Flaperon Question
 

I have ordered a Wing Mgr A-26, 68 inch wing, 53 inch fuse. I hope to power it electric consequently I trying to save weight. The question is can I use flaperons in lieu of conventional flaps and the associated servos?

The question should be better stated as; will flaperons provide the performance required to fly this aircraft comfortably? Do I need to increase the size of the ailerons to provide the extra area needed for flaps?

Your knowledge and advise will be appreciated.

RE: Flaperon Question
 

I find that flaperons are actually cause take off and approach more dangerous than without them at higher speed. Conventional flaps only increase AOA in the centre of the wing. This causes a washout type effect, so if you still stall the airplane, it wont spin, the nose will just gently drop. With flaperons, you increase the AOA of the whole wing. Lets say you try to make a turn to the right with flaperons extended... You increase the AOA of left wing further, increasing drag on left considerably as the right wing goes almost clean. This causes horrible adverse yaw characteristics. To keep my planes with flaperons flying coordinated, I had to fly with rudder almost exclusively. Furthermore, if you try to roll hard with flaperons down, it is possible to stall the (supposed to be) upgoing wing, because the AOA is already high across the whole wing, and when you increase AOA on the left panel furhter. Now, you may exceed the critical AOA and stall left wing, causing a spin to left, when you tried to roll right...
I had flaperons on two of my 46 size airplanes (trainer and aerobatic). both planes had considerable size ailerons, and I found the flaperons favoured slow flight characteristics very little. I almost lost my aerobatic plane on a STOL t/o with flaperons extended, as I took off, and at low airspeed gave it lots of up elevator and right aileron. It came very close to snapping into the ground, but I saved It with rudder and removal of other control....
also, flaperons are a pain to set up.
moral of story, flaperons bad....

RE: Flaperon Question
 

Any A-26 model will be so highly loaded it must be handled as a fast airplane!
Take off fast, land fast!
Attempting slow flight will crash it sooner than it is due to crash anyway.
Flaps, not flaperons, will help.
Flaperons as detailed above make a bad situation worse.

A Thank You!
 

Thank You, thank you. Your help is appreciated. My A-26 will have !QUOT!real!QUOT! flaps. mullenc525 your explaination convinced me without doubt. Tall Paul I appreciate your comments and your confirmation.

I just re-entered this hobby last year. My earlier knowledge was dated, escapements, Single channel.... vacuum tubes! Ugly. The people of RC Universe have provided me a college degree in R/C

Wonderful