WhiteRook

My Feedback: (38)

Whatare the advantages of gull wings? IS it a lift advantage ?


thanks




Dan

Piledrive

You are almost right. The Gull wings of the Corsair bend down at the wing root and then up. But it was done entirely for Prop clearance.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

LouW

The Corsair inverted gull wing was merely to provide propeller clearance, however I presume you are refering to airplanes such as the Stinsin Reliant and the Westland Lysander. There is no aerodynamic advantage to that gull wing configuration, in fact the most efficient planform for subsonic flight is elipitical (i.e.,Spitfire). There is a structural advantace in the two airplanes mentioned. You will note that the strut is attached at the maximum thickness and the wing tapers in both directions. The maximum bending moment occurs at the strut attach point, and the variation in thickness results in almost constant stress across the span. The wing is very complicated to manufacture and the slightly better structural efficiency is more than offset by production costs. It is also a fact that both aircraft were designed when designers were still looking to birds for inspiration and it really looks cool.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

FHHuber

The gull form of the Reliant and similar planes was to increase the vertical distance between the main lifting surface and the CG of the aircraft. More distance = more "pendulum effect" increasing inherant stability. (it wants to stay upright)

The Corsair's inverted Gull gave prop clearance... yes, but it was more to allow SHORT stubby landing gear for the expected high loads of carrier landings. The Corsair turned out to not be great for carrier ops, and was mostly operated from land bases. (they gave the Corsairs to the Marines because the Navy didn't like them...) The Bearcat and Wildcat were the US's primary single place carrier borne fighters of WII.

Tall Paul

The usual upward going "gull wing" moves the wing out of the pilot's line of vision forward and laterally. Very handy when turning, to -not- have the wing in the field of view, for instance.
As also mentioned, it's used to get shorter landing gear for long propped airplanes.

LouW

There are two misconceptions here. The gullwing shape (on a/c like the Stinsin) does not effect stability to any signficant extent. Lateral stability is determined primarily by dihedral effect, not wing shape.

Also if you had flown the full scale Stinsin (I have) you would see that the visibility is no better than any other high wing airplane.

WhiteRook

My Feedback: (38)

hub , the Hawker Typhoon's outer wing goes up in sort of a gull idea. does this increase stability? The Tempest is the same way, but center wing section is not as thick, and of course the wing has a different shape.



Dan

Tall Paul

"gull" wings are generally considered to go up from the fuselage, then flatten out.. i.e. Hall Racer, B-25, numerous gliders.
I expect the center sections on the Typhoon and Tempest are flat for gear retraction simplicity, and because "That's the way we did for the Hurrincane."
As some dihedral is required, bending the wing up after the gear mount does the job.
Note the Corsair, and Stuka etc have "inverted" gull wings.

MJohnny78

FHH, on Jan.1 you made a little "slip of the fingers" when you wrote:

The Bearcat and Wildcat were the US's primary single place carrier borne fighters of WII.

What you meant, I'm sure, was, "The Wildcat and the Hellcat were ..........". You'll recall, I'm sure, that the Bearcat didn't quite make it in time for the Big Fight. (This is a little off-topic from the gull-wing thread, but the younger scale builders out there need to get their documentation straight, agree?)

FHHuber

Yep... you got me. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] I keep getting my cats mixed up... too many in the Navy. Wildcat, Hellcat, Bearcat, Tomcat... (There's been a few more too)

padoni

My Feedback: (2)

Anyone out there have built the stinsin relient. came onto one already built and it needs some TLC. Where can I find replacement parts? This is a 1/4" scale plane.