A ‘T’ tail is rarely a good thing on a Free Flight model. As the model
approaches a stall, which is something we don’t want, then the tailplane
moves downwards, usually into stronger and stronger downwash and eventually
into turbulent wing wake which all spoils the ability of the tailplane to
lift and recover the ‘plane to level flight.
This is born out on your friends Piper where he had to increase airspeed to
overcome the loss in lifting efficiency of the tailplane.
There have been a few cases of full size aircraft with ‘T’ tails that got
into ‘deep stalls’ from which they could not recover and tragic crashes were
the result.
It is true that there have been many successful airplanes and high
performance gliders with high tailplanes but regard must always be given to
wing/tail interaction and don’t forget that an airplane with a pilot to give
control inputs is very different from a Free Flight model.
John
Received on Wed Oct 01 2008 - 09:24:36 CEST
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:45 CET