Hello Brett,
Interesting comments there on venturi sizes. Does the reverse hold? That is, can you keep that venturi area for smaller engines? I appreciate that at some point, suction will decrease and lack of fuel feed will require a reduction in venturi area.
Sort of, yes. Since you only need so much HP in a static sense over a range of usable model sizes, the venturi size stays pretty close to the same. I think David Fitzgerald's PA75 is set up to have about the same, or slightly smaller, choke area than the stock venturi on a 20FP. I haven't tracked it recently, but I know it was that way when he won the WC with it. It's certainly putting out more power overall (and sucking enough extra air to also suck 2.5x as much fuel although it is being used much less efficiently), but this is a fundamental concept. Since we had enough power (i.e. since we had piped 40's) "getting more power" has not been an issue.
I think I posted in another thread, but the range for most common stunt airplanes of normal size is something like 0.0175 to 0.0190 square inches of choke area. It matters a lot how you get the area ("true" venturi as Randy calls it, "restrictor" as Randy refers to it, or spigot/"fuel post" as Frank Williams put it) but it usually winds up there, and if you are too far off that, you are probably messing up.
Of course, if you were to push the PA75 to the same level of fuel draw you get with a 20FP, you would wind up with a HUGE venturi and massively more power. I think it would be fairly easy to get upwards of 5 hp out of it, more than most lawnmowers. Power that you would have no way of using or dealing with. Recall that David's airplane is about the size of the ST46 airplanes from 30 years ago.
Cue up the counter-examples and all the people lecturing about "can't have too much power". We know pretty well how much power it takes to fly a stunt airplane around in level flight at 5.25 second laps, if you have more than that you will be too fast, period, and it's not an opinion or a debatable point. What it does *in the maneuvers* is another story but you have to figure out how to deal with it in level flight first.
Brett