trailing edge truncation
02-06-2004, 08:18 PM
#26
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I know nothing about trailing edges........
I don't know anything about airfoils but Michel Selig does and I trust him. If you are making high performance glilders or speed machines by attention to what he says. Also Profili seems to know what it is about.
On blunt TE's (and not wanting to make anyone mad at me, too late you say) with an airplane that has control throws of 40 degrees, controlled by a little stick on a box, discussions about control softness is meaningless. If you want softness just slow down the servos. Trying to say that something has a soft feel when all you have is visual feedback is like dancing about architecture (I borrowed that old saying). In reality a pattern junkie will latch on to anything that he thinks will help him. At times it seems it can just be a rumor, but it will end up on an airplane or several airplanes. The amount of hard cold aerodynamics that go into a design is usually small. Some fine pattern airplane designers with winning airplanes really don't have a handle of the real aerodynamics of the airplane or the dynamics of flight. Design characteristics are borrowed and cross bred with the only redeeming feature being that the pilots will all be flying equally competetive airplanes.
Good grief, that sounded like a rant, I'm sorry, ........ a little ....... maybe.
The other thoughs given here are interesting. The problem with seeing various trailing edges on airplanes is a total lack of control over the experiments. When the surface is changed the weight changes at the same time. Is the linkage the same, hinging, servos? You have one airplanes with sharp TE and by the same bulder one with blunt TE. But even a good builder will have enough variation in airplanes to mask the differences in trailing edges. Who knows if it is weight change or aero effects, and so on. Some good test data would be nice.
On blunt TE's (and not wanting to make anyone mad at me, too late you say) with an airplane that has control throws of 40 degrees, controlled by a little stick on a box, discussions about control softness is meaningless. If you want softness just slow down the servos. Trying to say that something has a soft feel when all you have is visual feedback is like dancing about architecture (I borrowed that old saying). In reality a pattern junkie will latch on to anything that he thinks will help him. At times it seems it can just be a rumor, but it will end up on an airplane or several airplanes. The amount of hard cold aerodynamics that go into a design is usually small. Some fine pattern airplane designers with winning airplanes really don't have a handle of the real aerodynamics of the airplane or the dynamics of flight. Design characteristics are borrowed and cross bred with the only redeeming feature being that the pilots will all be flying equally competetive airplanes.
Good grief, that sounded like a rant, I'm sorry, ........ a little ....... maybe.
The other thoughs given here are interesting. The problem with seeing various trailing edges on airplanes is a total lack of control over the experiments. When the surface is changed the weight changes at the same time. Is the linkage the same, hinging, servos? You have one airplanes with sharp TE and by the same bulder one with blunt TE. But even a good builder will have enough variation in airplanes to mask the differences in trailing edges. Who knows if it is weight change or aero effects, and so on. Some good test data would be nice.
