RE: [RCSE] my favorite topics

[John Derstine]

A public forum, open to opinion. Just voiced mine, it was a joke… well half a joke. I am actually a very poor pilot, I just will myself to fly well. I can’t afford to crash my ships.   It is obvious folks enjoy talking about themselves and their models.   Ok What I am interested in opening up for discussion, now that you took the bait…   Many consider lighter models to be universally superior to heavier models, using wing loading to determine overall “goodness”. What I have learned through experience is that as models get larger, and wing loadings go up they often fly (thermal, groove, penetrate)much better than  some lightly loaded ships. Now for example, take a 4.5 meter 15 pound Sperber semi scale sailplane with a 20 cell motor system on board. This plane flies like it weighs 10 pounds. My suspicion is that span loading might be a more realistic measure of a planes performance than raw wing loading data. I would also hazard a guess that reynolds numbers might be more pertinent in larger size sailplanes. (more meaningful) Any science minded folks wish to comment?   JD   Endless Mountain Models http://www.scalesoaring.com email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]   -----Original Message----- From: James V Bacus [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 9:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RCSE] my favorite topics   At 05:31 AM 11/30/2004, John Derstine wrote: Is it that such topics generate great interest because they are low risk (flaming)? Require no thought? or just perhaps everything worth being discussed has been covered? For me it brings back memories, and I learn a little bit more about the RCSE members when this thread goes around.  I thought there was some cool stories written, I just enjoyed Buddy Roos Hobie Hawk story over coffee this morning. On the other hand, I have no idea how you ended up flying those top end scale ships so well... I want information, intelligent discussion, brilliantly elucidated topics of interest. It's your list too, start a thread, make it so...   Jim Downers Grove, IL Member of the Chicago SOAR club,  AMA 592537    LSF 7560 Level IV ICQ: 6997780   AIM: InventorJim   R/C Soaring blog at www.jimbacus.net