gschuld
Well-Known Member
Reading the wash in/wash out thread made me think of the "Twisteron" concept. The idea being the ability to alter the "wash in/wash out" to suit the specific conditions of flight. Both aerodynamic and geometric twist are normally fixed. I'm curious as to whether this technology, or some form of the basic concept, could find it's way into experimental aircraft. Perhaps even just a specialized aircraft, used specifically for challenging records that require multiple flight envelopes, such as the Triavathon below that requires a plane that has a high top end speed, stalls at very low speed, and climbs fast. Certainly something that would ideally favor a non fixed planform, washout, etc. to get most out of all three scores.
copy/post from the Cafe website:
The CAFE Triaviathon
In 1986, CAFE Board member Steve Williams, a brilliant engineer at Hewlett Packard, volunteered to design and build a highly accurate Barograph for the Voyager World Flight. This instrument could measure and record airspeed, altitude and temperature with great accuracy on a second by second basis. In what would become another of their many innovations, the CAFE team devised a way to externally mount this “CAFE Barograph” to the wingtip of any aircraft so that it could collect flight data throughout the flight. The flight data was obtained via a CAFE-designed-and-built, free swiveling pitot-static pressure probe that effectively eliminated sampling errors by self correcting for the aircraft’s angle of attack. After tests showed it worked flawlessly, a new flight competition was announced - the “CAFE Triaviathon”, which was to be held concomitantly with the CAFE 400 each year.The Triaviathon was modeled after the popular athletic events called triathalons, in which contestants had to simultaneously excel in 3 separate tasks. The CAFE Triaviathon used the Barograph to measure each aircraft’s top speed, stall speed and rate of climb, three key parameters complementary to those measured in the CAFE 400 (cruise speed, fuel consumption and range). From the start there was great interest in the Triaviathon, and designers again set about winning by improving thrust, increasing lift and decreasing drag by a variety of innovations.
http://www.usurf.org/news/press/twisteron
USURF / Press Releases
Warren F. Phillips
http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/phillipsjanuary05.pdf
http://tco.usu.edu/files/uploads/TOS/W04018(b1)- TOS- C- Twisteron (UAV).pdf
George
