W. Pepper
Active Member
I appear to be wrapping up a fifty year design project that went from cast iron and paper to 6061 T6 and probably Stits. Now calculating stresses and stripping unnecessary luxuries. Tooling and procurement hopefully will commence very soon and FINALLY!!
Priorities and reasoning are as follows:
1) I sometimes fear heights. Safety.
2) Already too late for a license, F.A.R. 103 may become necessary. Ultralight.
3) Frustrated by blind spots. Then it suddenly came to me that the leading edge spar would be the only justifiable headrest. And it affords a view of everything except at 6 o'clock and high noon, which elevator input could alleviate.
4) The discomfort of lying on ones back in a modern sailplane is exceeded by dangling on ones belly below a kite. Swingshifts allow propping crossed feet atop the nose wheel, which was dandy. Comfort; including a control column twisting handlebar to replace Louis Bleriot's run on heavy rudder pedals and backaches.
5) STOL. Frequent and hard to avoid buildups of cumulo-cactus.
6) Glideslope. Bringing the pilot and center of lift into the same neighborhood mandated a biplane with significant stagger. About 33%. Anticipating no fighter combat, bombing runs, firefighting, or dare-deviling at this stage, wafting around on an aspect ratio of about 9:1 seemed justifiable.
7) Economy. Inherent bi-product of weight limitations and saves money. 15 HP hoped for.
8) Transportable. The highway patrol could interfere with chosen and alternate landing strips immediately in front of and behind the house.
*Here's where it starts getting frightening:
9) Wing warp. Grumman recommends that pilots only use rudder control when approaching Mach 3 and forget about split flaps below about Mach .05 as they were never aerodynamically efficient - and the overly selfish Glenn Curtis could have afforded wingwarp when he was shoplifting from the overly selfish Wrights. Copycats since probably should have sooner. NASA concurs and has been working on adjustable camber for FA-18's.
The long wing requires six N struts. The two at center are approximated just outside of mutual interference and form a slight A-frame. The diagonals of the remainder N struts telescope equally by one of many available means.
By rigging in a bit of washout, the simultaneous telescoping is intended to allow unintended stalls to begin inboard rather than at the wingtip. The advantage obtained by increasing the airfoil gap to 1.25% warrants the weight if still available.
10) Adequate space for prop arc. Twin horizontal stabilizers. The booms extend from nose to tail. They intersect, help align and support the main landing gear (two tubes extending diagonally from near the root). They splay to about eight feet aft and allow an ample horizontal stabilizer with aspect ratio enhanced by the end obstructions.
11) Arcing control surfaces. Pre-prototype and quite tentative.
Split flaps suck more than lift. Airfoils and abrupt angles aren't very compatible. Fowler flaps have their place but not here.
Slicing the airfoil in two, attaching inside plates near the trailing edge that can slide past each other while fixed in proximity, attaching pull cables to each side that cross as they travel past the second of two spars affords better deflection, smaller size and less structure (some omitted for simplification); hence less weight. The curvature requires a 'corset' to allow bending.
12) to be continued ...as seemingly always.
Thanks in advance for any interest and help received (hopefully excluding banishment, sorry again).
Priorities and reasoning are as follows:
1) I sometimes fear heights. Safety.
2) Already too late for a license, F.A.R. 103 may become necessary. Ultralight.
3) Frustrated by blind spots. Then it suddenly came to me that the leading edge spar would be the only justifiable headrest. And it affords a view of everything except at 6 o'clock and high noon, which elevator input could alleviate.
4) The discomfort of lying on ones back in a modern sailplane is exceeded by dangling on ones belly below a kite. Swingshifts allow propping crossed feet atop the nose wheel, which was dandy. Comfort; including a control column twisting handlebar to replace Louis Bleriot's run on heavy rudder pedals and backaches.
5) STOL. Frequent and hard to avoid buildups of cumulo-cactus.
6) Glideslope. Bringing the pilot and center of lift into the same neighborhood mandated a biplane with significant stagger. About 33%. Anticipating no fighter combat, bombing runs, firefighting, or dare-deviling at this stage, wafting around on an aspect ratio of about 9:1 seemed justifiable.
7) Economy. Inherent bi-product of weight limitations and saves money. 15 HP hoped for.
8) Transportable. The highway patrol could interfere with chosen and alternate landing strips immediately in front of and behind the house.
*Here's where it starts getting frightening:
9) Wing warp. Grumman recommends that pilots only use rudder control when approaching Mach 3 and forget about split flaps below about Mach .05 as they were never aerodynamically efficient - and the overly selfish Glenn Curtis could have afforded wingwarp when he was shoplifting from the overly selfish Wrights. Copycats since probably should have sooner. NASA concurs and has been working on adjustable camber for FA-18's.
The long wing requires six N struts. The two at center are approximated just outside of mutual interference and form a slight A-frame. The diagonals of the remainder N struts telescope equally by one of many available means.
By rigging in a bit of washout, the simultaneous telescoping is intended to allow unintended stalls to begin inboard rather than at the wingtip. The advantage obtained by increasing the airfoil gap to 1.25% warrants the weight if still available.
10) Adequate space for prop arc. Twin horizontal stabilizers. The booms extend from nose to tail. They intersect, help align and support the main landing gear (two tubes extending diagonally from near the root). They splay to about eight feet aft and allow an ample horizontal stabilizer with aspect ratio enhanced by the end obstructions.
11) Arcing control surfaces. Pre-prototype and quite tentative.
Split flaps suck more than lift. Airfoils and abrupt angles aren't very compatible. Fowler flaps have their place but not here.
Slicing the airfoil in two, attaching inside plates near the trailing edge that can slide past each other while fixed in proximity, attaching pull cables to each side that cross as they travel past the second of two spars affords better deflection, smaller size and less structure (some omitted for simplification); hence less weight. The curvature requires a 'corset' to allow bending.
12) to be continued ...as seemingly always.
Thanks in advance for any interest and help received (hopefully excluding banishment, sorry again).
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