Controls reversing mid flight...

[Curume]

I have a spaceplane that will randomly reverse the pitch axis of control surfaces mid-flight (i.e. I'll be in the middle of pitching down by holding "w" and the control surfaces will suddenly reverse) . It's an otherwise functional aircraft.

After searching a bit, I haven't found anyone else with this error, but I tend to be bad at tracking down info. Has anyone encountered this? If so, any known workarounds?

To be clear, the aircraft is single stage using only a pair of elevons being used as horizontal flight surfaces and a single vertical stabilizer with built in rudder. All parts are vanilla KSP.

[Fel]

Are you 100% positive that it is the control surface reversing, and not just the aerodynamism of the plane putting it back near its speed vector's trajectory?

Apart from that, I can't see why, sorry.

But if it's not this, I recommend you go to the official forum, support section, because they do support vanilla install, an there are way more people succeptible to be able to help.

[Curume]

Yeah, I'm sure.

For example: I'll be flying along for the first 5 minutes with "w" being pitch down and "s" being pitch up. All of a sudden, it will reverse controls for the remainder of the flight. It's like a problem I had on the 360 with some games that would forget the "Invert Y-axis" settings mid-game.

The things that weird me out the most is that it only happens on one craft (which is a slight modification of another craft) and that if I have more than just the pair of elevons, it'll split them (only one pair inverts).

I'll give the official forums a shot, thanks!

[Mandelbrot]

Can you include screenshots or, even better, post a craft file somewhere? I'd be happy to test it out, though it will be tomorrow before I get a chance :)

[Naiba]

Do you have multiple controlling cockpits/cores? Maybe a docking port part? It may be a glitch with the "control from here" function.

[Fel]

It could be that, true, but he stated that the change happened while he was trying to go "down", during the key press. I hardly thing that he was clicking all over the place while panevering, but maybe.

[Curume]

Sorry it's taken so long.

Twin snakes[www.sendspace.com]

Those are my two aircraft for comparison. The first is the Asp, which is an airbreathing aircraft and functions just fine. The Star Adder is a rocket-powered version of the Asp, and is still being worked on.

The Star Adder is the problem child. That is the one that reverses its controls mid-flight.

Edit: A few notes

• They both have wings that are swept back well past the pivot point of their landing gear, so be careful not to pull up too hard on take-off
  
• The Asp doesn't need much speed to take off (60m/s) and is perfectly comfortable at low speed, but can be pushed faster
  
• The Star Adder is significantly heavier than the Asp
  
• The position of the Star Adder's engines makes for a significant nose up pitching moment at high throttle settings, it should not be taken above 1/3 throttle, or it will backflip out of control

I apologize in advance. The Star Adder is a pain to fly, and of course, that's the one having issues.

[Mandelbrot]

I don't think it is the craft itself that is the problem. I did get a chance to test it tonight, but it flew normally the whole time. I could only get a little over a minute of flight time with it, as those engines burn through fuel pretty fast, but it was fine for that long. Also I turned on infinite fuel and flew it for almost 15 minutes, and still no change in the controls. Although it shakes a lot with SAS turned on, it's a fun ship to fly.

Some questions: Do you have any mods installed? Do you have a joystick/xbox controller plugged in, even if you are not using it? How long does usually take for the controls to flip?

[Curume]

Originally posted by Mandelbrot:

I don't think it is the craft itself that is the problem. I did get a chance to test it tonight, but it flew normally the whole time. I could only get a little over a minute of flight time with it, as those engines burn through fuel pretty fast, but it was fine for that long. Also I turned on infinite fuel and flew it for almost 15 minutes, and still no change in the controls. Although it shakes a lot with SAS turned on, it's a fun ship to fly.

Some questions: Do you have any mods installed? Do you have a joystick/xbox controller plugged in, even if you are not using it? How long does usually take for the controls to flip?

No mods or anything installed. I figure it's something either with my install or my computer, but it was just weird that the rocket powered one was the only one to give me trouble.

As for the timing, it seems to be random. I've had it flip while still on the runway, not flip at all and anywhere in between.

Thanks for giving my birds a test. I'm glad you had fun with them!

[Mandelbrot]

I flew the Asp around and I really like it, looks cool, flies great. Still shakes with SAS on but it flies really well without it. No problems with controls though. If it were me I would try to build some other random things and see if the problem comes up again. If so, a reinstall would be my only suggestion. I doubt it would be a problem with your save and the craft works well, at least on my PC, so it should be safe to back those up. Sorry I couldn't be much help, but at least you have another data point :)

[unknown1234_5]

I have the same problem all the time, particularly when my pitch control surfaces are angled relative to what I'm controlling from (cockpit, drone core, etc.). I haven't found a fix and have had to abandon every plane that started doing it.