PAINLESS & Ollie,

I don't agree entirely with all of Ollie's comments. Clipping the wings will definitely reduce frontal area and increase top speed. It may also cause a significant increase in induced drag during high-lift tasks, like turning, landing, and slow flight. If you look at Martin Simon's Model Aircraft Aerodynamics, you will see a chart that shows the profile drag of the wing to be much more significant than induced drag, during straights and turns. The profile drag of the wing is what we reduce when we clip a wing.

I think that the wing loading corresponds pretty closely to the glide angle, although landing is certainly a time when the increase in induced drag due to clipping the wings would be most significant.

As I contended in an unrelated thread, if you want the highest top speed, forget induced drag, and make the wing as small ( highly loaded ) as you can tolerate for turning, landing and launching. Also, low aspect ratio ( short span ) is definitely a drag win for top speed. Obviously, as Ollie points out above, if you really pursue top speed single-mindedly, you start running into odd compromises like launching rather than taking off, and landing on skids.

banktoturn