Mechanics of Elevator Trim. In Detail.

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:02:35 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"
wrote:

On Jun 12, 9:53 pm, Ron wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:43:07 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"

wrote:
On Jun 12, 5:08 am, Tina wrote:
Yes, the time my son spent with canard aircraft brought out all sorts
of interesting information about canards and the history of trying to
scale up Rutan's original concept Beech Starship. The smaller true
canards like the Long-eze are pretty good aircraft. However there is
a reason why we don't see large (six plus passenger) true canards.
It's the relationship between CG, fuel load, payload and range.
Apparently in the scale up process there is a point where it is no
longer practical.
Ron Kelley

Hmm, how the XB-70 or this,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Sonic_Cruiser

True, the XB-70 was a qualified success of a large canard type
aircraft. Most of it's problems were due to system failures and
trying to fly at Mach 3.0. The only control issues I know of were
related to overly sensitive pitch response to control inputs. Ref:http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Thanks for that link.

As far as I know the Boeing Sonic Cruiser hasn't gone beyond the
artists concept stage. I guess it's no accident that all the current
crop of passenger jets look alike. That could be partially due to the
reluctance of any large airframe manufacturer to take a gamble on
trying to certify any new "radical" design. Who knows.

Personally, I am intrigued by the three surface aircraft like the
Piaggio. They seem to have done pretty good with their design. One
wonders if given enough time, money and talent, there is some room for
improvement there.

Yes! That Piaggio is one real impressive piece of
aerodynamics, and it sounds very pilot user-friendly.
Very remarkable how they utilized the canard.

I think the aircraft business is extremely conservative.
KISS applies, also canards are difficult for the average
pilot to understand, (Hey man, you got that thar tail on
the wrong end :-).

Would it not also be true that passive stability is not as important
in larger modern airplanes? I would guess (again, I admit being
ignorant of the realities) that adding a 10% aerodynamically induced
increased load on bigger aircraft would be avoided for efficiency
reasons? It might be better to have enough fly by wire and computer
induced stability instead. I don't know enough about this stuff to
even find the back of an envelope, let alone do a calculation there.

Canards are NOT simple, I've designed quite a few,
and studied others, especially Rutan's.
I find they can be optimised for a given air speed
and are much better than the conventional lay-out.
The main problem is designing the stall.
Ken

Anyone who can design a successful canard aircraft has my respect. I
didn't learn a whole lot about the design aspects from my son (he was
in flight test, not design), but what we did learn was everything
interacted with everything else. The job was interesting, but didn't
last long.

Your son sounds like a cool dude.

Yeah, I kinda like him. ;-)

The major PITA is designing aircraft to be efficient
at cruise, but safe all the way to stalling, and
recoverable. The difficulty is the movement of the
Center of Lift forward on the main wing as stall
begins.


I seem to remember a problem they had with the fuel load and the
center of lift moving close to (ahead/behind?) the CG. They also had
a problem with getting enough fuel on board (this was a single engine
turboprop) and where to put it to get the range they wanted.

Ron Kelley

On Jun 13, 9:23 pm, Ron wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:02:35 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"



wrote:
On Jun 12, 9:53 pm, Ron wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:43:07 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"

wrote:
On Jun 12, 5:08 am, Tina wrote:
Yes, the time my son spent with canard aircraft brought out all sorts
of interesting information about canards and the history of trying to
scale up Rutan's original concept Beech Starship. The smaller true
canards like the Long-eze are pretty good aircraft. However there is
a reason why we don't see large (six plus passenger) true canards.
It's the relationship between CG, fuel load, payload and range.
Apparently in the scale up process there is a point where it is no
longer practical.
Ron Kelley

Hmm, how the XB-70 or this,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Sonic_Cruiser

True, the XB-70 was a qualified success of a large canard type
aircraft. Most of it's problems were due to system failures and
trying to fly at Mach 3.0. The only control issues I know of were
related to overly sensitive pitch response to control inputs. Ref:http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Thanks for that link.

As far as I know the Boeing Sonic Cruiser hasn't gone beyond the
artists concept stage. I guess it's no accident that all the current
crop of passenger jets look alike. That could be partially due to the
reluctance of any large airframe manufacturer to take a gamble on
trying to certify any new "radical" design. Who knows.

Personally, I am intrigued by the three surface aircraft like the
Piaggio. They seem to have done pretty good with their design. One
wonders if given enough time, money and talent, there is some room for
improvement there.

