Musings on SOARING cover photos

Bo Brunsgaard wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
btw that photo is he
http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/Soaring...84Mar_full.jpg

It's a Rutan Solitaire, unless I'm very much mistaken.

Self-launcher with an interesting engine installation concept. The
engine is placed in the fuselage in front of the pilot rather than in
the rear fuselage.

I seem to recall that one of them was built here in Denmark in the
late 1980's or early 90's, either from a kit or bottom-up from
drawings. I think it was sold out of the country a few years later.

Bo Brunsgaard

I communicated back in the late 1980s with a US gentleman that was
selling a Rutan Solitaire homebuilt you see in the picture (email
lost). He indicated some concern about his Rutan Solitaire being
tricky for an inexperienced pilot. Apparently the canard was designed
to stall first causing a nose pitch down - as you would expect. Except
that the transition could be abrupt and in the landing flare this would
put your nose abruptly in contact with the pavement.

Perhaps this thread will get forwarded to said owner and he'll fill in
the details.

Best,
Richard

Bo Brunsgaard wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
btw that photo is he
http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/Soaring...84Mar_full.jpg

It's a Rutan Solitaire, unless I'm very much mistaken.

Self-launcher with an interesting engine installation concept. The
engine is placed in the fuselage in front of the pilot rather than in
the rear fuselage.

I seem to recall that one of them was built here in Denmark in the
late 1980's or early 90's, either from a kit or bottom-up from
drawings. I think it was sold out of the country a few years later.

Bo Brunsgaard

I communicated back in the late 1980s with a US gentleman that was
selling a Rutan Solitaire homebuilt you see in the picture (email
lost). He indicated some concern about his Rutan Solitaire being
tricky for an inexperienced pilot. Apparently the canard was designed
to stall first causing a nose pitch down - as you would expect. Except
that the transition could be abrupt and in the landing flare this would
put your nose abruptly in contact with the pavement.

Perhaps this thread will get forwarded to said owner and he'll fill in
the details.

Best,
Richard

"RichardFreytag" wrote in message
oups.com...

Bo Brunsgaard wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
btw that photo is he
http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/Soaring...84Mar_full.jpg

It's a Rutan Solitaire, unless I'm very much mistaken.

Self-launcher with an interesting engine installation concept. The
engine is placed in the fuselage in front of the pilot rather than in
the rear fuselage.

I seem to recall that one of them was built here in Denmark in the
late 1980's or early 90's, either from a kit or bottom-up from
drawings. I think it was sold out of the country a few years later.

Bo Brunsgaard

I communicated back in the late 1980s with a US gentleman that was
selling a Rutan Solitaire homebuilt you see in the picture (email
lost). He indicated some concern about his Rutan Solitaire being
tricky for an inexperienced pilot. Apparently the canard was designed
to stall first causing a nose pitch down - as you would expect. Except
that the transition could be abrupt and in the landing flare this would
put your nose abruptly in contact with the pavement.

Perhaps this thread will get forwarded to said owner and he'll fill in
the details.

Best,
Richard

Kind of defeats the purpose of having a canard. Perhaps it was built wrong.

Frank Whiteley

On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 13:42:15 -0700, "F.L. Whiteley"
wrote:


Apparently the canard was designed
to stall first causing a nose pitch down - as you would expect. Except
that the transition could be abrupt and in the landing flare this would
put your nose abruptly in contact with the pavement.

Kind of defeats the purpose of having a canard. Perhaps it was built wrong.

I think this is exactly how a canard plane is supposed to work: Canard
stalls first, nose goes down, aircraft picks up speed again. AoA of
main wing always stays within the safe range, aileron always stays
effective, no wing drop.


Bye
Andreas

"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 13:42:15 -0700, "F.L. Whiteley"
wrote:


Apparently the canard was designed
to stall first causing a nose pitch down - as you would expect. Except
that the transition could be abrupt and in the landing flare this would
put your nose abruptly in contact with the pavement.

Kind of defeats the purpose of having a canard. Perhaps it was built
wrong.

I think this is exactly how a canard plane is supposed to work: Canard
stalls first, nose goes down, aircraft picks up speed again. AoA of
main wing always stays within the safe range, aileron always stays
effective, no wing drop.


Bye
Andreas
Yes, you are right. Long time since I last thought of canards.

