From: "jason_wasylyk" <thetoothdoc@...>
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 11:05 PM
Subject: On lightness, stretched wings and 1/8" CF tailbooms
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 11:05 PM
Subject: On lightness, stretched wings and 1/8" CF tailbooms
Hi John,
I'm Zhack the author of the "Adding lightness..." article you
mentioned. I've never had my BUG weigh over 3 oz with the original
wing area. It weighed about 75g when it got away. This has been a
very consistent thermaller for me at this weight. I've got nothing
but good things to say about this bird.
There seems to have been some controversy about the use of a 1/8"
tailboom in the yahoo group. From reading the 190 or so posts, it
seems that there is quite a variation in the stiffnees of
commercially available CF tube. The one I used is from CST:
http://www.cstsales.com/Carbon/carbon-rods.htm
These have been more than stiff enough for my hardest SAL/DLG. I use
the V-tail with no gyro (a little right rudder held with the left
thumb on the left stick during launch) and she launches arrow
straight. I have just enough time to recover my grip on the Tx and
push the nose over as she reaches her launch apex.
My full force launch is rarely over 30 feet because of the extremely
low (2.5 oz/sq. ft.) wingloading. Mind you at that weight, that's
all I need to find lift.
The same trade off between weight=launch height and
lightness="floatiness" seems to exist even at the highest eschelon
of this discipline (eg. the 11.5oz Full House Taboo competing with
the 9.5 oz composite poly owing to its higher launch as a result of
its greater mass).
I'm by no means an accomplished HLG pilot and I rarely--in fact I'd
say never--have a less than 2 minute flight in a typical session of
10 to 20 throws. I regularly speck(ed) her out (past tense owing to
her tragic loss) and felt cheated if I didn't get in a five to 10
minute flight every weekend.
Anyway, I'm building the stretch version with a single 145mAh Kokam
for Rx juice so wing load should be down to <2oz/sq. foot. I'll post
how this flies when it's ready.
To sum up, the stock planform flies GREAT at low weight (see my
article in the yahoo groups files section) and the stretched wing
version can only be better. DON'T be afraid to use the 1/8" CF for
the boom--just make sure you get the right stuff (see link above)