Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Is anyone utilizing the flaperon's on your old pattern plane? I have thought about dialing it in, just have not taken the time to program yet.

If you are or aren't, your opinion.

Vince

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

i tried to dial in flaperons once on a Cessna 182 arf. not being familiar with a computer radio, i must have accidentally switched something because the plane went into a hard roll upon takeoff. i manages to to straighten it but the roll tendency was so strong i couldn't keep it level enough to land successfully. haven't tried them since.

david

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Several of us in the Charlotte area back 20 some years ago dialed in spoilerons for landing, worked well. Spoilerons (both ailerons raised slightly) worked noticably better than flaperons-flaperons gave some squirrely handling.

Models tested were Atlanta's, Aurora's, Avanti's and Augusta's....I just noticed we never went past "A":D

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Lotus - Never thought of that. Both up, just like the gliders. I will try it this week on my Intruder, barn doors, try 20 degrees up, keep my finger on the switch.

Vince

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

I never liked flaps on the Curare either! Something about having to use down elevator when landing just ain't right! LOL!!! Maybe it was the way it was trimmed... I didn't try it more than twice if my memory serves me!!:D:D:D

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

You might read what Ed Moorman reports [link=http://members.cox.net/moorman1/Spoilers.htm]here[/link]. But depends on the type of airplane, how much ground clearance its tail has. Flaps make for less pitch, spoilers for more. You won't touch down on your tail, won't you? :D

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Good comments. How about this. Allow for steeper glide slope. Base leg to final, approach, aim for the spot, vs. long approach, spoiler or flaperon's applied.

What I am thinking, steeper glide to touchdown, help from all the crosswind we encounter on long approach, less work ?
Or am I just dreamin' ? I guess if it worked, we would be seeing it.

If Skylane see's this, he flys full scale, but top wing, maybe makes no difference. Probably the pilot has a lot to do with it. I saw Jason Shulman flying the old pattern planes at the first FL SPA/BPA contest, he landed like on rails, crosswind did not bother him.

I put my Intruder in, started a downwind turn to final, cut throttle, it just fell out of the air. Straight down, nothing would have helped, got on throttle too late. I am sure if I had flaps or flaperon's, with the way I did it, it would have fell sooner. With spoiler out or flaps, is it going to allow more power on landing, even putting in down elevator? That can be programmed.

I was having problems with full power up on the 180 degree turn. Plane was yawing out. Bob Cox programmed in some rudder on full power, (switch on/off), helped a lot. I think what is nice, to be able to utilize programming on these old birds. Results of downwind turn attached. Has been re-built, flying fine.
Vince

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Sorry your fine plane crashed. Hard to tell the reason why, but I agree neither spoilers nor flaps had helped. I suppose the model was already quite slow for approach and turning downwind much of its airspeed had gone (there's tailwind now), so it had to go down. Throttle had helped but with a delay, down elevator to gain speed is the first measure here if some altitude is left. Even better is flying faster in strong wind.

So down elevator on landing approach is not such unusual. My point was only that some pattern planes have a low vertical tail to keep them symmetrical. In this case, flaps are needed to reduce the pitch on landing. But read Ed Moorman's article, very good information.

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

FInd the comments about the flaps on interesting. When I flew my Curare back in the 70's, I never experienced a pitch change with flaps. My flaps were configured per the MAN plans I built the plane from.

I am finishing a new MAN Curare with the same flaps. It will be interesting to see if they work the same way my memory remembers them!

Jeff

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Think I know what you mean and can't wait how it will turn out, but still won't modify my comment. The Curare flaps are rather small and more speed brakes than anything else, but Curare can pitch up to 10 degrees on landing (Brushfire only 5, for instance). I think you will not fly with less pitch when flaps are deployed but at lower speed, what may be hard to notice.

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

The glider guys mix in some elevator compensation for that.

Tom

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

The percieved speed of the model will change as it goes from upwind to downwind, but its airspeed remains the same unless there is a sudden change of wind direction, which does happen the closer to the ground it gets, ususally caused by turbulence.

fox59

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

I think spoilerons are the better solution. They work well on my 3-D Extra, which has the ability to fly quite slowly anyway. And they don't seem to make this plane as "squirrely"... Haven't tried spoilerons on my Curare. In fact I haven't flown it in quite a while. I'm thinking about draging it back out for a re-do. I might move the servos out in the wing and leave the flaps. That way I could employ them at the same time (flaps and spoilerons). It needs a good re-furb anyway.. The retract air lines are even dry rotted! LOL!!

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Servo's out to the wing's. Good idea. I have that incorporated in my "just needs paint", Phoenix VI. Did that about 8 years ago. Carrying it around for 30 years and many transfer's. I have another P-6 here, just needs a new wing. Will outboard the ailerons.

On the Curare's, was the intention of flaps to slow it down, or steeper glide angles? Or is that for both?

Vince

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Say friction on ground and I agree.;) The model flying into the wind and getting into lower wind speed may have caused the crash, I agree as well.

But I supposed it was flying a downwind leg in crosswind, then turning leeward to the base leg. Airspeed remains the same if you fly coordinated turns and the plane drifts with the air it flies in, like a thermalling glider. If you follow a traffic pattern over ground, though, there are changes in airspeed. Having crosswind, when turning from downwind to base the plane needs acceleration. If it turns rapidly into the wind it climbs, if it turns leeward it sags. Was based on assumptions, I admit.

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Can't agree. An aircraft turning into the wind, regardless of turn rate, will not change its airspeed unless the wind direction/speed has changed druing the turn.

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

US Stick - Your explanation in your last post, almost exactly what happened to me. Here is the scenario. We were take off and landing, right to left. I finished my pattern maneuvers, and best one up for me, fourth round. We were flying racetrack style.