Yes! That Piaggio is one real impressive piece of
aerodynamics, and it sounds very pilot user-friendly.
Very remarkable how they utilized the canard.

I think the aircraft business is extremely conservative.
KISS applies, also canards are difficult for the average
pilot to understand, (Hey man, you got that thar tail on
the wrong end :-).

Would it not also be true that passive stability is not as important
in larger modern airplanes? I would guess (again, I admit being
ignorant of the realities) that adding a 10% aerodynamically induced
increased load on bigger aircraft would be avoided for efficiency
reasons? It might be better to have enough fly by wire and computer
induced stability instead. I don't know enough about this stuff to
even find the back of an envelope, let alone do a calculation there.

Canards are NOT simple, I've designed quite a few,
and studied others, especially Rutan's.
I find they can be optimised for a given air speed
and are much better than the conventional lay-out.
The main problem is designing the stall.
Ken

Anyone who can design a successful canard aircraft has my respect. I
didn't learn a whole lot about the design aspects from my son (he was
in flight test, not design), but what we did learn was everything
interacted with everything else. The job was interesting, but didn't
last long.

Your son sounds like a cool dude.

Yeah, I kinda like him. ;-)

The major PITA is designing aircraft to be efficient
at cruise, but safe all the way to stalling, and
recoverable. The difficulty is the movement of the
Center of Lift forward on the main wing as stall
begins.

I seem to remember a problem they had with the fuel load and the
center of lift moving close to (ahead/behind?) the CG. They also had
a problem with getting enough fuel on board (this was a single engine
turboprop) and where to put it to get the range they wanted.

I guess one way to figure that out is to place weigh
scales under the tires and then fill in increments,
to give the exact CG in horizontal pitch, that can
be readily calculated by the ratios. Fuel movement
for various pitchs would affect the CG.
While on the subject of trim, any excessive trim
required *should* indicate a possible excursion
from the appropriate CG - CL relation.

Ron Kelley

Regards
Ken
PS: I turned on a TV show "ECW" (no volume),
this is Friday PM here...near midnight, and two
busty chicks (a blonde and redhead) dressed up
in vinyl are beating each other up. It looks rough!

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:33:00 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"
wrote:

On Jun 13, 9:23 pm, Ron wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:02:35 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"



wrote:
On Jun 12, 9:53 pm, Ron wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:43:07 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"

wrote:
On Jun 12, 5:08 am, Tina wrote:
Yes, the time my son spent with canard aircraft brought out all sorts
of interesting information about canards and the history of trying to
scale up Rutan's original concept Beech Starship. The smaller true
canards like the Long-eze are pretty good aircraft. However there is
a reason why we don't see large (six plus passenger) true canards.
It's the relationship between CG, fuel load, payload and range.
Apparently in the scale up process there is a point where it is no
longer practical.
Ron Kelley

Hmm, how the XB-70 or this,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Sonic_Cruiser

True, the XB-70 was a qualified success of a large canard type
aircraft. Most of it's problems were due to system failures and
trying to fly at Mach 3.0. The only control issues I know of were
related to overly sensitive pitch response to control inputs. Ref:http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Thanks for that link.

As far as I know the Boeing Sonic Cruiser hasn't gone beyond the
artists concept stage. I guess it's no accident that all the current
crop of passenger jets look alike. That could be partially due to the
reluctance of any large airframe manufacturer to take a gamble on
trying to certify any new "radical" design. Who knows.

Personally, I am intrigued by the three surface aircraft like the
Piaggio. They seem to have done pretty good with their design. One
wonders if given enough time, money and talent, there is some room for
improvement there.

Yes! That Piaggio is one real impressive piece of
aerodynamics, and it sounds very pilot user-friendly.
Very remarkable how they utilized the canard.

I think the aircraft business is extremely conservative.
KISS applies, also canards are difficult for the average
pilot to understand, (Hey man, you got that thar tail on
the wrong end :-).

Would it not also be true that passive stability is not as important
in larger modern airplanes? I would guess (again, I admit being
ignorant of the realities) that adding a 10% aerodynamically induced
increased load on bigger aircraft would be avoided for efficiency
reasons? It might be better to have enough fly by wire and computer
induced stability instead. I don't know enough about this stuff to
even find the back of an envelope, let alone do a calculation there.

