Pin the blame for this thread on Planebuilder.
I've been following his Robin project and this lead to looking at the LAA web site. This reminded me of what some home builders have to go through to get their planes licensed. And that in turn gave me the idea for this. So in a round about way it IS his fault.
What I'm proposing is an HBA class project to fill in the winter months for those of us in the northern hemisphere.
Phase 1)
Take an existing design and let the members use it as the basis of going through all of the calculations step by step for stability and control (leave performance calculations out until Phase 2) based on one of Raymers books. I suggest his books as I've noticed that many here already own a copy and they have been recommended as a starting point for those new to designing their own plane. Using one book would serve as the course outline and keep everyone focused on the same task. I don't own a copy but would be inclined to purchase one if needed.
For the plane I nominate the Whittman W-10. It's well known and well documented. Basing this project on an existing design serves to validate the results by cross checking with real world numbers. It also eliminates most of the design by committee problems as we would be working from a standard and unchanging reference point.(only standard AS+S W-10 plans, no Clement mods)
Everyone would have to show their work, just like being back in school. Nothing more than paper, pencil and a calculator would be allowed, just as Steve might have done. Ok, he probably would have used a slide rule
onder:
Keeping it low tech makes everyone really understand the nuts and bolts of the process and nothing gets glossed over by using results from pre-done spread sheets and canned software. If anyone wants to make their own spread sheets that would be up to them, but no sharing.
Phase 2)
Once this task is completed we can then go back and do it all over again using the "what if we wanted to turn this into a 100% legal LSA?" as the project mission. This would involve basic performance calculations to go along with the stability and control. At this point we all learn how much work it really is to properly modify an existing design.
Phase 3)
Once the modifications needed to turn the Tailwind into an LSA have been identified the group then tackles the chore of designing the structural modifications and hardware that would obviously be needed. This gets members introduced to the mechanical engineering side of the process.
At the end of this we should have generated a pretty complete "how to" that we can point to when a new member asks the ever popular "what if I want to change A because I want the plane to do B".
Just to be clear, I'm not offering to lead this project or even make any promises about how much I might contribute to the cause. I've got my own project that is to the tedious part of doing the detailed design and calculations for so my time is limited. After the fun conceptualization stage one has a lot of WORK to do before materials are ordered.
This project would be a LOT of work but the end might justify the effort?
As for this being only a winter project? I'm sometimes a delusional optimist. :emb:
I've been following his Robin project and this lead to looking at the LAA web site. This reminded me of what some home builders have to go through to get their planes licensed. And that in turn gave me the idea for this. So in a round about way it IS his fault.
What I'm proposing is an HBA class project to fill in the winter months for those of us in the northern hemisphere.
Phase 1)
Take an existing design and let the members use it as the basis of going through all of the calculations step by step for stability and control (leave performance calculations out until Phase 2) based on one of Raymers books. I suggest his books as I've noticed that many here already own a copy and they have been recommended as a starting point for those new to designing their own plane. Using one book would serve as the course outline and keep everyone focused on the same task. I don't own a copy but would be inclined to purchase one if needed.
For the plane I nominate the Whittman W-10. It's well known and well documented. Basing this project on an existing design serves to validate the results by cross checking with real world numbers. It also eliminates most of the design by committee problems as we would be working from a standard and unchanging reference point.(only standard AS+S W-10 plans, no Clement mods)
Everyone would have to show their work, just like being back in school. Nothing more than paper, pencil and a calculator would be allowed, just as Steve might have done. Ok, he probably would have used a slide rule
onder: Keeping it low tech makes everyone really understand the nuts and bolts of the process and nothing gets glossed over by using results from pre-done spread sheets and canned software. If anyone wants to make their own spread sheets that would be up to them, but no sharing.
Phase 2)
Once this task is completed we can then go back and do it all over again using the "what if we wanted to turn this into a 100% legal LSA?" as the project mission. This would involve basic performance calculations to go along with the stability and control. At this point we all learn how much work it really is to properly modify an existing design.
Phase 3)
Once the modifications needed to turn the Tailwind into an LSA have been identified the group then tackles the chore of designing the structural modifications and hardware that would obviously be needed. This gets members introduced to the mechanical engineering side of the process.
At the end of this we should have generated a pretty complete "how to" that we can point to when a new member asks the ever popular "what if I want to change A because I want the plane to do B".
Just to be clear, I'm not offering to lead this project or even make any promises about how much I might contribute to the cause. I've got my own project that is to the tedious part of doing the detailed design and calculations for so my time is limited. After the fun conceptualization stage one has a lot of WORK to do before materials are ordered.
This project would be a LOT of work but the end might justify the effort?
As for this being only a winter project? I'm sometimes a delusional optimist. :emb:
