.NOTE; this is no longer updated and up to date, there is still useful data here but my account is no longer active
I know it seems presumptuous to be doing this when im (currently) silver but these are things that i genuinely struggled with in simple-planes so you can learn from my mistakes and so that your planes dont end up like ! (side note this is what happens when you put guns behind propellors)
ALL the vehicles in this tutorial are original and made by me and if this tutorial helped you drop a vote id really appreciate it and if you comment any simpleplane related questions i will try to answer them. i will keep adding to this tutorial so if you dont see anything new itll show up IF YOU ASK. if you want more elaborate explanations ill edit this tutorial accordingly. so lets begin;

First off, you will have a lot of trouble like me (app store sp no mods) getting custom parts without the overload mod, go to mods and set it highest rated, it'll be there, (for pc) download it then go to your simple planes folder and put the download in the mods folder.

second off, if this thing really helped you leave a comment or a upvote, its always nice to know what to add/improve/mention or just get some appreciation for this.

1. Fuselage blocks, this things are the lifeblood of all goodlooking simpleplanes creations and without them simpleplanes wouldn't be what it is today. I recommend changing the edges to get the shapes you want like this if you are a perfectionist do not fear the blocks automatically morph into each other! i also highly reccomend messing around with the rise and the edges especially manual edges if you want an idea of what this can achieve look at my raptor.
(side note fuselage inlets are modifiable in the same ways)

2. Ground vehicles

how to connect wheels to an engine is to use the resizable wheel going to its options and clicking\tapping engine. one of my main troubles when i first started building vehicles was suspension so this here is the standard most offroad suspension it does not turn too well but its worth it the way it works is to go to the wheel details and clicking suspension and setting it like this side tip id recommend using tractor or off-road wheel types by choosing tire style.
the next thing is if you want your forward and backward movements controlled by pressing forward and backwards go to the engine itself and change input to pitch
Dont forget fuel!

3. Turrets
even though the turret controls in this game are crude and clumsy i often incorporate them in my builds and this is how to make them, quite simply connect a hinge and rotator and set their controls to VTOL and TRIM (id reccomend using modded tiny components) if you'd like to make a ball turret do the same except finetune a half sphere onto it (i will go over this later)

4. VTOL aircraft
these are incredibly easy to make once you know how to so here it is, First build the plane then put adequate amounts of vtol engines (1 or 2 will usually do the job) and fuel, then you must place vtol nozzles on the center of mass (the red line whn you press space) make sure to place the VTOL nozzles BEFORE EVERYTHING the tiniest weight will change your flight so put missiles and guns on before

5. Finetuner (not sure if thats what it is actually called)
this is extremely useful when you have tedious placement of objects like helicopter rotors that need to be exactly on center mass (more on helicopters later) and when you need to move objects inside others (like when you dont want a cockpit sticking out while making a drone) this can be found here when you click the rotation button click that wrench (make sure the object you want finetuned is selected) then you should see this the top is rotation of object and the bottom part is where to change its coordinates an important notice is that if you finetune objects into others the collision of the object it is in contact with will ignore the object you finetuned example; if you finetuned a bomb into a block it would go through it when you dropped it but if it hit lets say a wheel on its way down it'd go boom

6. Chat and comments
these are some helpful details when chatting and commenting. integrating links into text; [text]-(link)
delete - and put the link and text in their places heres an example link to my Razor FAV
putting images in descriptions; ![ ]-(image link) except delete -
if you want to post screenshots of your design in action upload the screenshot to a site like pinterest so that it becomes a URL
side note i dont think you can comment these
putting * around a word will turn it into italics

Miscellaneous

(update on new helicopter parts:
opinion, good but controls on new parts are so clunky i still prefer my old way)
Helicopters; Building a decent helicopter with realistic flying characteristics is tedious, time consuming and unpredictable. this guide will make a cluncky-ish helicopter but it does fly decently but as of late this is how i found out how like this almost anything will fly, first place rotor(s) with sufficient thrust to just barely lift the vehicle off the ground and place it EXACTLY on the center of mass then add the gyro inside this helicopter i dont know how it works but it works. this game was not designed with helicopters in mind but following these instructions you can make most work to some extent. many have tried and succeeded but a majority of these use rotors that use wings which is complicated and i believe its sort of cheating since it flies unrealistically here are 3 examples of successful rotor based helicopters IBRHAS,the bombardero,My beautiful wolverine side note these use modded parts (dont let that discourage you ill explain later) to be honest helicopters are tedious, complicated, excruciating and fragile if you dont use gyros in which case they arent very "helicoptery" and i wouldn't recommend it, obviously you can but its a lot of work

Hovercraft
(update, not sure how but i've seen people use the ground effect on new helicopter parts to make hovercraft)
(disclaimer ive only scraped the surface of hovercrafts so im not an expert) but whats worked for me is to simply use this guys modded parts as if they were normal wheels he explains a bit more

.modded parts
this is a mistake a lot of beginners make;
There is a large difference between modded parts and parts that require mods. a modded part is a part that is unique and will run without the need of mods and can run on totally vanilla simpleplanes,
parts that require mods are parts that need mods to run duh but in my experience these are very rare and uncommon since almost all planes are community friendly

subassemblies
VERY USEFUL
this is when you can save a object or structure ie, a turret, you must detach the object and drag it to the subassembly box in the top left corner if you want to detach a multi piece object like a turret make sure no cockpit blocks are attached and drag its "base" to the subassembly

i HIGHLY recommend saving modded parts with this, you will save so much of your time

.forums
to post a forum simply click the yellow "new post" button select a category and click new post again

.seaplanes
i have never succeeded at building a seaplane so dont ask me, only that in my experience they have a tendencies to do water somersaults, thats just my skill level in that department sorry

.boats and ships
this is sort of cheating but simply set the bottom fuselage blocks to be buoyant and put a gyroscope on the thing because ballast is a nightmare in this game and there's no stabilization from displacement, doesn't matter anyway since there's no waves in the game

.Bombs

self explanatory (check out advanced targeting though its pretty handy,)

.Flares
also self explanatory (button on bottom corner of your screen if you havent figured it out)

.Recoil on guns,
just get one gun pointing where you want and one gun shooting at a invincible block and put all this on a spring like this

Gameplay (only for computers)
P=pause
L=slowmotion
G=lift gears
i hope you enjoy simple-planes and that this guide helped build something awesome and good day! Breitling out!

oh and one last thing, just to give you an idea of what to expect from the simpleplanes community
useful links
collision less parts, one use is that collisionless guns wont destroy your propellors
weightless block is blue, no idea what the rest are. i'd ask because its probably useful
zero health blocks, good for damage models
(kindof)invincible parts, not useful for much outside of damage models tbh
scaled engines EXTREMELY USEFUL FOR AESTHETICS
scaled parts this stuff is cool on weapons