Hey Domink,

Thanks for sharing information about your unique setup. Your setup is the only one that I know of that uses an 8s pack, but Dave Snow tells me that you have inspired him to try this setup as well, so hopefully we will see another 8s setup here in the Chicago area in the near future.

On another matter, Mike Gaishin has been doing some experimentation with his Contra powered Integer. (Mike's version of the Integral..) Mike originally designed this plane with significantly more fuselage side area than is typical, but he left the area of the rudder fin similar to existing designs, and with the Contra Drive, this resulted in significant yaw instability during high speed flight.

Mike solved this stability problem by flairing his rudder. This was a very effective fix, but now he is planning for the next version that he will build this winter, and so he has done some experimentation to see how much area he needs to add to the rudder fin so that he can stop using the flared rudder. (which adds parasitic drag ..)

What he has done was progressively increase the width of his original rudder until the plane was completely stable in yaw without having to use the flaired rudder. The attached pictures show how much he had to increase the rudder size. The flaired rudder is also show for comparision purposes.

Mike now reports that the wider, unflaired rudder is actually more stable than the flaired rudder, so when redesigns his plane he will take the extra area and add it to the front of the rudder fin. He's going to add about 15 square inches to a rudder fin that has the same area now as the current integral rudder fin.

Brenner ...