Brenner

I certainly agree that there are opportunities for new plane designs to take advantage of the Contra Drive. In fact, after campaigning my Contra since before the USA Nationals I have noticed at least two things that I think will be useful:

1/.. The first thing is that fuselages don't have to have right thrust molded into the nose any more. This has been problematic for many plane designs because lots of people used them for both glow and electric, and since electric planes use larger props, more right thrust is generally needed than for planes that use glow engines. This means that the fuselage can be correct for either glow or electric, but not both. I know that with my Integral I resorted to mixing rudder with throttle in order to increase the effect of the right thrust that was molded into the fuselage. In fact, I think trimming a plane to account for assymetric motor torque is one of the harder things for new flyers to do, and with a Contra Drive, all of this effort is now no longer needed. This has the potential to help new pattern flyers quite a bit I think.

2/.. Contra powered planes exhibit a "constant speed" characteristic, which I think is because Contra Drives are more efficient than single props when the prop is flying at advance ratios that are lower than the prop's design point, and the braking effect of the props is double that of single prop setups when Contra Drives are flying at advance ratios higher than the prop's design point. This results in the plane seeming to fly at the same speed regardless of the power applied, or the orientation of the plane. What this means for plane design is that planes don't have to have huge draggy fuselages anymore in order to match the speed on the uplines and the downlines. Now fuselages can be slimmer, and they don't have to be as tall. This reduces aerodynamic interactions between the fuselage and the wings and tail, and reduces the power draw from the battery packs. This last effect means that smaller, lighter packs, or same weight packs with higher C ratings, can be used. (I'm going for the new 45C packs ...)