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Old 10-10-2008, 02:48 PM
  #11  
HighPlains
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Default RE: New Italian Q500

I’m skeptical that the wingtips do much more than add to the “that looks cool” factor. Span-wise flow on the wing is the enemy, and tip plates do help limit the flow, but with the penalty of more surface area, and more intersections. Having the top and bottom surfaces of the wing meet at an acute angle does about as good with no junctions. Having the wing sweep forward about an inch or slightly more does a much better job. As far as the rest of the design, there are several things that are not working for the design.

First off, the surface area of the fuselage is much greater than desirable. There is no need for any part of the fuselage to be above the centerline of the wing’s airfoil. Doing so just adds more surface area, and adds more dirty junctions to create drag. While there are things you can do to help maintain laminar flow along the front half of the fuselage, once you get behind the wing, the air is very turbulent. So it is even more critical to reduce fuselage surface area behind the wing.

Secondly, on the side view, it appears that the nose of the fuselage either sweeps up, or is somewhat symmetrical. A better design has the airflow around the wing in mind, and configures the fuselage along that line to lower drag. While it does not make too much difference in the straight-a-way speeds, it seems to matter more in the turns.

No point in discussing the tail, what works there is pretty well known.