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Snoshoo IF-1 Racer Construction / Technology

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Victor Bravo

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2014
Messages
13,450
Location
KWHP, Los Angeles CA, USA
The Snoshoo thread is a build log, which porobably means nobody else can post in that thread. I have a technical/construction question about that project, so unfortunately I have to kill some of HBA's bandwidth to ask it in a new thread.

I noticed that the main wing ribs are being CNC cut from plywood, using laser or router etc. That infers that the entire wing will be made out of wood, and I think I remember the original Snoshoo was designed before the composite era. (I remember Ray Cote telling me about it in 1988 or 1990 or somewhere around there, and the project was not brand new at that time).

So if you are using wood ribs I'm assuming you are also using wood skins. How are you going to keep the wood skins from moving, sagging, expanding, contracting, swelling, etc. ?

Several of us had composite wings as far back as 30 years ago in F-1. With the success of Nemesis 1, and now the even faster AR-6, it is obvious that you can't be competitive without a really good low drag wing that is getting a significant amount of laminar flow.

In order to do that with a wood wing, you're going to be sanding and filling and contouring and sanding and filling and sanding.... every season. Otherwise the wing will not maintain the performance it had in the beginning.

Making this problem worse, gping from Nova Scotia to Reno and back is going to put the wood through extreme changes in temperature, moisture, etc. I can't see how a laminar airfoil executed in wood is going to stay laminar.

So with absolutely 100% best intentions, and NOT trying to take any of the wind out of your sails... is there a plan that you have to maintain the performance of a laminar flow wood wing ?
 
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