Hey guys do u think a flat ply wing for a homemade shrike would work? thanks
Victor

Are you flying with a radio or via controlline?


Wm.

R/C Radio

If you put enough power into it anything will fly. Will it fly well? That depends on how you define "well".

Flat wings usually have higher drag as they tend to stall or suffer from separation bubbles at much lower angles of attack. So it'll glide like a duck full of buckshot unless it is VERY light. And making a wing out of ply goes against that idea. And if you wish to do maneuvers with it then it'll fly terrible compared to even half decent airfoils based on my experience with flat airfoils.

Unless it's light and has lots of power then the prop blast will just push it everywhere. Pizza box fliers with their flat wings and strong engines do fine but when they go to low throttle they look like they glide like a sack of hammers from the videos that I've seen and from what I've read about how they fly.

Along with what Bruce said, there is an English designer that has a series of Speed 500 airplanes that have flat balsa wings. At the power, size (Reynold's number) and weight involved they seem to fly fine.

Big ply wing on a big (relatively big of course) it might be more than a little scarey.

> So it'll glide like a duck full of buckshot <

BMatthews is so right. Last year I built a 1/2A plane with a flat wing. It flew great when the engine ran (not always the case!), but when it quit, "Look out below!" I converted it to a "ribless" wing by glueing spars of varying height atop the wing to provide some camber. Now it had a decent glide (but that didn't help the unsteady engine, though.)

you can always thin down the natural Shrike section, but i wouldn't want to be anywhere near any plane with a SHEET PLY WING![X(]
one balsa plate wing plane here ( Magnum kit ) was revised to ARTF with a foam wing, not that it was quicker or cheaper to build, but it flew faster and glided better because it had a propper section, the plane was also lighter.

which is best depends on the task-
I am still amazed at how docile my 300 sq in 12 oz electric is to fly - even at slow speeds .
It just looks like it should not work .
wing is flat as a pancake - no dihedral- (low aspect ratio) and steady as a rock.
it also glides - but that is not it's forte.
probably about 4-1.
but under power - it simply does all the tricks.
The one great part 9is that I can try any thing and if I think I am going to stuf it - I just shut it off and let it crash -
a little epoxy and away we go
Way back in the beginning of time - controline speed stuff had wings/fuselages etc., carved from granite (I swear )
these things were also very smooth and stready and would glide beautifully-with a a little of the whip laid on em.

Was this reported in the Fast Prop Models forum? I'd love to see the consternation and panic these findings would cause there....

no, it was reported on our field by the Magnums designer
the thinking was flat plates fly at an AOA to make lift, that made everything on the plane draggy, this section cut that drag.
the old Magnum and new feel pretty much the same, both are rock soild at high speed, but the foam winged is much better at gliding home, it also responds better in areos and the stall speed is lower. The old wing came as 1/4 balsa you carved, very hard to get right both sides so the foam solved that. the new plane is alot lighter than the old, part of that may be the way it's built now, but the white foam core with 16th balsa skin is niceeeeeeeee