Canards are NOT simple, I've designed quite a few,
and studied others, especially Rutan's.
I find they can be optimised for a given air speed
and are much better than the conventional lay-out.
The main problem is designing the stall.
Ken

Anyone who can design a successful canard aircraft has my respect. I
didn't learn a whole lot about the design aspects from my son (he was
in flight test, not design), but what we did learn was everything
interacted with everything else. The job was interesting, but didn't
last long.

Your son sounds like a cool dude.

Yeah, I kinda like him. ;-)

The major PITA is designing aircraft to be efficient
at cruise, but safe all the way to stalling, and
recoverable. The difficulty is the movement of the
Center of Lift forward on the main wing as stall
begins.

I seem to remember a problem they had with the fuel load and the
center of lift moving close to (ahead/behind?) the CG. They also had
a problem with getting enough fuel on board (this was a single engine
turboprop) and where to put it to get the range they wanted.

I guess one way to figure that out is to place weigh
scales under the tires and then fill in increments,
to give the exact CG in horizontal pitch, that can
be readily calculated by the ratios. Fuel movement
for various pitchs would affect the CG.
While on the subject of trim, any excessive trim
required *should* indicate a possible excursion
from the appropriate CG - CL relation.

Alas, we'll never know if they could have solved their problems. The
company went out of business. They made some smart moves and some
not-so-smart moves (based on investor funding and lack of funding) and
finally closed the doors.

Regards
Ken
PS: I turned on a TV show "ECW" (no volume),
this is Friday PM here...near midnight, and two
busty chicks (a blonde and redhead) dressed up
in vinyl are beating each other up. It looks rough!

Back on the "old days" we used to watch Roller Derby on TV. Man, you
wouldn't want to mess with those ladies if you didn't want your head
handed to you on a platter.

Ron Kelley

On Jun 10, 9:29 am, Tina wrote:
One point about the lift fairy sitting on the tail I'd like to
understand is this -- actually a serious question. As I understand
it, nearly aways the tail is exerting a downward force, since the
center of lift is aft of the center of gravity on general aviation
airplanes (that is true, isn't it -- that the cg is forward of the
center of lift?). If so the tail really is imposing an increased load
on the airplane, adding to its effective weight. The question I have
is, how many pounds of weight is imposed aerodynamically for an
airplane that might be loaded with its CG at the forward limit? I
don't know where the center of lift is on ga airplanes -- a third of
the way aft of the leading edge of the wing is an ok approximation,
but a few inches error on an airplane weighing what ours does at max
could make a huge change in the required force to overcome the nose
heavy moment.

CG range for most typical lightplane airfoils is 25 to 33%
of the chord, while the centre of lift is around the 40% mark. The
load on the stab/elevator isn't all that big, but it's enough that
we'll teach you in groundschool that the aircraft's stall speed is
lower when loaded to the aft limit than when it's loaded to the
forward limit, and that the cruise speed is a little better at the aft
limit.

Dan

On Jun 9, 12:36 pm, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
On Jun 9, 1:19 pm, Gig 601Xl Builder

You never learned of trim until MSFS and you are going to design an
airplane. Fabulous!

Is it really necessary to understand the particular way it was done in
C172 to achieve the same result?

The same thing could be achieved using more electronics, less
mechanics, and the controls might be entirely different.


#1. Learn to fly first.
#2. Study the construction of aircraft, best done by taking an
aircraft maintenance course.
#3. THEN think about designing an airplane. No worthwhile design that
I'm aware of has ever been put forward by someone who was unfamiliar
with the way things are now and why they are that way, but I have seen
designs built by folks who "knew better" than everyone else. One of
those, built by a local guy who would take no constructive criticism
of his ideas, stalled at circuit altitude and dropped him, hard, on
the surface of the earth. He was such a stubborn guy that he got up
and walked away, but he neither built nor flew any more airplanes.
Needless to say, this design was neither inspected nor approved nor
licensed to any standard whatever.
Adding electronic controls to something like a trim tab on a
lightplane is one of those "better" ideas that has no basis in
reality. It adds complexity, which adds failure points and cost and
weight, none of which are welcome. It is no more accurate than manual
trim.

