Hi:
I'm about ready to cover a biplane (Bel-Air 60) and it has tapered wing tips. If I were to square off the tips would this affect the flight/float characteristics?
It will reduce the wingspan by 4 inches overall (52" to 48").
Your input will help me to decide to remove them or not.
Thanks:


Tom

Might make it slightly more responsive in the roll axis(probably not much). Lots of planes(full-scale and model) have "clipped" wing models, ie: cub, taylorcraft, mono coupe etc.

Why not make them removable, using some combination of bolts and nutplates, screws, etc(or suitable hardware)? That way if you don't like the way it flies with clipped wings, just bolt the tips or outer sections back on.

Reducing your span by four inches will increase your induced drag by about 17%, not counting the effect of the rounded wing tips. Rounding the tips will reduce induced drag considerably. I would estimate the combined effect at about a very noticeable 22% increase in induced drag, and bipes generally suffer enough as it is from high induced drag. Remember, if the wing tips stay the same shape, induced drag is proportional to the inverse square of the wingspan, so removing a little from span can have a rather large negative effect, particularly objectionable if your wing loading was a bit high to begin with; not as bad if your wing loading was on the low side. You will see considerably more loss of airspeed in tight turns, and a steeper glide. Roll rate will be slightly increased.