Wright Stuff wing test

From: Bill Gowen <b.gowen_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 03:15:23 -0000

As Hermann says "One test is worth a thousand words!" I built a solid
(illegal) balsa wing for Little Square #1. To find out if it was any
good I did glide tests with the regular built up wing and the new
balsa wing.

With the regular wing on the model I took off the prop, substituted an
equal amount of clay on the nose and put a 2 gram lump of clay at the
midpoint of where the rubber would be. Total weight was set exactly at
9 grams.

Glide tests were done from shoulder height. With a lot of adjusting I
had a couple of glides of 4.7 seconds and a couple at 5.2 seconds.

I installed the wood wing next. I had to take off all the ballast
(except for the prop weight and motor weight) since the wood wing
weighed about 2.6 grams. Weight was again set at exactly 9 grams.

Glide tests with this wing required about 10 feet more space, A number
of glides were in the mid 5 second range and 2 were at 6.2 seconds.

Many of you know that I play with Cat I gliders a lot. This wing is
not just a slab of balsa. It has a very close approximation of the
best airfoil I know of for the Re range that it will be operating in.
Bill Gowen
Decatur, GA USA
Received on Mon Oct 02 2006 - 20:18:27 CEST