Dan

On Jun 14, 3:26 pm, Ron wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:33:00 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"



wrote:
On Jun 13, 9:23 pm, Ron wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:02:35 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"

wrote:
On Jun 12, 9:53 pm, Ron wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:43:07 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"

wrote:
On Jun 12, 5:08 am, Tina wrote:
Yes, the time my son spent with canard aircraft brought out all sorts
of interesting information about canards and the history of trying to
scale up Rutan's original concept Beech Starship. The smaller true
canards like the Long-eze are pretty good aircraft. However there is
a reason why we don't see large (six plus passenger) true canards.
It's the relationship between CG, fuel load, payload and range.
Apparently in the scale up process there is a point where it is no
longer practical.
Ron Kelley

Hmm, how the XB-70 or this,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Sonic_Cruiser

True, the XB-70 was a qualified success of a large canard type
aircraft. Most of it's problems were due to system failures and
trying to fly at Mach 3.0. The only control issues I know of were
related to overly sensitive pitch response to control inputs. Ref:http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Thanks for that link.

As far as I know the Boeing Sonic Cruiser hasn't gone beyond the
artists concept stage. I guess it's no accident that all the current
crop of passenger jets look alike. That could be partially due to the
reluctance of any large airframe manufacturer to take a gamble on
trying to certify any new "radical" design. Who knows.

Personally, I am intrigued by the three surface aircraft like the
Piaggio. They seem to have done pretty good with their design. One
wonders if given enough time, money and talent, there is some room for
improvement there.

Yes! That Piaggio is one real impressive piece of
aerodynamics, and it sounds very pilot user-friendly.
Very remarkable how they utilized the canard.

I think the aircraft business is extremely conservative.
KISS applies, also canards are difficult for the average
pilot to understand, (Hey man, you got that thar tail on
the wrong end :-).

Would it not also be true that passive stability is not as important
in larger modern airplanes? I would guess (again, I admit being
ignorant of the realities) that adding a 10% aerodynamically induced
increased load on bigger aircraft would be avoided for efficiency
reasons? It might be better to have enough fly by wire and computer
induced stability instead. I don't know enough about this stuff to
even find the back of an envelope, let alone do a calculation there.

Canards are NOT simple, I've designed quite a few,
and studied others, especially Rutan's.
I find they can be optimised for a given air speed
and are much better than the conventional lay-out.
The main problem is designing the stall.
Ken

Anyone who can design a successful canard aircraft has my respect. I
didn't learn a whole lot about the design aspects from my son (he was
in flight test, not design), but what we did learn was everything
interacted with everything else. The job was interesting, but didn't
last long.

Your son sounds like a cool dude.

Yeah, I kinda like him. ;-)

The major PITA is designing aircraft to be efficient
at cruise, but safe all the way to stalling, and
recoverable. The difficulty is the movement of the
Center of Lift forward on the main wing as stall
begins.

I seem to remember a problem they had with the fuel load and the
center of lift moving close to (ahead/behind?) the CG. They also had
a problem with getting enough fuel on board (this was a single engine
turboprop) and where to put it to get the range they wanted.

I guess one way to figure that out is to place weigh
scales under the tires and then fill in increments,
to give the exact CG in horizontal pitch, that can
be readily calculated by the ratios. Fuel movement
for various pitchs would affect the CG.
While on the subject of trim, any excessive trim
required *should* indicate a possible excursion
from the appropriate CG - CL relation.

Alas, we'll never know if they could have solved their problems. The
company went out of business. They made some smart moves and some
not-so-smart moves (based on investor funding and lack of funding) and
finally closed the doors.

Regards
Ken
PS: I turned on a TV show "ECW" (no volume),
this is Friday PM here...near midnight, and two
busty chicks (a blonde and redhead) dressed up
in vinyl are beating each other up. It looks rough!

Back on the "old days" we used to watch Roller Derby on TV. Man, you
wouldn't want to mess with those ladies if you didn't want your head
handed to you on a platter.

Wow, you're dating yourself. (I'm a 1953 boomer).
Yeah Roller Derby, Sat or Sun afternoon on TV,
and some actually got hurt, but I do respect those
stunt skills as long as it's healthy, (I used to wrestle
and do some martial arts).
I think it's mostly sexxy, with the men sometimes
wearing panties and the gals in vinyl.
I sure hope they would stop getting injured, and
just have fun.
Same as stunt flying, cut the risk, and show off
the skill.

Ron Kelley

Regards
Ken

On Jun 15, 1:30 pm, wrote:
On Jun 9, 12:36 pm, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

On Jun 9, 1:19 pm, Gig 601Xl Builder
You never learned of trim until MSFS and you are going to design an
airplane. Fabulous!

