ORIGINAL: Waggs
Rodney,
This is an interesting fact.
What this tells me is that potentially, I could have a plane that externally appears to be a mid wing, but could have the flying characteristics of a low wing or high wing plane depending on how the internals are placed and perhaps by the addition of some weight.
How real is my notion? In other words, within reasonable limitations, if I had a mid wing airplane, and mounted the servos, receiver and battery as low as possible in the fuselage, do I in effect have something that will fly as a shoulder wing plane?
Thanks
Waggs
Yes and no.
Just shifting the C-of-G around (up or down) doesn't have anything like the effect of offsetting the center of pressure from the thrust line. For example, changes in dihedral have very substantial effects & you can easily make a shoulder or mid wing behave like a high wing through the application of a healthy dose of dihedral. The dihedral has moved the center of pressure upwards, increasing the offset to the thrust line (the dihedral will also have other very notable effects as well).
Vertical C-of-G changes can't really accomplish that.