Hi all,
This is not technically a aerodynamics question, but I think this is the right place for it. I got Andy Lennon's book a while back and I remember somewhere he mentioned that the mass should be concentrated around the CG of the main wing. I guess that means all the servos are in the "cabin" with the battery etc.... Obviously the components are moved around to balance correctly, but in general they are close to the CG. The most obvious exception is all of the profiles, 3D machines and even many large scale models (cubs) have servos mounted very close to their control surface with short, strong linkages.
A plane can be balanced with all of the electronics mounted relatively close to the CofG OR,....moving servos to the tail, and moving the battery etc.,further forward to balance out the servos. Both ways will give you the proper CG, but the mass is distributed differently.
I think the reasoning is that it would be more stable with all of the mass concentrated at the center. I guess having more mass in the tail would give it more reisitance to moving in the opposite direction. (less stable?) If it starts going up, it would take more force to move it back down again??!?[] The plane would be like those wooden swing things. ("teeter totter?".."see saw") There would only be a small force required on either end to start the tail or nose moving in any direction. I may be WAY off, but I would like to know more about this.
Anyone?
Thanks in advance.