erkki67
Well-Known Member
Nose gear, help, youuuuuu said nose gear arrrghhhhh! 

My fingers still hurt from typing that. However, as per an age-old saying, there are them who have groundlooped and them that will. That 6 or 8 foot long fuselage with no mass is gonna be a b***h and no fun to land.Nose gear, help, youuuuuu said nose gear arrrghhhhh!![]()
That may have been true in the transition years. With modern technology if we can manage to fly statically unstable aircraft and normal humans can fly model helicopters inverted we should be able to tame a short wheel base tail wheel?There's a time and place for everything, even nosewheels.
Before you go much further with Sockmonkey’s design you should build a simple foam RC model, use a common fuselage and try different wing planforms (rectangular, circular, semi-circular and elipsoid). Since the wing has a very short span a few different size ribs shouldn’t be a problem. You will most likely find as Charles Zimmerman did that the rectangular shape is the least efficient and is the least stable at high angles of attack.
How about the Aerovironment's Helios foil..concept has similarities.Before you go much further with Sockmonkey’s design you should build a simple foam RC model, use a common fuselage and try different wing planforms (rectangular, circular, semi-circular and elipsoid). Since the wing has a very short span a few different size ribs shouldn’t be a problem. You will most likely find as Charles Zimmerman did that the rectangular shape is the least efficient and is the least stable at high angles of attack.
I am inclined to agree with you.R/C model testing is absolutely the best possible way to determine if an overall aircraft configuration will be safe, controllable, etc. on a low ""homebuilder" budget.
There are formulas and calculations that allow you to adjust the weight of the model to be in correct proportion to the full size version. All of that is known and proven to be reasonably accurate.
A 1/4 or 1/3 size model of these small single seat design idea will be easily built and provide very important information.
The other choice is to use millions of dollars worth of computer software and hundreds of hours of computer simulation time. Please trust me that a foam model will cost far less.