banktoturn

Jetts,

Don't worry, I wasn't assuming you were a delta-basher. Actually, even though I kind of like delta wings, I started out as kind of a delta-basher when the 'delta drag' thread started out. I had to think it through for a while to decide that they aren't all that bad for drag, if you get rid of the junk hanging out.

I assume that by negative aspect ratio you mean an AR less than one. My answer is that a plane like that would be plenty fast for straight, level flight, as long as there is enough wing area that it could fly at low angle of attack, and hence low drag. Turning would suffer, although the wing would be quite stall-resistant. Generally, if you want to go fast, make the wing as small as you can without requiring it to operate at high angle of attack. This applies whether the wing is a delta or not. I have been trying to decide whether you could get a wetted area advantage over the deltas by building a more conventional layout with a tail. I am inclined to think so, since you could pretty much cut a conventional planform out of a Whiplash's outline. It means having a fuselage to drag around, but I think you might come out ahead. The tradeoff is that as you reduce wetted area, you lose all those square inches that make Whiplashes turn on a dime.

Maybe this will be a project for a cold Minnesota winter.

banktoturn