Will this work?
 

http://www.x-plane.org/users/nyc/dev4.jpg

Some may recognise this as the 'Devastator' from Crimson Skies. It is actually one of the more aerodynamically feasable planes in the series, but could still prove tricky. I'd be building it probably from foam, as a small electric jobby. Yay or nay?

Cheers

RE: Will this work?
 

It's got serious potential. And I know I've had some ideas about building one of these.

Best bet is to make up a test glider about 16 to 18 inch span using 3/32 sheet for the surfaces and a carved white or blue styrofoam fuselage. The real doubt concerns the size of the fins. It looks like they may need to be larger for the model to fly nose first. A test glider will tell you that right away and also let you play with adding area easily until it does fly stabily. There's no dihedral so don't worry about it being stable in roll but you want to make sure it tracks into a spiral dive or turns without the nose hunting all over or the model simply wanting to swap ends.

But first you'll want to work up a 3 view drawing.

RE: Will this work?
 

id go with Yay. Do remember that the way the plane flies on the game is more like a estimate. Since the plane isnt real, they didnt have a way to know how it really flew.

BMatthews
If memory serves me right, i do believe taht the top wing had some anhedral (or however its spelt) to it. Might want to try to screen capture the plane from a front angle if you havent allready.

RE: Will this work?
 

here ya go, thought you might like this. They came out with C/S 2 , but its for X-box.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/crimsonskies/experience.htm

D.R.

RE: Will this work?
 

Fantasy/reality-aerodynamics.
A classic case of "if it works on a computer -it must work in reality"
Sure it will fly -it will also make a supurb flat spin model.
In real life -some canards (and especially some dreadful model canards ), would get into flat spins and simply LOCK in.
Just eyeballing the "computer fighter"--I would venture that it would rotate about ----the rear canopy bow.
A hopeless situation-but what the hell -it is just a kid's game fantasy.

RE: Will this work?
 

How are you going to land it with those fins underneath the wing?

RE: Will this work?
 

How will i land it, good question... upside down?

Good suggestion- i'll build some scale models, cheat on the fin size, get the weights in the right place etc...

I'm doing this now to prove you wrong, hanson!

RE: Will this work?
 

i'd put pylon racer pizza cutter wheels inside the fins and retractable nose gear...if i ever built something this cheesy:D


dave

RE: Will this work?
 

go for it!
question tho-
If you change it - how can it be the same?

RE: Will this work?
 

The gap between the upper and lower wing on this canard bipe is so small that, while the smallish upper wing will add some lift, mutual biplane wing interference will probably add so much induced drag that the overall contribution of the upper wing will be minimal. Otherwise, the layout looks feasible to me.

RE: Will this work?
 

It doesn't look like it will be directionally stable with that long nose. The canard surface area is very small compared to the main wings, this will put the CG somewhere around the leading edge of the main wings... just eyeballing the side area ahead of that point compared to the side area behind it looks like it'll do nice flat spins, and tailslides... but probably won't fly straight (foreward) for very long. If you have X-planes you can model it very quickly and get a good idea if it'll fly or not.. if you don't have x-planes try to find someone that does, or find out if someone has already modeled it.

Ty

RE: Will this work?
 

I think the interference drag on the aft planes may help your landing approach. Canards can be hard to land - the aft plane doesn't (or shouldn't) get close to stall - that can mean very shallow approaches. I've been told that's why Rutan's canards never took off (pardon pun) - hard to land.... Is this right anyone? flaps aren't really usable on canards - so you have to go in clean?

re: CLA - I@d go with a balsa chuck glider to experiment with. This would also be v useful for CG determination....

If one of the aft planes is semi-effective you might have trouble coming up with the ideal CG position.

If this machine was IC I think you'd need a lot of nose ballast, plus as much stuff as you can pack in ahead of the foreplane. you'd also need a steerable nose wheel with no blown fins.

As it is electric, you have a lot more control over CG position - which is very useful in this configuration, and I'd guess you don't care about flying off from the ground right?

good luck with it - would be interested to find out how it flies!

RE: Will this work?
 

Wow! cheers for all the replies & interest in the idea! I remember i made a ff rubber canard biplane, which was VERY touchy. It was fine (soe of the time) under power, but as it dropped off it began to make a flat vertical descent. Acropilot, good idea about using x-plane, i am trying to get hold of it at the moment. Coincidentally, the pic is a screenshot off x-plane i found on the web...

RE: Will this work?
 

Go for it. Let us know how it went.