Frank

I think this is exactly how a canard plane is supposed
to work: Canard
stalls first, nose goes down, aircraft picks up speed
again. AoA of
main wing always stays within the safe range, aileron
always stays
effective, no wing drop.


Bye
Andreas
Yes, you are right. Long time since I last thought
of canards.

Frank

Of course this is also the basic problem with canards.
Because you want the canard always to stall first the
main wing can never reach max Cl, the minimum flying
speeds for the overall aircraft are high and the climb
performance suffers. If you enforce dynamic stability
(canard loses lift first even when pitching up) - it
gets even worse. Of course having the whole contraption
pitch UP at stall is worst of all.

Canard designs often are touted as 'stall-proof'. This
might be technically true, but it is a pointless argument
if the canard has a sharp break at stall leading to
a sharp nose drop.

Perhaps it's a coincidence, but I haven't seen Burt
Rutan produce a new canard-configured design in quite
a while.

9B

In article ,
Andy Blackburn wrote:

Perhaps it's a coincidence, but I haven't seen Burt
Rutan produce a new canard-configured design in quite
a while.

Hmm. The last few have been conventional (SS1/WhiteKnight/GlobalFlyer)
but the starship, proteus and boomerang are all canard. As are the UAVs
I think.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

This is the big lie behind canards. Of course they
stall. After the mains touch down, holding the nose up
with the front canard until it stalls makes a good
bang onto the nose gear. If the C.G. is far enough aft,
you can stall both wings in flight. And inverted, all bets are off.

The Speed Canard is a certified aircraft in Europe.
Although the "stall" speed (really maximum
"sink" speed) is below 60 knots, we used to fly it on
at 80 and do a wheel landing and lower the nose before
the forward canard stalled.

We had to use 3000ft runways or longer for this, and
even that was edgy.

It was fun for a little while, until I realized that an
off-field landing would be, gulp, interesting. I'm
NOT a fan of high stall (or max "sink") speeds.

The interesting thing about a canard glider, however, is
that the weight to span ratio means something different because of
two wings. Maybe a good way to get out of using this
ratio for experimentals?

I suspect that if the 32:1 ratio I saw for the Solitaire is correct,
the forward canard was a "stall all at once" design,
so keeping the nose unscarred must have been "interesting."

In article . com,
RichardFreytag wrote:

Bo Brunsgaard wrote:
wrote in message
roups.com...
btw that photo is he
http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/Soaring...84Mar_full.jpg

It's a Rutan Solitaire, unless I'm very much mistaken.

Self-launcher with an interesting engine installation concept. The
engine is placed in the fuselage in front of the pilot rather than in
the rear fuselage.

I seem to recall that one of them was built here in Denmark in the
late 1980's or early 90's, either from a kit or bottom-up from
drawings. I think it was sold out of the country a few years later.

Bo Brunsgaard

I communicated back in the late 1980s with a US gentleman that was
selling a Rutan Solitaire homebuilt you see in the picture (email
lost). He indicated some concern about his Rutan Solitaire being
tricky for an inexperienced pilot. Apparently the canard was designed
to stall first causing a nose pitch down - as you would expect. Except
that the transition could be abrupt and in the landing flare this would
put your nose abruptly in contact with the pavement.

Perhaps this thread will get forwarded to said owner and he'll fill in
the details.

Best,
Richard



--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

Does it surprise you that a forward wing built for high
performance also has an abrupt stall? It wouldn't surprise me.

I do wonder how yaw control was done. For the Speed Canard, it was wingtip
"airbrakes" so you just slowed down one or the other.
If you hit both, it worked to just slow down.

In article ,
F.L. Whiteley wrote:

Kind of defeats the purpose of having a canard. Perhaps it was built wrong.

Frank Whiteley




--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

At 06:00 07 March 2005, Bruce Hoult wrote:

Hmm. The last few have been conventional (SS1/WhiteKnight/GlobalF
lyer)
but the starship, proteus and boomerang are all canard.
As are the UAVs
I think.


Starship was more than 20 years ago - not sure about
the others.

Certainly the argument that canards are more efficient
or inherently safer has been debunked by now. The Starship
was barely faster than a King Air, burned more fuel
and had a smaller cabin. It was also significantly
more expensive to produce -- however, it did look cool.
You may have noticed that Beech has quietly been buying
them back and grinding them up.

9B