RCU Forums - View Single Post - Question About Pattern Airfolis
View Single Post
Old 12-20-2003 | 08:22 PM
  #4  
MrSteve09
 
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 218
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
From: Monson, MA
Default Pattern Airfoils 101

Hey Boss,...

Your question put me on the hunt for an article I remember reading a while back. It took me these past two days to tear my office apart before I finally found the article, ha!!

Rick Allison wrote an article in the April '94 issue of Model Builder magazine entitled !QUOT!Pattern Airfoils 101!QUOT!. In this article he had a comparative illustration of typical pattern airfoils for the day. He compared the Summit III, Jekyll, Conquest, and Cursor/Boxer airfoils. While the Summit, Conquest, and Cursor/Boxer were 13% thick, the Jekyll was 14% thick. The high point was the most furthest back on the Cursor/Boxer at 40%. Conquest high point was at 33%, Jekyll was 32% and Summit III was at 26%.

At the end of the article Mr. Allison stated that the particular airfoil that has worked best for him was a NACA Series 6 derivative with a wing root thickness of 13% and tip thickness of 9-10 percent, with the high point as far back as 40%. With the high point this far back it will give a relatively sharp leading edge radius allowing for clean and predictable "breaks" for stalls in snapping and spinning maneuvers.

Hope that answers some questions. If you are looking for plots of specific airfoils let me know I might be able to provide either an AutoCAD .dwg file or airfoil coordinates.

Sincerely,
Steve T.
Monson, Massachusetts