Which parts can act as ailerons, elevators and rudders

kerbal-space-program

I read the tutorial on building planes in KSP, absorbed the knowledge on ailerons, elevators and rudders, then eagerly set off to build one, purchasing the 'aviation' research.

And then I got stuck. Because there are no ailerons, elevators and rudders. There's Elevon. There's Tail Fin. There are various winglets, connectors, wings – but about none of them make it clear which are controllable, which need to have extra control surfaces attached, which are not supposed to have ones attached etc.

So – could someone provide a comprehensive list of parts that provide steerable control surfaces for atmospheric flight, along with their applicable functions? (e.g. so that I don't put an aileron in place of a rudder and vice versa.)

Best Answer

The Control Surface article gives the list of the parts that can act as control surfaces:

AV-R8 Winglet
Standard Canard
Advanced Canard
Delta-Deluxe Winglet
Tail Fin
FAT-455 Aeroplane Tail Fin
Big-S Spaceplane Tail Fin
Elevon 1
Elevon 2
Elevon 3
Elevon 4
Elevon 5
Big-S Elevon 1
Big-S Elevon 1
FAT-445 Aeroplane Control Surface

They are not assigned permanently to any role, but instead any of them can be individually chosen to act as any of the three:

The state of the control surfaces' (and its symmetrical pairs) reaction to the control of the axises can be adjusted by the buttons next to the names of the axises in a popping up window by right clicking ion the selected control surface.

  • Pitch : lits and lowers the nose of the craft and can be controlled with a horizontal control surfaces far from the center of mass.
  • Yaw : turns the craft left and right. It can be controlled most efficiently with vertical control surfaces far from the center of mass.
  • Roll : rolls the craft around the longitudinal axis of the craft, can be controlled most efficiently with symmetrical control surfaces far from the longitudinal axis (like at the end of the wings).

So, a surface assigned to "pitch" will work as an elevator, "yaw" as a rudder, and "roll" as an aileron.

Also, the rudder surfaces are usually quite small, and so the plane is rarely responsive to "yaw" control to any significant degree - the "A"/"D" controls will be very poor at turning it. Using roll ("Q"/"E") and then "pulling up" ("W") will be much more effective for turning.

Related Topic