Wing Area Tests in Limited B

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Jimbo
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Post by Jimbo »

Which or both is too much?

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Hat Trick
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Post by Hat Trick »

The plane I was flying has 756 Sq inches of wing area. I'm not sure what Brian was flying but I'm guessing around 550 or so.

The idea is to make it possible for a wide range of designs and plane styles to be competative as the event developes. It's clear to me that a wing area race will develope and the constant need to redesign and build new planes and wings to keep up with each generation will happen in limited B without a wing area limitation.

Looks like a good number would be 64" span and a root and tip chord total of 18 inches would work. This gives a wing area of 576 and should keep nearly all current designs legal and competative into the future.

There is virtually no down side to a wing are limitation and a huge positive side! If it isn't in the rules from the beginning it will probably never get in.

This will keep turning performace in the range we are seeing now. As wing area increases along with tight turning ability you will soon see a furball event again and a lot more midairs!

Not sure where the "dumb it down" comment came from. We are talking about a wing area limitation.

If you don't believe me try it yourself. Use the prop and muffler limits and fly 2 planes one on one with a wing area differance of 25% or more and about the same weight. It becomes obvious real fast!
sgilkey
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Post by sgilkey »

Our two rounds of Limited B demo had so many planes in the air at once (around 10 or so), it was hard to tell any performance differences, the only thing I could tell was that everyone seemed to love it! To try to get more direct performance comparisons, after the big demos, Brian and Dr. Evil went mano-a-mano for a few heats. Two intents: one, to compare the advantage of wing area, and two, to compare MA and APC props.

WING AREA

DOc's plane was the latest and greatest Terminator with 72" and lots of chord, tons of area. Brians was a 3+ year old Bat Trick with long tail moment, fairly short-chord, fat-thickness, tapered 64" wing, dramatically less area. Brian's plane tached higher on the ground so had a small power advantage by about 300 rpm or so. Despite the huge wing area, Doc's plane did not seem to suffer a speed deficit to any great degree. No doubt, he could out turn Brian. I agree with Doc's observations and need not restate them- any time Brian got on Mike's six, he was able to shake him quickly, but if Mike was on Brian, he had a heck of a time getting away. Brian spent most of the time on defense. However, Mike did not score cut after cut on Brian, though admittedly he was in a dominant position for much more time. my conclusion is not strong at this point- I clearly agree that the big-wing plane flies better. However I am not clear that it is an insurmountable advantage that justifies outlawing some planes. My preference in a perfect world would be to follow Doc's recommendation and limit span, root and tip chords so as to essentailly spec max area, without spec'ing planform. However I really resist obsoleting kit offerings and existing inventory. I really think part of the charm of this class is just bolting on the prop and muffler and flying what we have, just slower. Guys who are flying current B want to slow down, not build a whole new fleet, plus make it more welcome to newcomers, some of whom may get started by flying someone else's old battlewagon. If anything, I think the best move is to follow the recommendation to set span/chord limits in line with what most current B offerings are, to prevent a huge wing area race, while not obsoleting most of what is out there.

PROPS

Same planes as above, flew with 10x3APC and 10x4MA. Conclusion is obvious, the MA gives very good and enjoyable performance, it is not a dog prop, the planes flew great and appeared to be pretty comparable on either prop. I do not support making both props legal, as the minor but still-there performace advantage of the APC will simply drive everone to use APC- if we are worried about driving wing area wars, the same logic applies to prop advantages. I don't see how anyone can argue that the MA is a more durable prop- is anybody REALLY going to try to claim that MAs break as readily as APCs? NObody denies you can land an APC and not break it. That;s not the point. The APC is clearly a more brittle prop. The MA clearly gives very acceptable performance. This is a fun, and performance-limited class. I strongly urge the tougher, cheaper, and good-performing MA prop be spec'ed.



Scott Gilkey
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Post by sgilkey »

One other comment. Calling these planes wallowing pigs and dumbed-down is pretty funny. I was there for some of the first SSC demos (Brian's and my first SSCs were spad-types) and saw the wallowing-pig SSCs, of which ours were probably representative, and I see the dramatically better performance of today's planes. I also just participated in a Limited B demo where an old beater SPAD flew against a state-of-the-art Terminator in the same heat, along with just about everything in between those two planes in terms of performance. There was no "wallowing' in evidence. You have lots of thrust to overcome inefficient airframes, but with the low pitch and rpm, you are only going so fast, no matter how good your plane is. The high thrust/low pitch is a very good equalizer, in my opinion. I am sure there are performance gains to be had by airframe optimization, but a SPAD with a 25 against a current B plane, versus a SPAD with a .15 against a current SSC plane, is simply apples to oranges.

