Safe Testing unproven designs

[sachaknoop]

I start in the light stuff area, because that's the most interesting area of flight for me, but this thread could be somewhere else too.

I posted a video about a wing failure in another threat ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T58buF758Q ) and it started me thinking.

In this video a flying wing prototype is towed to height by a hot air balloon and then released. The wing starts in a steep dive and before recovery the wing collapses. Next the BRS deploys and nobody got hurt (I assume). It looks quite spectacular, and at first it looks quite dangerous doing this with a balloon, but then I realised height is safety after all.

In several threads testing a new experimental plane comes up, and according to budget everyone uses their own method.

Mitja knows a lot about this I suspect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJGLjEgSeB4

I would like to know what testing methods there are for testing light gliders (think Goat, Mitja's design) with unknown flight behaviour, that are financially attractive to homebuilders. Maybe it is just the hot air balloon or the car rooftop, but I hope there is more.....

Of course testing in practice beats it all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSJt2ho77i4

Sacha

 

[rtfm]

 

[rtfm]

 

[sachaknoop]

 

[bmcj]

 

[autoreply]

 

[Dana]

 

[Dan Thomas]

 

[DaveD]

 

[BBerson]

 

[autoreply]

 

[sachaknoop]

 

[sachaknoop]

 

[skier]

 

[TFF]

 

[Himat]

 

[Jay Kempf]

 

[sachaknoop]

 

[autoreply]

 

[Jay Kempf]