gdaddy

Doug.

I sure agree with you on a bunch of this thread! Earlier you mentioned that the Boeings dont do snaps and fly inverted, etc.. The wind tunnel, unless its pretty big and can discount the boundary layer problems that many wind tunnels have, will only show the results for a few attitudes and speeds. Our aerobatic planes are flying slow, fast, high alpha, snapping etc, so much of the information we can glean from certain kinds of "accepted testing" is only marginal.

I really believe you are spot on in your assessment of winglets. What we really want in aerobatics is just enough stability to draw the lines comfortably, and then come unglued in the instant we want the plane to do that. Even airfoil concepts kind of fall short of useful where our wide speed envelopes, light wingloading, high power loading, and rapid changes in attitude are needed. In fact, on some of our full size aerobatic counterparts, the airfoil design parameter most emphasized is "how stiff can I make it"!