Tim Ward wrote:


Take it a step further:
Just use a standard wing mold. (Or, as in your suggestion, inner wing, with
span limitation for competition).
The wing is the thing. People have done all sorts of strange things to
1-26's (lowered canopies, faired wheels, taken the wheel off entirely and
flown with just a skid), and the L/D still stayed about the same
The variations in fuselage, empennage, materials, etc give people a shot at
"optimizing" their ship, and manufacturers a hook for for their advertising
(assuming there's ever more than one) but I bet they'd converge pretty
quickly. Small but real competitive advantages might actually exist, in
which case the super-competitive pilots will sell their ships to buy the
more competitive models, putting more ships in the class, and entry-level
ships on the market.

And what would be the point of a class that is essentially like what we
already have in the Standard and 15 meter classes? Having the exterior
wing shape defined would save very little in design costs because they
would all require substantial aerodynamic design and the complete
structural design, which is even more expensive than the aerodynamic
design. None would be built in enough quantity to make them any less
expensive than what we already have.



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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA