You can control your speed both by changing your thrust and by pitching up and down. The landing gear on the Aeris-3A is the LY-10 landing gear, which has a maximum impact speed of 50 m/s. To land the plane, you need to touch down on your landing gear as gently as you can. This means that if you land on those parts, you’ll be fine. The parts that have the highest speed are the landing gear parts. The theory of safely landing a plane in the game is the same as landing a rocket: parts have a maximum safe impact speed, and some parts have a higher maximum impact speed than others. It’s more of a challenge, since the surrounding area is hilly and the runway is shorter! Once you’re comfortable flying and landing at the main runway, try your hand at landing on the island. In addition to the airstrip that you took off from, there’s an abandoned airfield on an island a few kilometers southeast. There are two places to land your plane in the immediate vicinity of the Kerbal Space Center. When you’re done flying around, it’s time to land (see Figure 4-3).

Reduce your thrust to keep your fuel burn manageable and your craft easier to steer.

You don’t need to have your thrust at maximum to fly.

While steering, don’t turn the craft too far away from your direction of travel-that is, the prograde indicator on the navball-or your plane will encounter lots of drag and spin out. Your plane has a rudder, but it’s easier to steer by using the larger, more effective wings. To turn the plane, it’s possible to steer by using A and D, but it’s easier to steer by banking a little with the Q and E keys, and then using W and S to pitch up and down. Now that you’re in the air, you can use the W, A, S, D, Q, and E keys to steer (see Figure 4-2). Once you’re off the ground, press G to retract your landing gear. When you hit about 90 m/s, pull up by holding S. Keep an eye on your surface speed indicator, which is just above the navball.

You’ll start moving slowly at first but will pick up speed in no time at all.

Kerbal space program space plane design