stunthanger.com
Building Tips and technical articles. => Building techniques => Topic started by: John Watson on December 08, 2017, 10:16:51 AM
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I note that some wings have a thick airfoil while others have thin airfoils . Is there an advantage one or the other? Also to address the width of the wing , tapered or straight?
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John;
I think you are best served performing a search of the "Stunt Design" sub-forum. These topics and a host of others (e.g. stabilizer/elevator thickness relative to wing thickness) have been discussed therein.
r/
Dave
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Thanks
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Subscribing.
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Here's the results of my search:
(Sorry, no matches were found)
Search Engine out of tune?
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Thicker airfoils produce more lift & drag than thin airfoils. Since stunters want to go slow & turn tight, a really fat airfoil is good.
Speed, racing, and carrier just want to go fast & don't need to turn, so thin is good.
Combat is a compromise between speed & turning.
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Not a simple question
The thicker airfoil produces added drag that requires LOTS of extra power. Further, all else being the same, wake turbulence is also higher in a thicker airfoil.
Like ALL things it is a compromise. If you can build light, a thinner airfoil has some benefits.
A thicker airfoil is more forgiving to weight, but the power needs are greater
There are other elements also including aspect ratio and LE radius.
Jim Hoffman
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Keep in mind that the flap is PART of the airfoil, (moving part).
When you count thickness in % , you MUST count the fixed part + flap together.
Finally the achievable Cy (lift coefficient) depends not only on the thickness, but the camber appeared by deflected flap, the attack angle (alpha), radius of leading edge and several others...
Cx (drag coefficient) depends mostly on the thickness.
The turning ability of model is another question...
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Yes .