MS Bending

From: calgoddard <calgoddard_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:27:41 -0000

Bill:

A large high school in our area had three or four Wright Stuff teams
a few years back. They apparently all tried the trick of having the
MS bend under high torque to give some initial positive incidence on
the stab (or at least less negative incidence), to eliminate the
climb for the first two or three circles of the flight. One or two
flights did ok with this strategy but had to be launched from
shoulder height for safety. Several planes went right into the floor.

Traditional winding techniques seem more reliable for most flyers,
but an expert like you could probably get the bending MS technique to
work. I think Chris Goings is an expert on using a MS that bends down
for limiting initial climb.

If the MS is flexible enough to bend down in this fashion, it will
also twist, taking out stab tilt - which is another problem.

I think it was Brent Sanborn who perfected the torque burner, but
everyone else gave up on it. It is entirely too tricky but Brent
could do it like an expert. We tried it once and found it was just
too unreliable. When I explained it to our expert mentors, they
thought I was crazy.

Using the ribbon drop to slow the initial climb was a good idea come
to think of it. Our team used the ribbon for the bonus points but
should have used a heavy ribbon to resist initial climb.
Received on Thu Jan 31 2008 - 15:27:45 CET