATT

5:40 nope, your wheels are simply so far back that you are basically waiting for a pebble on the road to give you an upwards angle. Engine and control surfaces apply a force that is trying to pitch the plane, but there is no leverage because the wheels are so far back. Imagine if you stuck a wheel right at the tail of the plane which is the same height as the one at the front. Takeoff would be very hard, regardless of other factors. Then there is of course the fact that your center of lift is so far behind your center of mass, so the applied force has a much harder time pitching, even in the air. Combine the two.. and yeah this really probably has little to do with any kind of lift calculations the game may or may not be doing.

I would love to see you try this in KSP1 using the robotic parts to make the wing move mid-flight.

So the point of the oblique wing was that it could rotate to get the best of straight wing at subsonic and swept at supersonic. So could theoretically be commercially more viable as a supersonic people carrier than Concorde which was horrible subsonic

About time we had more KSP2 content

I don't know exactly which video you watched, but it was likely either underinformed on the topic or trying to oversell the concept. There are already planes with variable sweep (such as the F-14) to address the same issues as the oblique wing does, and they work wonderfully, but the oblique wing aims to simplify the mechanism and make maintenance easier. There are issues with the oblique wing though. Because one wing ends up forward-swept, it unbalances the lift and induces a constant roll, the forward-swept wing also experiences greater stresses that can bend and permanently ward the wing. Other issues with the design are that it needs a powerful motor to actually rotate the wing into place, that the action of rotating the wing causes the plane to yaw slightly, that the mechanism ends up either occupying most of the fuselage or compromising the wings' connection to the fuselage, just to name a few off the top of my head. So a ton of safety issues, all to save a few dollars on maintenance.

in the new modern planes ive seen they have two modes sub sonics and sonic where the wing shape is designed for each mode

I think the point of the oblique wing was the fact that it can pivot easily and provide good performance in both sub and super sonic speeds whereas swept or straight wings only perform well in one of those areas

To be fair 😂 brilliant banter there, editors

The NASA AD-1 that you showed a picture of at the beginning only had a top speed of 200 MPH / 320 KM/H, no where near the speed of sound. The point was not more speed, but less drag, meaning better fuel efficiency.

Scott Manley did this a few years back in Kerbal 1, good video for inspiration on how to improve your design. And to join the bandwagon, PUT REAR CONTROL SURFACES ON!

As others mentioned, the idea isn't to be better at one speed area or the other, it's to be as good to BOTH speed areas, thanks to the rotation. Which i don't think KSP can handle without mods.

3:00 matt you complete architect, if you are in a plane, you do not ever notice the sonic boom you produce constantly and always above the speed of sound

I can't wait to see more planes from Mustard / Found and Explained

You didn't pay attention to the documentary on the Wing... It's fist a standard wing at take off then it rotates at speed and altitude, but in the documentary, the makers of the design found that it would corkscrew unless if it had the proper instruments to compensate for it....

I love that you watch Mustard too.

"i can't pull up" the center of lift behind the center of mass: am i a joke to you

maybe make a video of making a plane in a circle shape, with little flat wings sticking out on the top with loads of boosters on the back on a body in the middle of the circle to make it fly over 1865 metres i think yea that could help you in the game

If you'd like to explore some more of these somewhat oddball designs, might I recommend the work of Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites.

Doesn't help ksp doesn't necessarily do full fluid analysis of the wing system, or that the oblique wing is a system meant to be symetric at low speed, or that ksp doesn't calculate different Mach levels at different altitudes

2:34: “300 meaty” 😂😂💀

1: The angled wing was creating too much turbulence beyond the trailing edges. That's why a full delta wing works far better than the two separate wings. Think of a Tornado, a B1, or a or F-14 Tomcat with the wings swept back. They're creating a delta wing envelope with the wing and the rear stabilization control surfaces. 2: The oblique wing setup wasn't on the the same angle. The two oblige wings have to have the leading edge transect the fuselage at the same angle. Your starboard wing was offset just enough to cause turbulence over the trailing edge that caused the aircraft to become unstable.

Actually looks brilliant!

Have you ever heard of vertical stabilisers? Try adding them to your plane. It helps a lot with pitch directions

By the way, the issues you were having weren’t the issues normal oblique wings have, and you might find out what those are if you make a stable plane. It shouldn’t corkscrew because both wings are producing lift at the same time, the front isn’t producing more than the back. It’s not your wings that are the issue, it’s the control surfaces which need to be moved to conventional elevators and a proper rudder

At least with actual aircraft there is a small, often overlooked aspect to the wings. Most commercial aircraft have the wings angled slightly up. This encourages the aircraft to default to straight and level flight. Fighter aircraft have wings that are angled slightly down to help assist in turning.

Matt building weird contraptions in KSP is peak entertainment.

The point is that it flies symmetrically to do sub sonic and then asymmetrically to do supersonic. The video didn’t claim that it would be faster than a delta wing,just more efficient.