I came down outbound of runway, left to right, and for some reason, I thought since I put up a good flight, landing was the only thing left to judge. I decided to do it different, and it was OK, just get around and line up. We were landing and taking off in crosswind all day, I would say, about 10 mph, 15 mph gust's. I came downwind, about 150 feet out past the runway, decided to go to end, do a left 90, then about a 270 around, line up, settle in. This was a different approach this time, looking for points. If I would have lined up like we had been doing, I would have been flying into the wind.

After the 90, I started right. Now I am downwind, about 75' altitude. Cut throttle, hang up on it's side, and as soon as I banked, low throttle, thinking I had enough airspeed, it just fell out of the air. When I first saw it happening, I got on the throttle, and too little too late. Just like someone picked it up, climbed a ladder, and dropped it, wing tip first, then nose dropped.
Straight down, nose first into a sand pit. I could not believe that happened. Luckily, it was sugar sand, and deep. Dave Brown spinner, no damage that end. Engine stuffed.

I have heard of high speed stalls, and I was not at high speed, but going fast enough to know, left tip up, right tip down, pull around, and I am in. I knew it would grease right in, but never happened. It was almost like something pushed it down. Small micro-burst?
Could be, big jets go thru that all the time.

Vince

Vince

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

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I busted up a model pretty good when I went to undeploy the experimental spoilerons in a hurry. The danged toggle on the mixing switch of my Futaba 7UAP broke off and fell to the ground! There was no way out, that I could think of in time. Coulda rolled inverted, I guess. Yep. Crunch!!!

I loved those radios, with the exception of the crap switch bats that used to just fall off for no apparent reason.


Ed Cregger

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Hypothetically, yes. However, there is an inertia effect. If you go for example from crosswind to downwind quickly, it takes a finite amout of time for the plane to accellerate to a stable airspeed in that mass of air. Until then, it's airspeed is reduced by the amount of the wind relative to the ground. Granted, it is only a second or two, but that's enough to get into trouble.

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

WEDJ, thank you! That's exactly what I was trying to say but wasn't able to.[:o]

crankpin, that's why I wouldn't think of microbursts or gusts even though these play a role. Your description lets me even more think you were rather slow and flying cross wind maybe with a crab angle. If you now cut throttle and bank for a turn down the wind you have to let the model's nose a bit down. This will give the energy to accelerate it. If you don't and even pull a bit elevator as usual in turns, then for that second or two, airspeed is too low and - without power - the model stalls. Even worse, due to its bank attitude it commences a spin. That's why I mentioned down elevator, that's the only way to stop the stall.

Of course I don't want to let you down, I just like to think about such matters and find it reassuring to know why things happened. Just trying to learn from mishaps, not only my own. Thanks for sharing yours!

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

I have an original Curare (all wood from RCM&E plan) with the original spoiler/flap setup (like Sicroly). The model pitches up on flap deployment unless the throttle and airspeed is way low. Nevertheless they are very useful at landing time, model slows down well and the approach is much easier to fly, specially in the calm. Otherwise it fairly whistles in and uses way too much runway.
Losing models on the 'down wind turn' has been with us for as long as radio models have been around, never happened with F/F, or U/C models...got to be a clue there. Never judge a radio models airspeed with reference to a fixed object, like the planet. All the descriptions of the models above are descriptions of models stalling, ie pilot error. In a tight turn (Hauling it around) when the model 'appears' to be drifting away from your 'line' increases the stall speed, as we all know. If you are already near stall, even though the model seems to be steaming along, with reference to the surroundings, due to airspeed plus wind speed, any sharp maneuvering, or even uncosncious up elevator application 'cause it seems to be losing height without getting nearer, (drifting away with the wind) will result in the wing saying enough, and the results illustrated above. In these conditions set up the 'landing trim', ie throttle and elevator setting, and leave it there. Fly the model around the circuit, remembering to turn early, and maintain only a low bank angle on the down wind end of the strip. You can't see the pitch (fuselage) angle easily, so all height adjustment must be done with throttle only, leave the elevator alone. It takes practice to change habits, but a flight at the local full size airfield will give you the idea pretty quickly.

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

On my fullscale 182 the first 10 degrees of flap increase lift somewhat, but don't add a lot of drag. Adding 20 degrees increases the drag noticeably. I normally use 20 derees on final with an indicated airspeed of 80 mph. Going to the full 40 degrees lets you slow to about 70 mph with a marked nosedown attitude. I used flaperons on my Escape with the idea that they might help me slow the landing speed a bit. But with the amount that I could dial in and still get left-right aileron response without binding I bever noticed much of an effect. The induced drag was very slight and there was a slight increase in lift, but not enough to warrant continued use of the flapperons.

Jeff
Skylane N9214G
SPA 243

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

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What this is really about is a high speed stall. This happens when a pilot flies in reference to the ground and not to the relative wind.


Ed Cregger

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

Would go even further and say flaperons are crap. As you say, their effect is poor as is aileron effect. Spoilerons (both ailerons up) as described by ed Moorman may be great if the model can touch down nose-up. If it doesn't (like Brushfire) ailerons and seperate flaps are simply needed.

RE: Flaperon's On These Old Bird's
 

And, WEDJ, I really must take you to task about that 'turning from crosswind to down wind' comment. The airplane does not change airspeed. The air always seems to come from the front. There is no change of acceleration. The apparent changes that the pilot sees are due to his fixed position in relation to the model and the local airstream. If anyone does not believe, then go to you local flight training school an d take a wee flight. Watch the ASI as the pilot flies around the circuit. Even ask him to do a full 360 deg turn in the wind. Then do it again and watch the planet move in strange and inexplicable ways...
Evan, WB #12.