Talking of tail planes: in some designs, does the tail plane stall before the main plane to prevent
inadvertent stalling such as the Twin Astir?
PeterS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.'"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2005 11:41 AM
Subject: RE: [Aus-soaring] Re: Aus-soaring Digest, Vol 23, Issue 5
There are no tail-lets yet because the amount of induced drag from the
tailplane is relatively small compared to the rest of your drag. I am not
sure that the reduction in induced drag will compensate for the increased
profile drag of having the tail-let.
However, I am sure that something similar will come along. As sailplane
designs strive to get ever closer to the theoretical maximums I am sure we
will see people playing with that style of idea. Some things we have
already seen:
- Ballast in the fin will reduce your required tailplane down load and hence
reduce the induced drag from the tailplane, and
- More complex tailplane planform. A straight taper planform isn't that
efficient in induced drag, a double taper like on the tailplane of the
DG-1000 is more efficient (a triple or quadruple taper like a Discus wing
planform gets you ever closer to perfect efficiency). The trade off is the
additional cost of manufacture for that fraction of a percent improvement in
performance.
Anthony
-----
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
