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Old 06-07-2005 | 05:58 PM
  #13  
allanflowers's Avatar
allanflowers
 
Joined: Sep 2004
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From: San Diego, CA
Default RE: Tip Stalling Airplane

jfitter wrote: "... Another trick, which works with models because of their low Re, is to put a turbulator (trip strip) on the outper wing. This can cause early boundary layer separation and, after re-attachment a more energetic boundary layer which remains attached over more of the wing at high alpha. Whatever!!! It works on gliders so it's worth a try. The positioning of the trip strip is critical so some flight testing is needed. A strip of fine monofilament (6lb fishing line) is all that is required along, say, the outer 1/4 of the wing panel. Start off with it at 30% and move it back 5% at a time until upper air testing shows it works...."

I was going to suggest the same thing when I read this. I have used two layers of 1/16" map tape (Letraset, Chartpak or whatever) to create a turbulator on the outer 1/3 of the wing on several airplanes and it seems to have helped. I placed these closer to the front edge however (at about 10% chord) because I didn't want the turbulator to create the seperation too far back, where the flow might not be able to reattach itself. The situation here is somewhat different than on a sailplane, where there is probably a lot written on turbulators.
Allan