RCU Forums - View Single Post - Wing Shape Question
View Single Post
Old 06-04-2014 | 10:20 AM
  #6  
BMatthews's Avatar
BMatthews
 
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 12,432
Likes: 0
Received 28 Likes on 24 Posts
From: Chilliwack, BC, CANADA
Default

The shape of the airfoil does not affect the CG location. That's been mentioned already. The desired CG location is set by the tail area and distance it is located behind the wing and the wing's area and chord.

What will happen is that even after sanding the leading edge to shape the curve will transition quickly to a rather flat rise to the high point. That will tend to make the airfoil stall at a lower angle than it would if you had used the proper thin foam for the top skin. Or if you had pre-shaped the top skin.

Something else you should have done is to sand the hinge line filler to a more wedge like shape with the upper surface tangent to the curve of the airfoil. That way the top skin would be glued down along the whole upper side instead of only at the rear corner. The way you have it now when you cut through the control surfaces free the top skin won't be glued to the filler any more. By shaping it to a wedge like profile that fits the airfoil curve you would have both gotten a better glue joint and you would have pulled the foam down to the rear which would have pushed the high point further forward. This is now a serious enough mistake that I don't think you have any option but to cut away the top skin and re-do the filler. So while you're at it try to use a bigger diameter spar tube and curl the to skin over the edge of a table to give the shape more curl along the first 1/3 of the skin. It'll then hold its shape when you re-glue.

To get a feel for all this work with a one or two inch wide scrap of the Depron. While pushing it down firmly against the rounded edge of a table or counter pull it back and see how much pressure and what technique you need to get the foam to curl smoothly. And you can use this scrap as a test guide for shaping the wedge angle of the filler and finding a better diameter and position for the carbon tube spar.