Is it really necessary to understand the particular way it was done in
C172 to achieve the same result?

The same thing could be achieved using more electronics, less
mechanics, and the controls might be entirely different.

#1. Learn to fly first.
#2. Study the construction of aircraft, best done by taking an
aircraft maintenance course.
#3. THEN think about designing an airplane. No worthwhile design that
I'm aware of has ever been put forward by someone who was unfamiliar
with the way things are now and why they are that way, but I have seen
designs built by folks who "knew better" than everyone else. One of
those, built by a local guy who would take no constructive criticism
of his ideas, stalled at circuit altitude and dropped him, hard, on
the surface of the earth. He was such a stubborn guy that he got up
and walked away, but he neither built nor flew any more airplanes.
Needless to say, this design was neither inspected nor approved nor
licensed to any standard whatever.
Adding electronic controls to something like a trim tab on a
lightplane is one of those "better" ideas that has no basis in
reality. It adds complexity, which adds failure points and cost and
weight, none of which are welcome. It is no more accurate than manual
trim.
Dan

I concur with Dan on his last two posts, yeah that's
rare, but anyway...
I designed and tested (models) of a fantastic plane,
but when I chose between putting my wife and kids
in my fantastic plane or into a proven (safe) C172,
I chose the C172.
Here's why: If my machine cracked up due to a fault
in my design, and killed my family except for me, I'd
feel obligated to shoot myself, though I wouldn't.

That said, build your machine, put it threw it's paces
then take on a passenger, who knows what the tag
"EXPERMENTAL" means on the side of the A/C,
and have fun.
Ken

On Jun 15, 3:30*pm, wrote:
On Jun 9, 12:36 pm, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

On Jun 9, 1:19 pm, Gig 601Xl Builder
You never learned of trim until MSFS and you are going to design an
airplane. Fabulous!

Is it really necessary to understand the particular way it was done in
C172 to achieve the same result?

The same thing could be achieved using more electronics, less
mechanics, and the controls might be entirely different.

#1. Learn to fly first.
#2. Study the construction of aircraft, best done by taking an
aircraft maintenance course.

I think the difference here is that I am not looking for something
evolutionary. I think that is a dead-end road. There is so much in
the world to learn, that if a researcher were to take this approach to
every attempt to advance a field, breakthroughs would hardly occur. In
fact, I think it is precisely this mentality that makes the current
process not as fruitful as it could be.

Perhaps the epitome of this type of thinking can be seen on the first
page of this site: http://www.roadabletimes.com/

Question: "How does one make a flying car?"
Answer: "One could start by taking a car and putting wings on it."

This is silly, and it is obvious to everyone now that it is silly, but
to at least one individual, it was not. That man spent countless
hours purusing a dream that would never materialize because his
approach was fundamentally flawed.

Now if one were to take the objectives of CAFE/PAV to make a new type
of vehicle:

http://www.cafefoundation.org/v2/pav_home.php

..and begin by starting with a "reference" design, that person might
share the same fate of he who made the "flying car" of the first link.

Some of you think it is foolish to embark upon a research path without
having a thorough understanding of what has been done. I think not. I
think, in many cases, one can be too familiar with what has been
done. Common knowledge does not necessarily liberate the mind. It
might stifle it. And if it seems arrogant not to follow the path
already tread by great designers, I think it would be even more
arrogant, after having studied what the great designers have done, to
think that one would make extraordinary advancements beyond what those
greats have done, within the same path.

True breakthroughs often require a breach of continuity, and
significant technological advancement occurs when those breaches occur
at semi-regular intervals.

A good example is vacuum tubes versus transistors.

Absolutely zero knowledge of vacuum tubes is required to understand
transistors. There is a bit of ancillary knowledge, like
thermodynamics, band-theory, and electrodynamics that is immediately
transferrable from vacuum tube theory to transitor theory, but
knowlege of vacuum tubes themselves is inessential.

But both act as amplifiers. Both essentially accomplish the same
thing as elements in a larger system.

Now imagine, toward the end of the vacuum tube era, that someone had
proposed to make a new type of amplifier that would be better on
almost every imaginable axes, but that person had no intention of
spending any time studying vacuum tubes. Would it have been necessary
to study vacuum tubes?

