ORIGINAL: otrcman
ORIGINAL: BobH
Don, I may be mistaken but I think you are missing the engineering points. No one is saying that Scale models can't fly well. Nor is anyone saying that they can't fly convincingly. However its an illusion that we create with our flying skills and our planes. Its NOT THE PHYSICS of the full scale plane that is being replicated but an approximation. We can't have 1:1 physics unless we are 1:1 scale. On that there can be no disagreement.
And Aerotech doesn't make WWI planes.
Right on, Bob. ''Its NOT THE PHYSICS of the full scale plane that is being replicated but an approximation.'' That was my original premise in starting this thread. And the question that I posed was: What can be done to more accurately duplicate flying characteristics ?
Several constructive suggestions have been made regarding piloting technique to make models fly more realistically. But what about gust response ? That's the ''twitchiness'' that we see when watching a model fly.
And not to gang up on you, Don, but have you ever considered the non-scale implications of attaching a rigid servo link to an all-movable rudder such as the DRI has ? On a real DRI there is no fixed fin, and the rudder is free to trail with the local slipstream regardless of how badly the airplane is sideslipping. The rudder contributes almost nothing to directional stability. Only the pilot's active effort keeps the airplane from sideslipping. When you attach a servo to the rudder on the model, the rudder is converted to a fixed (but controllable) fin. This change has a profound effect on how the scale model flies relative to the full scale airplane.
Another example of non-authentic scaling is rigidly attaching the elevator to a servo. On a real WWI plane the elevator is free floating and contributes very little to pitch stability. What we are doing by making the elevator rigid is effectively making the horizontal stabilizer far larger.
Dick
Does the elevator have a boost tab on the DR1?
Bob