Re: Simplex airfoils

From: Mark <f1diddler_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:16:20 -0000

--- In Indoor_Construction_at_yahoogroups.com, "Ron Patten" don the merits
of the different
> airfoils I certainly would be thankful to that individual!
>
> Regards,
> Ron Patten
> novice

I believe its biggest merit is the practicality of being able to get
any chord length from the same template if you start at TE of
template. All chords with same template will end up the same % camber,
IIRC.

(Leaving simplex....) I find it plenty practical to use a pin and piece
of thread to lay out a plain arc, and that's all I use. I realize it's
fun to experiment, but good results *may* have nothing to do with the
any supposed experiment. Correlation is not the same as causation.
For example, my Pennyplane bipe has a 4% camber upper wing and a 5%
lower wing. Why? Because when I sliced the ribs, some relaxed camber,
and some didn't. I didn't feel like discarding the "wrong" ribs, so I
sorted them into two piles. [Er, let's see (...grin) this bipe should
average out to a 4.5% camber.] This "building error" doesn't prevent
model from getting regular 16+ minute flights in 27 ft dirty ceiling.

Some things matter, and some things don't. Airfoils, if within a
certain threshhold, don't, IMO.

I wonder how many indoor fads get started due to a "name" modeler
having normal success with an experiment that of itself had little
merit, except perhaps a practicality issue that tends to get lost in
the translation.
Mark Bennett
Received on Mon Jun 05 2006 - 05:26:10 CEST

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