• Welcome aboard HomebuiltAirplanes.com, your destination for connecting with a thriving community of more than 10,000 active members, all passionate about home-built aviation. Dive into our comprehensive repository of knowledge, exchange technical insights, arrange get-togethers, and trade aircrafts/parts with like-minded enthusiasts. Unearth a wide-ranging collection of general and kit plane aviation subjects, enriched with engaging imagery, in-depth technical manuals, and rare archives.

    For a nominal fee of $99.99/year or $12.99/month, you can immerse yourself in this dynamic community and unparalleled treasure-trove of aviation knowledge.

    Embark on your journey now!

    Click Here to Become a Premium Member and Experience Homebuilt Airplanes to the Fullest!

Scaling

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

StRaNgEdAyS

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2003
Messages
816
Location
Northern NSW Australia
In the process of becoming familiar with the operations of my new CAD program, working within the already familiar realm of Large scale R/C models,I recently did an experiment on the issue of scaling (albeit in the other direction) just to examine the results for myself...
I took one of my large scale model designs (this Baby has a wingspan of almost 3M) and reduced it in scale, right down to the engine thrust...
now I should mention, these particular engines get disproprtionately larger as the thrust factor decreases, so when scaling down the engine therefore appears much larger in relation to the airframe...
this model was scaled down to 1/4 of the original size and even before I add the empennage, I can see it Ain't gonna fly, not without some substantial changes. Most noticably the engines, but also notice the comparative size of the wing foil...
This was just an experiment I did to check out the effects scaling has on these things...
Just to think years of experimenting and toying withg R/C models of varying scales, and I never actually did this before. (probably because The idea of drawing up a plane that looked so much out of proportion and had no chance of getting off the ground just didn't occur to me)
Now there are probably a couple of factors which I have blatanty (and purposefully) ignored, such as, as I scale down the weight of the plane also comes down at a disproportionate rate, so while my size is coming down to 25% of the original model, the weight will end up being less than 25% of the original, therfore I could use smaller engines etc, but this was an exercise in direct scaling, and I treated it as such.
 

Attachments

  • scale comparison.jpg
    scale comparison.jpg
    29 KB · Views: 283
Back
Top