RCU Forums - View Single Post - airframe terms and design issues
View Single Post
Old 06-04-2006 | 01:22 PM
  #2  
BMatthews's Avatar
BMatthews
 
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 12,432
Likes: 0
Received 28 Likes on 24 Posts
From: Chilliwack, BC, CANADA
Default RE: airframe terms and design issues

Becareful. It sounds more like you're trying to make an arrow fly backwards. Having the horizontal tail forward produces a canard shape and the rules for dealing with that are fairly well known. But you will not be able to put the vertical tail forward of the wing's MAC. That would be like flying an arrow backwards. The model would constantly try to swap ends.

Also with a swept forward wing you need to ensure that the control surfaces are decently spaced lengthwise from the MAC (that's Mean Aerodynamic Chord). For example putting the elevator surface within the V of the wing could well produce an arrangement where the elevator is within the range of the MAC of the wing and it produce either minimal or NO pitching control. In such a case you'd be better off with the elevator function on the center trailing edge of the main wing.