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Building Tips and technical articles. => Building techniques => Topic started by: Jim Oliver on August 26, 2007, 07:12:49 PM
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Some time ago there was some discussion of the Geo Bolt wing. I haven't been able to find the answer to my question with the search feature.
Question: Does the term "Geo Bolt Wing" refer to the wing used on Billy Werwage's Thunderbolt?
If not--then what??
Thanks
Jim
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According to this--yes. (Model Aviation, March 2005, page 135)
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He had a design that was published that was called "The Geo XL" and that is more or less the wing that was used for his Thunderbolt design, of which he built a few. The over all aerodynamic numbers for the T-Bolt may be the same as the Geo XL also.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
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Sorry Dan, but the Geo-Bolt wing is vastly different than the Geo-XL wing. I should know because each of those original wings were built in my shop in Lost-Foam fixtures that I cut. Bill used to visit for a week or more at a time and we'd build wings for his models during those visits.
The Geo-XL wing is a fairly thin (2 1/8 - inch at the root), fairly low aspect ratio design. The Geo-Bolt is a higher aspect ratio wing with a thicker root rib and a further forward high point airfoil.
The term "Geo" is actually not really indicative of the wing construction. The Geo-XL and the Geo-Bolt wings are actually built in the Warren Truss configuration… the ribs are angled, but do not intersect. An actual Geodetic wing would have ribs that intersect and interlock with each other (think egg crate).
Interestingly, both of those wing designs have been used in many designs by other modelers, and both wing designs have produced extremely good flying models. Perhaps that's an understatement... Dave Fitzgerald used Bill's Geo-Bolt wing design in his ThunderGazer and has won many Nats crowns with that design, as well as one World Championship! Dave built his ThunderGazer wings using the Lost-Foam method also.
I'm attaching two photos that clearly show the aspect ratio difference between the two wing designs. One is Bill with his Razorback Thunderbolt (the first model to have been fitted with the:Geo-Bolt" wing design), and one that shows the two original Geo-XL models (that photo also shows my son, Robby with his Geo-Star design, which is essentially a downsized Geo-XL, but with a different set of airfoils. This is the very same wing design that I used in the Genesis Extreme. The photo also shows my second - and very ill-fated - Saturn).
And, as Paul Harvey used to say, "That's the rest of the story."
Bob Hunt