Scott Gilkey
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Post by Feathers »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">My preference in a perfect world would be to follow Doc's recommendation and limit span, root and tip chords so as to essentailly spec max area, without spec'ing planform. However I really resist obsoleting kit offerings and existing inventory.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Doc's recommendation sounds reasonable to me. What kit offerings or existing inventory would be obsolete with such a restriction. Or that a few seconds at the band saw couldn't fix?

Our B wings:

64" Span
about 500 squares inc. ailerons

Tim Feathers
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sgilkey
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Post by sgilkey »

Tim, I have not done a search, my perception is Doc's proposal will not exclude much, which is good. One that comes to mind is the Predator X. Folks who have invested $125 a piece on those (just for kit plus Icarex and 3M77- we have three) may be a bit bummed to not be able to use them, and TufFlight has been a good supporter of combat and hate to see us exclude one of their planes. However there are admittedly few of them out there, and i can't off the top of my head think of others. Some type of proposal that puts a stake in the ground and says we can't go further than we are today is probably good, and Doc's seems on the mark. however, for true proponents of wing limits, it is probably not going far enough. I think Doc's is a good working proposal and i guess you've managed to convince me that i feel that we should adopt it as part of the draft rules. Somewhat reluctantly, but I agree it may help keep things from getting really wierd like 85" spans and 1000 sq in wings or something....

Scott Gilkey
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Post by Jimbo »

Scott, Tim what do your planes weigh? Are you weighing it with a VERY accurate scale?

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Feathers
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Post by Feathers »

My Open B planes come in right around 3lbs 2oz (High load 40 wings, full size tower servos all around). I have one of those digital fish scales in my flight box as well as a digital postal type scale in the workshop. They pretty much come in at the same weight at every meet so I think my scales are pretty close.

Define "VERY".

Why?

Tim Feathers
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Jimbo
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Post by Jimbo »

That sounds good enough Tim. Thanks. I'm trying to find out if some of the guys that have the heavier OpenB planes are satisfied with their planes performance with this setup. Does anyone with a 64" wing weigh 3.25 or more? If so are you content with the perfomance in this class?

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Post by Rabbit Leader »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> realize that you haven't been able to fly much SSC and so I won't be too hard on your version of SSC reality but the SSC Falcon, first version Smack and first version Cobra all used a blunt LE, flat bottomed airfoil with root thickness of 1.75" and in a weight range of 44 to 48 oz.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Roy, I know that..you seem to forget that my old Macchi, using an old Warbirds Limited fuse and a Bandit core with 2 inch ailerons was just about the fastest SSC bird around here last year, till it finally bit it in October. Lee flew agianst that planes several times, and his Falcon had a hard time catching it in level flight, not to mention it was one of, if not the best climbing plane around for a few months..oh, did I mention that the engine was a real winner, a mag 15 that barely turned 17000? Now, I know in my heart I'll never be as high up in the points as a lot of the guys here, but the 1st time I ever had a 6 cut round was with that plane..it didn't turn as well as some, but it was a damn good pursuit ship, and that's how I flew it...anyway, my whole point was that a really good flying SSC bird needs to be clean and light, or at least have a real light wing loading, where the Limited B ship will be able to make it with a "draggier" design, due to the fact that your'e putting out a ton more thrust with a 10-3 on a 25. I wasn't knocking SSC hoss, just trying to make a point..[:)]

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Post by Hat Trick »

Light wing loading will be the big advantage in limited B. Speed is more or less limited by the prop and muffler restrictions. Improved turning ability can only be achieved with lower wing loading.

Turning tighter than the other guy is the number one advantage in combat!
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Post by Bad Dawg »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Hat Trick</i>
<br />
Turning tighter than the other guy is the number one advantage in combat!
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I sort of dissagree with that, Mike. For me the most important thing is span. If a wing span is mandated, I'll move from the middle third of finshers in the big contests to the lower third. I don't have the three things needed for a top combat pilot, ice cold blood, situational awarness, and quick thumbs. But I'm fine with span limits. I go to contests for the adreneline rush, to watch top pilots fly and see cool looking planes.

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