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  1. ThadBeier

    Fixed Gear drag, nose wheel versus tail wheel vs retract

    So, what is the real drag penalty of gear hanging in the wind? Does it really come down to design? What is easier to design? A retract system or better aerodynamics? Another interesting issue that I am surprised nobody mentions with respect to fixed vs retractable gear, is the amount of...
  2. ThadBeier

    Flying wing as cheap and simple option for basic fun flying.

    My design: The idea is that the having a forward-swept wing has some advantages: 1) if you have a swept wing, you need to twist the wing somewhat. For a forward swept wing, the root is a few degrees further down than the front part of the wing. This gives some pitch stability. 2) The spar...
  3. ThadBeier

    Coupled engines to single shaft

    I like a similar idea -- two engine/generators, that drive an electric motor driving the propellor. Two small, high RPM engines could generate a lot of power at relatively low weight, and having two of them will give the plane redundancy.
  4. ThadBeier

    Discussion Thread: The design of a tailless flying wing

    Best of luck! Everything about this design I like -- simple, easy to build, inexpensive, efficient. I presume that cost ($15K) doesn't include the engine...because it's about that same cost. If you're really building this, please create a new thread to show its progress. You'll have a lot of...
  5. ThadBeier

    Weight estimations based on modern composite airframes?

    The plane that most impresses me as a light composite plane is Facebook's drone Aquila. Now, I recognize that there's nobody on that plane -- but it has a wingspan greater than a Boeing 737, but weighs less than 1,000 lbs (400 kg.) And, of course, it's designed to fly from 60,000 to 90,000 ft...
  6. ThadBeier

    Jet Black Aircraft - JB441 Single Place Aluminum sport plane

    Michael, I am excited to see your design continue. All airplanes (really all engineering) have some trade-offs, and trading off a lot of things (a bit of extra weight, say) for dramatically simpler construction is worth trying. I do think that making a plane simple could well make it safer...
  7. ThadBeier

    Hybrids taking off.

    There were a few planes build with Mazda radial engines. They were high-powered, light, simple, but were needed heavy flywheels because the impulse of each combustion was so strong it would destroy the gears necessary to turn the prop at a reasonable speed. The high-speed, high-power, light...
  8. ThadBeier

    Did you load test your airplane?

    Here's what I would (and perhaps will :) ) do. Calculate to high precision exactly what you expect the response to loads would be. Test the wing up to expected loads, and verify that your calculations are correct. If they match precisely, then you can be reasonably assured that your...
  9. ThadBeier

    Boeing 777-9x will have folding wings

    Boeing offered the folding wingtips on the original 777 as well, and nobody took them up on the offer. My guess is that's what will happen for the 9x as well -- any extra weight in the air is more expensive than any airport improvements you have to make on the ground.
  10. ThadBeier

    Delta wing attach looking for ideas

    A forward-swept delta would allow you to sit further forward :)
  11. ThadBeier

    CRJ Winglets

    It looks to me as if the interesection of the winglet and the wing is pretty sharp at the leading edge, and has a wider and wider fillet as it moves back. Then, what do you do at the trailing edge? You have to push it a little further aft. This is often done with wing/fuselage intersections...
  12. ThadBeier

    Sgian Dubh remodeled

    I've designed a similar plane, and I would think that the dramatic increase in negative pitching moment from the flaperons would be hard to counteract with elevators with such a short moment arm. Also, you might get into a point where you just run out of up elevator, or stall the elevator, and...
  13. ThadBeier

    Rutan Ski-gull

    I'm pretty sure that the Glass Goose was not designed by Burt. It did use similar moldless composite construction, but it was designed independently.
  14. ThadBeier

    3d printed jet engine at Avalon air show

    Sadly, this is more of a sculpture than a jet engine. Hasn't been tested, won't be tested. There are a dozen different materials in a jet engine, and they're all different for a good reason.
  15. ThadBeier

    "M-Wing"?

    If you twist the wing so that the points of the M are at a somewhat higher aspect ratio, you can get some nice properties. As the wing tapers out to that point, the increased angle of attack can keep the lift more-or-less the same. Having the higher Cl part of the wing forward could give you a...
  16. ThadBeier

    Characteristics of a straight-wing, tailless model in the Langley free-flight tunnel

    Re: Characteristics of a straight-wing, tailless model in the Langley free-flight tu Any idea what kind of L/D you are getting in the model? What do you expect for the full-scale aircraft? It's a very impressive design. Best of luck to you!
  17. ThadBeier

    Internal Ducting in a Delta Airship

    My favorite radical proposed airship was from Shell, back in the 70's. It was 1800 ft long, by about 300 ft in diameter, made of aluminum. The point was that shipping natural gas from the Middle East to Europe was tough. They were (and finally did) build LNG plants, but they take about 1/4...
  18. ThadBeier

    Wing geometry "finalized"

    From what I recall reading (and I can't find a reference now, dang!) the Brightstar Swift had a wing twist of something like 9 degrees, due to substantial spanwise flow. At the speeds that you will be flying, perhaps that much twist won't be necessary. I think the all-flying winglets are...
  19. ThadBeier

    Discussion: Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat Motorglider

    Interesting numbers. Kinda surprised by a couple (I suppose I should go back and reread all the pages that lead up to this.) The maximum rate of climb seems lower than I'd expect. What speed is the max L/D reached? Are you using about 80% as the propeller efficiency? 517 fps requires about...
  20. ThadBeier

    GA's tapered and swept tail for aesthetic reason?

    I guess that means that I am "new" :) I had a Cessna 1960 172A, N7770T, which was the first year the plane had a swept tail.
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