http://205.242.216.136/bayside/videos/zw_ringwing.wmv

I heard a pop right before it went to the ground. What exactly happened? Was it a structural failure? It took off vertically fine.

Do you think the aircraft might be more stable if the control sufraces are behind the ring wing?

Hahaha! I can't believe you found this video. The designer went through 5 revisions and none were successful. Zak was his test pilot and Zak never wanted to fly it in the first place. Actually the 4th rev design flew for about 2 minutes and crashed in the pitts almost killing me and another pilot. IMO Zak never had control of that ring wing, he's just banging the sticks and hoping it flies itelf.

Mecam's right. I really had no control over the thing after it got off the ground. Thing was, the rudder resulted in roll, and it would kind hook around turns. The other problem, is that the thing had no aileron control. It was rolling the whole time. So think about it, fly this funkey lookin plane that is sooo freakin tail heavy it makes you head spin, doing rolling circles all while trying to get it to just stay in the air. The tail heavieness would make the thing pop into a hover too.


So, you could say that it was a real handful.

I was thinking about the design of the ring craft. It would probably be stable when it is ascending vertically with power., kind of like a helicopter with small rotor. However, horizontal flight lends itself to instability, because wm hen there is no power, the control surface in the front would drop, and will cause the craft to dive. And as Zak mentioned, it has no aileron control, because there is no control surface that's far enough from the central axis that will produce any effective roll.

To get a ring wing to fly horizontally, I think, we should try to put stab, fin, elevator, and rudder on the other side of engine, to give them stable control authority. So, if the engine is in the front, put control surfaces in the back. If the control surfaces is in the front, put the engine in the back.

This still doesn't address the lack of roll control. Perhaps put a horizontal wing in the middle of the ring wing. Then the horizontal wing could have some aileron which could roll the craft.

This is just my brainstorming, which may not work at all. I have MSME from UCLA, but it doesn't mean all that much when it comes to practical aircraft design. The only thing I've ever self-design and flown was a stick-type design, which was not much of original design at all. I just enjoy flying and dreaming about new types of flying.

If the original designer would share the purpose of this aircraft, maybe the brains in this forum can help achieve an air-worthy design.

I think the designer had given up and moved on to other weird design aircraft. I think he is working on an X-wing which will probably fly cause I've seen them before.

X-wing should fly, because I've seen it fly in several movies... I think it's called Star something... Man, somebody help me!!!

How about a Tie Fighter? I want to see a R/C X-Wing VS Tie Fighter, using infrad beams like those Horizon Firebirds...