Soccers56:
I recall this magical device. I spent quite a bit of time trying to
find it.
As I understand it, the torque burner somehow prevents high initial
rubber motor torque from causing your plane to hit the ceiling, and
somehow "saves" this torque for later in the flight, e.g. during the
descent, so that you have a longer overall flight time than without
the torque burner.
I finally ran across a drawing of such a device (can't remember
where it is) that used some sort of pin that went between the
strands of the rubber loop and dropped out when the initial winds
were gone.
I was skeptcial, and asked our local experts about this torque
burner. They were quite amused. They said stick with the tried and
true methods for achieving max duration, i.e. optimum trimming,
proper matching of rubber and prop, optimum winding for a no-touch
flight based on the torque vs winds curve of the batch of rubber you
are using for the contest, etc.
If you find the magical torque burner, and get it to work, let us
all in on the secret.
Be careful. The term "torque burner" is used loosely. For example,
the ribbon drop mechanism used in the ribbon drop bonus of SciOly
(in 2005 and 2006) might be referred to as a torque burner of sorts,
although not intended for that purpose. I recall plans being
included for this device in an SO kit. It was on a loose
small piece of paper included in the kit, and the design was not
indicated on the airframe plans. The kit never referred to this
ribbon drop mechanism as a torque burner. It was simply there to
let the ribbon drop a pretermined amount of time into the flight.
Best of luck to you in the SciOly competition.
Calgoddard
Received on Tue Jan 09 2007 - 13:00:23 CET
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:44 CET