automated flap setting

In article ,
wrote:

Didn't Will Scheumann do this in the 70s? I remember a soaring cover photo
with a weird sort of mortocycle grip on the stick. As I remember, the basic
idea was that the pilot pretty much flew by flaps, changing flap setting to
induce changes in CL, with the tail functioning as trimmer.

Now if the windward guys really want to get fancy... you can in principle
extract a lot of energy from the air by dynamic soaring the small bits of
positive and negative g we run in to all the time. Humans are too slow, and
we don't have the feedback we need, which is knowing when the lift vector has
a component in the direction of motion to pull, and a component in the
opposite direction when you push. This could be automated, lots of little
fast pitch motions. Purists laugh, but if you get 60:1 glides out of 15 meter
with high speed automated pitch motions, they'll laugh all the way to the
back of the scoresheet. Or, I guess, to the annual rules poll to get it
banned...

John Cochrane


Kinda makes me queasy to think about "...lots of little fast pitch
motions."!

The mind boggles at what could be done with continually variable span,
sweep and airfoil with appropriate air data (including remote sensing of
air movement) and enough computing power/software to make sense of it.

I seem to remember a scifi story about a plane that could extract thrust
and lift from all the small scale motion of the air. The engine was shut
down in cruise and the airplane just flew along leaving the air slightly
cooler behind it.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Hey Dr. WB: That article about leaving the air cooler was in an April issue of "Flying" magazine, written, I think, by their technical editor, Peter Garrison. Key here is the "April" edition. That article could be related to the "inventions" we see coming out of Ridge Soaring in early April of each year...

:-)

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro

Wouldn't powered flaps that could respond fast enough to extract energy from gusts fit in the same category as powered boundary layer suction and be illegal per FAI racing rules?

Kirk
66

If the flaps move fast enough, wouldn't they provide thrust, ala a whale's
tail or a gondola?


"kirk.stant" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't powered flaps that could respond fast enough to extract energy
from gusts fit in the same category as powered boundary layer suction and
be illegal per FAI racing rules?

Kirk
66

How about a flexible rudder you could flap like a swim fin? Has that been thought of?

Boggs

On Wednesday, November 13, 2013 7:12:49 PM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
How about a flexible rudder you could flap like a swim fin? Has that been thought of?



Boggs

Gary, that would be called sculling............ask Ron about it, I do it all the time.

Brad

On Wednesday, November 13, 2013 10:12:49 PM UTC-5, Waveguru wrote:
How about a flexible rudder you could flap like a swim fin? Has that been thought of?



Boggs

Boggs I think you are on to something...

Maybe the Duckhawk could use a contraption like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yMeIsmAV-E

Save the battery and get some exercise while you stretch out your final glide!