This is essentially what you are saying about PAV's. You are saying
that, the best way to proceed is to learn all I can about convential
aircraft. Why is that necessary? It presumes that the method by which
the objective is accomplish is similar to what has already been done
(tractor model, for example).

A better approach might be to make no assumptions at all, but focus on
the end result, then work backward, evaluating extant technologies
(applicable in, say, 2010), keeping a respectible distance from the
prevaling models of aicraft design, just as transitor theorist might
deliberately keep a respectable distance from vacuum tubes.

#3. THEN think about designing an airplane. No worthwhile design that
I'm aware of has ever been put forward by someone who was unfamiliar
with the way things are now and why they are that way, but I have seen
designs built by folks who "knew better" than everyone else. One of
those, built by a local guy who would take no constructive criticism
of his ideas, stalled at circuit altitude and dropped him, hard, on
the surface of the earth. He was such a stubborn guy that he got up
and walked away, but he neither built nor flew any more airplanes.
Needless to say, this design was neither inspected nor approved nor
licensed to any standard whatever.

A good way to win is avoid races where number of entrants is 1. It
would be extremely hard for someone in my opinion to make notable
improvement on existing aircraft design. The world is filled with high
skilled, highly trained, thoroughly experience, professional aircraft
designers who spent their lifetimes aiming for that extra 5%.

Extra 5% is not going to make a PAV, so if there is any chance of
succeeding at all, one should avoid paths where best-case scenario is
a 5% improvement.

* * * * *Adding electronic controls to something like a trim tab on a
lightplane is one of those "better" ideas that has no basis in
reality. It adds complexity, which adds failure points and cost and
weight, none of which are welcome.

I hear a lot of mechanics say this about cars. I think there should
be a qualification made thos these types of statments:

"It adds complexity, which adds failure points and cost and weight,
none of which are welcome, unless the person integrating the
electronics is an electrical engineer unperturbed by the idea of
adding electronic controls to a mechanical system."

It is no more accurate than manual
trim.

Perhaps not. But a computer will outperform a human 10x to 1x if the
goal is to optimize fuel consumption with automatic trim control.
There is literally countless scenarios where combination of software/
electronics would far exceed capabilities of a pilot to achieve same
objective.

As aviation advances, there will be much more employment of
electronics and software.

I am simply saying, whatever will exist 50 years from now (when many
of us will be dead, heheh)...whatever that thing is...start thinking
about *that* now, not something that was designed in 1950.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

On Jun 15, 6:34*pm, "Ken S. Tucker" wrote:
I concur with Dan on his last two posts, yeah that's
rare, but anyway...
I designed and tested (models) of a fantastic plane,
but when I chose between putting my wife and kids
in my fantastic plane or into a proven (safe) C172,
I chose the C172.
Here's why: If my machine cracked up due to a fault
in my design, and killed my family except for me, I'd
feel obligated to shoot myself, though I wouldn't.

That said, build your machine, put it threw it's paces
then take on a passenger, who knows what the tag
"EXPERMENTAL" means on the side of the A/C,
and have fun.
Ken-

Perhaps there will not be time in my life to see a design realized,
but if I were so fortunate, I would probably do just that...get in it
myself first.

But before doing that, I would let it fly itself over a desert, since
controls would be software anyway.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

On Jun 15, 9:16 pm, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
On Jun 15, 6:34 pm, "Ken S. Tucker" wrote:

I concur with Dan on his last two posts, yeah that's
rare, but anyway...
I designed and tested (models) of a fantastic plane,
but when I chose between putting my wife and kids
in my fantastic plane or into a proven (safe) C172,
I chose the C172.
Here's why: If my machine cracked up due to a fault
in my design, and killed my family except for me, I'd
feel obligated to shoot myself, though I wouldn't.

That said, build your machine, put it threw it's paces
then take on a passenger, who knows what the tag
"EXPERMENTAL" means on the side of the A/C,
and have fun.
Ken-

Perhaps there will not be time in my life to see a design realized,
but if I were so fortunate, I would probably do just that...get in it
myself first.
But before doing that, I would let it fly itself over a desert, since
controls would be software anyway.

That sounds like a good idea.
A 1/4 scale is good, it can be powered by a cheap
chainsaw motor.
Do you have any general ideas for a lay-out yet?

-Le Chaud Lapin-

If you lived close by, I'd give you some help.
Ken