ORIGINAL: DanSavage
ORIGINAL: mulligan-RCU
Scale flying of a scale-appearance airplane CANNOT BE DONE.
Maybe yes, maybe no. I say it depends on the subject, the designer and the builder.
For example:
http://www.allaboutguppys.com/supgup/gupcomp.mov
This is a video of the Super Guppy model I designed and that my brother and I built and video of the full-size prototype merged for a side-by-side comparison (so to speak) of the scale speed of the model.
Scale speed CAN BE DONE.
It just takes a model with a light enough wing loading so that it doesn't stall while flying at the scale speed.
Dan
Nice movie... and model (I just love that pregnant airplane). Anyway, I agree with you and distinguish my statement...
Scale SPEED is possible... Scale FLIGHT is not.
As I said, you can achieve the speed, but the flying will be different, technically speaking. As I also said, the differences in flying characteristics may be unnoticeable.
Your Guppy probably has a full-scale wing loading of 200 - 250 oz/in2. On a 1:10 scale plane, if you can get 20 - 25 oz/in2 in your model, that's a very good job of building to get a scale wing loading. However, there will still be a change in airfoil performance due to lower Reynold's number (i.e., coefficients of lift and drag change). And if you lower the wing loading further, below scale, to compensate for the change in airfoil lift performance, you will no longer have a scale weight, and obviously many flight characteristics change with weight.
The better way to achieve scale FLIGHT would be to change the wings on the scale plane to a low-Reynolds Number airfoil which has lift & drag coefficients that match that of the full-scale and possibly also slightly adjust the size of the wings to better match overall lift & drag. Of course, you should match the scale wing loading.
ORIGINAL: BobH
Considering that !QUOT!Scale!QUOT! is judged from 15 feet I would doubt that any one could tell if the deminsions were correct or not. ALL.. let me repeat ALL scale judging is SUBJECTIVE; given that the judges do not use blueprint drawings and calipers etc. of our plane. Convincing the judge that YOUR PLANE is an accurate reproductive effort of your documentation is your GOAL. How WELL you convince them to that end is how well you are rewarded. Its that simple. As for Scale Flight. it is once again an attempt to Convince the judges that YOUR PLANE is flying as if it were the !QUOT!Real Thing!QUOT!. Thats easier to do with some types of planes than others. Scale flight isnt only limited to the actual physics of a body in motion in a fluid (air) but also the manuver types and their execution etc. SEEING IS BELIEVING...for the Judges. You Convince them they have seen the !QUOT!real thing!QUOT! and your Rewarded! That simple..BobH.
Bob, you're right, there's certainly subjectivity in all judging. But like ice skating, scale flight is nearly entirely subjective (unless you're judge happens to be a former pilot of the full-scale plane). At least with scale appearance, if there's a question regarding, say, that funny little patch on the elevator, you can point to the drawing/picture as proof of the authenticity.