Colin wrote: >> Mark L. has been advocating for years to straighten the sides to >> eliminate the banana boat effect, and sited the builders that have have >> been happy with the results...<<
Well, not really advocating to straighten the sides. It's an option, and it works, but I also don't see anything wrong with the banana boat. Mark LOUGHEED developed a way to avoid the banana boat effect about 10 years ago, but I really don't think that all the wierd angled cuts are worth the effort. Since I've built all my deck and canopy parts directly from the fuselage, it really doesn't matter what shape it is. And buying the stuff doesn't help a lot either, since there's still a lot of fabrication involved. One benefit of the banana boat is that the upper longerons slope outward, shedding water from that interface when it rains. I HAVE been advocating making the widest part of the fuselage at least 4" wider, and making it at the shoulders, rather than at the knees, as the plans call for. This has aerodynamic benefits when the widest part of the plane is closer to the trailing edge of the wing, rather than tapering back in there. The only reason I can think of to widen the fuselage would be to have more real estate to mount stuff to. The Corvair is over an inch narrower than a VW, and somewhat narrower than an 0-200. The photo at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/bodywork/03082433m.jpg shows what I think is a pleasing fuselage that has stock width at the firewall, but I had to go to some trouble to design and make a cowling that made it end up that way. There are few cowlings that you can buy off-the-shelf that yield lines that I would call "graceful" or "fair". More on all of this at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/kopinion.html, and on the cowling in particular at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/cowling.html . Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net
