On 24.1.2011 4:07, Brett Sanborn wrote:
> In efficiency... The company only said that the propeller acted like a
> prop with a diameter 2 inches greater. This is what we expect to see by
> adding such wing tips; an apparent increase in span
> based on the height of the tip.
Precisely. A few years ago I was considering (and actually experimented)
with winglets on my F1B, and during that time discussed with a friend
who is an aero-engineer. His comment was that the effect of a winglet at
best gets close to the benefit of similar area added _horizontally_ to
the tip of the wing, in practise the added span is always superior. So
winglets make sense if there are limits to the span (or area) of the
wing, but if there are not, then it is better to extend the wingspan.
Therefore with indoor models where wingspan is limited, tip plates may
be useful, but the props seldom are diameter-limited so proplets might
not be any good. Maybe in full-sized planes, where ground clearance
makes a limit for prop diameter.
-Tapio-
Received on Sun Jan 23 2011 - 23:35:07 CET
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:46 CET