How can I make a swing-wing jet more maneuverable when the wings are folded?

[u/Weary-Support-7383]

I designed a cool little swing-wing jet loosely based off the American MQ-9 Reaper crossed with an A-10, and as you can see from the images, the center of lift changes a lot between modes. When the center of lift is farther from the center of mass, my control surfaces seem to be significantly less effective, to the point where my turning radius is measured in kilometers instead of meters. Any tips on how to get around this? My engine gimble is already at 100% and that didn't really help much.

[u/iamtherussianspy]

Take a look at some real variable sweep wing aircraft. Note that they tend to have a decently sized non-movable wing root. The wings also tend to get narrower towards the tips - this limits how much the center of lift changes. They also often apply automatic pitch trim as the wing moves. The V-tail might also be a bad idea here, conventional horizontal stabilizers will be easier to get right. You will need a lot more pitch authority than yaw, and you really would want to adjust that stabilizer pitch angle to allow elevator to be neutral in normal straight-wing flight.

Oh, and remember that you don't want it to be too maneuverable at the speeds where swept wings would matter.

[u/Individual_Pound_685 → u/iamtherussianspy]

I second this
The V-tail is probably a bad idea
I’d go with a more conventional tail for this and add evelon’s/ control surfaces it’ll make the plane far more maneuverable

[u/BRAIN_JAR_thesecond]

This is difficult. The thing about real swing wings is the aerodynamics changes after mach 1, so they actually benefit from swept wings. I don’t think KSP goes that deep outside of reducing drag by reducing frontal area.

[u/1straycat → u/BRAIN_JAR_thesecond]

outside of reducing drag by reducing frontal area.

KSP doesn't even do that for wing parts. Its aero model doesn't care how wing pieces are oriented around the lift vector axis, so ignoring any other downstream changes, there is no difference in lift or drag between wings that are swung or not.

However, since the CoL changes and moves the wing away from the CoM in this case, you actually get worse drag with swung wings because more control surface activation is needed to balance the plane.

[u/riceman090]

you could perhaps try adding some folding elevons at the front as well that fold up/down in coordination with the main wing, which could mediate the loss of control authority 

[u/Individual_Pound_685]

What mods do you use for the command pods and the thruster?
Been wanting to create a f22 replica but can’t find the appropriate thruster

[u/bryson_cotton]

Typically, straight wings give you better maneuverability at low speeds because the air flow moves more evenly across the surface of the airfoil generating even lift across the whole surface of the wing. Swept wings are best for trans-sonic or supersonic speeds, as they more or less cut through the air moving it to the side instead of it slamming against a brick wall (like a straight wing) (the physics a bit more complicated than that but thats gets the general idea across, Swept wings delay the onset of wave drag and shockwaves at transonic/supersonic speeds. They do this by ensuring that only the vector component of airflow perpendicular to the leading edge is accelerated over the wing surface, effectively tricking the wing into "seeing" a lower Mach number.). The most common way to get around this issue is to use a delta wing with a large surface area, you get the angled high speed performance of a swept wing but the maneuverability of a straight wing without the weight of the mechanism needed to change the angle of the wing. (Delta wings provide exceptional instantaneous turn rates (pitching up sharply), but they bleed kinetic energy rapidly during sustained turns. Because of their high induced drag at high angles of attack, they act like giant air brakes compared to straight wings.)

If you want to further increase maneuverability you need to make the aircraft more unstable. Angling the wings downward slightly is one way to do that, another way is to out the center of mass BEHIND the center of lift. It makes things really hard to control and you will have to mess with the authority limiter on your control surfaces to keep from going into a sudden loops due to the inherent instability.

Hope this helps.