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Wings in Ground Effect - Orion?

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Topaz

Super Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
Messages
15,986
Location
Orange County, California
Orion - from your website you seem to have a lot of experience with WiG vehicles, and I have a question that might tap into that.

I have the option with my project of reducing weight by having a relatively short landing gear. My 'pod' is so short that I can still develop plenty of nose-up angle, even with the short gear.

My concern is that it places the lower surface of my (flying) wing rather close to the ground - about 0.33c-0.66c, depending on how short I want to go. Since 'up' elevator on my plane is the opposite of a conventional flap (my elevator goes 'up' for nose-up), am I likely to get a 'suckdown' force from the venturi-effect this might create? I'm running about +2 deg. incidence in ground-level attitude. Effective AR is 5.25 and the elevator is about 35% of the total span.

If this is a real concern, what's the practical lower limit (% chord) for placing the wing near the ground?

Thanks!
 
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