MOVING FLAPS/AILERONS WITH THE RDS!!
04-09-2010, 05:44 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Walla Walla, WA
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MOVING FLAPS/AILERONS WITH THE RDS!!
Hello. . .I’m Harley Michaelis at Walla Walla, WA with good news for all who fly fixed wing aircraft with flaps, ailerons, flaperons, elevons, etc.
For my 45 years in RC we’ve had unsightly hardware hanging out of our otherwise beautiful wings. It gets oily, dirty, catches on things, gets torn loose, causes noise and parasitic drag that prevents our wings from performing at their maximum aerodynamic potential. WE CAN HAVE BETTER. IT’S IN THE WORKS AND CAN SOON BE A REALITY!
HISTORY: In 1987, an idea for all- internal mechanics popped into mind. The basic concept is simple. A “drive shaft” attaches to a servo output gear. Its bent end enters a “pocket” behind the hingeline. As the servo rotates, the surface deflects. It’s a “Rotary, Hinged Surface Deflecting System” (RHSDS), but “RDS” more easily rolls off the tongue.
In 1999, Charles Kimbrough, founder of Kimbrough Racing Products, the RC car gear people, offered to mold a “coupler” to secure wire shafts to a servo. We collaborated on its design. It became available about when ARF’s appeared made for horns/clevises/pushrods. Too inexpensive to advertize, RDS went little known, little used and its merits unrecognized.
AHA! Now the all-internal concept has been embraced by Europeans involved in F3B and F3J competition. For best possible performance in those highly-refined airframes, RDS has all but replaced conventional hardware. As Formula 1 racing innovations get into passenger vehicles, so will RDS find its way into mainstream RC. It has begun overseas. Premium foreign ARF’s are being offered with some version of RDS pre-installed. Separate, expensive, custom-machined mechanics are being sold. Flyers involved in scale, aerobatics, jets, pylon racing, etc., are also using it. Even sport foam ships with a rudimentary form of RDS pre-installed are being offered.
The heart of a fine, full-featured system for all kinds of RC craft needs ONLY to be a refined, injection-molded coupler that’s inexpensive to mass produce and easy to use.
F3B flyer Don Barker, PhD, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the prestigious University of Maryland gives a thumbs-up on my new, simplified, but sophisticated coupler design. Mark Drela, PhD, Professor of Aerodynamics at MIT, has documented RDS superiority over other linkages.
While the concept is simple, making it “user friendly” to use in moldies, bagged or built-up wings has been a major challenge. Over 40 issues had to be addressed and have been resolved by component mechanical design, materials used and instructions I’m writing to put On-Line.
Parts envisioned include: (1) An “almost universal” injection-molded coupler (2) telescoping SS hypo tubing pieces and bent wipers to custom-size torsionally rigid shafts to lengths needed and (3) an assortment of precision-made pockets. Parts will work in about any size wing, except DLG’s and extra large craft. Those can be separately addressed later.
This is ready to be put into production. I’m on a mission to see a “USA-made RDS” available here in the US to all who fly fixed wing aircraft with moving surfaces.
RDS mission statement: "To make wings of RC aircraft clean, stealthy, more beautiful and without the parasitic drag of external hardware, to perform at their maximum aerodynamic potential".
If you are interested in getting more information on this you can email me directly or PM me here. Ask me to e-mail you the document “All About the RDS”.
My e-mail address is [email protected]. I check mail frequently
