Can anybody shed any light on this flying wing? Came across it at our local airfield in a hangar and am tempted to see if the owner would part with it.
I had a wing with tips similar but fixed. One popped off during flight and caused an inverted flat spin. All I could do was back of the gas and watch it smack-down. It was truely awsome! Had a bunch of on-lookers and everything. Think I'll glue the tip back on and have at it again.
I will go out to the field on there next open house and try to track down the owner as well as getting some photos of the other side. Depending on construction I was think that I conversion to electric would be the direction I would go. I am very curious to see if it has landing gear otherwise launching this will require a bungee.
Thanks for the input everyone I will keep you posted.
As Mike said, I believe the tips are rudders. They are "tipping" to the side like that because the connection is loose. A beautiful airplane. Looks like a manta ray.
The tips look like they're intended to be used as rudders, similar to the Rutan Vari-Eze. To yaw, you move only the rudder on the inside wing -- lift and drag due to lift provide yaw. It also provides the option to deploy both rudders to get some extra drag on approach. The flaps being split inboard/outboard are also a nice feature, as the inboard ones may be far enough forward to provide nose-down trim -- it depends on if there's enough sweep to move the CP far enough back. Otherwise, there's going to be trim changes with elevon deflection.
I'd be concerned about pitch-up as ernani reis mentions, as well as a lot of lost thrust due to flow separation over that big fuselage.
As Chris says -- integration is difficult with flying wings, unless the whole package is designed together.
If you plan do something like that, beware of the lift from the body, when the wing stalls, the body will probably be still generating lift ahead from the CG, resulting in a sudden, uncontrollable, pitch up. There are reports of a bad UAV that crashed that way.
I agree with stikmunkey. CG is a b**ch with flying wings. If you don't design the whole thing around your payload, you're going to be struggling to move things around and shave grams forevermore. Flying wings are good for custom-designed packages, but they're a poor general purpose UAV plaftorm.
Comments
I had a wing with tips similar but fixed. One popped off during flight and caused an inverted flat spin. All I could do was back of the gas and watch it smack-down. It was truely awsome! Had a bunch of on-lookers and everything. Think I'll glue the tip back on and have at it again.
Post more pics it looks cool!
Thanks for the input everyone I will keep you posted.
C.
I'd be concerned about pitch-up as ernani reis mentions, as well as a lot of lost thrust due to flow separation over that big fuselage.
As Chris says -- integration is difficult with flying wings, unless the whole package is designed together.
the arrangement is very efficient
There is a kit, similar to the one in the picture, copied (in scale) from a Brazilian navy UAV, for sale, they call it "filming wing":
http://knw.com.br/Loja/product_info.php/cPath/36/products_id/106
Earl
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