On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:08:57 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Nov 14, 8:25 am, Alan Baker wrote:

Did a quick little check:

As an example, a Cessna 150 is about 25 feet long and from looking at
wikipedia's little jpeg, the centre of mass should be about 5 feet
behind the propellor disc.

So if you raise the thrust line 4 inches, you need to angle the engine
up an additional 3.8 degrees; arctan(4/60).


Don't bother with center of mass. It's not really relevant.
Angling the engine up 3.8 degrees would lead to trouble. That's a lot
of angle. Most engines are aligned with the longitudinal axis or
parallel to it (the waterline) or angled *down* a bit (Ercoupe has
lots; Cherokee and its brethren have some, 172 has none at all) and
some are angled to the side a bit as well to control P-factor.

Thrust works against the center of DRAG, which is much harder
to locate than CG. Lowering the thrust line would tend to raise the
nose more on powering up, which would require more nose-down trim to
control, which would lead to a bigger drop in attitude when the power
is removed.
But I don't think four inches lower is going to be a big
deal. The loss of ground clearance, OTOH, is significant for a STOL
airplane.

Dan

Plane is designed for 72 inch prop. I will be running a 68" prop, so I
have 2 inches more to play with. Also running bigger wheels and tires,
which gives me another 1/2 inch at worst case,perhaps 1 1/2 with a
full load of air. Not sure if I will need to go down 4 inches - 2 will
likely do it but I needed a number to ask the question.