HI Ted,
Thanks for your views on this! Since we both have the same "friend" (in my case maybe even closer! LOL!!) I am very interested in this, also. I wouldn't have been surprised with the Chizler, being a basic Nobler wing according to Fast Richard. The Ruffy was always a plane I liked as a "kid", but never built or flew one for some strange reason. The aspect ratio deal is something I really knew nothing about when those planes were "new". I DID find my experiences with the USA-1 to be eye opening, though. At 54 oz. with a T&L ST G .51, it would handle the worst the Huntersville field had (and did! LOL!!) and feel solid. A fairly low drag design with adequate power it seems.
Do you have a favorite between the "Original Nobler" and the '57 GB Nobler? Haven't had the "Original" yet, but I have some time with the '57.
One more: I *think* I remember you having an Ares for the NATS once. How about that design compared to the Noblers, Ruffy, Chizler (a cousin)?
I find the choice of powerplants to be somewhat critical "now" in the Classic ships. It does make things easier, I feel, with some "extra" ponies up front. At least compared to the tried and true Fox .35. Less managing needed of scrubbing off air speed it seems. Just a much more comfortable "feel". Then again, I plan on powering a couple of the Classics (and Nos. 30) with "period engines" anyway. One thing is for certain, I can build lighter and straighter than "back in the day"!
On a side note: do you know ANYONE who has the Excitation wing available?
Thanks for commenting,
Bill
Hi Bill,
I expect you do know him a little better than me! I just wanted to be sure not to step on anybodies toes when I decided to post my comments. Not my place to do so.
Yeah, aspect ratios are a very big deal as they are the primary source of drag produced by a wing of given area. For a competitive aerobatic aircraft the range is fairly narrow. We can accept some higher than historic norms but getting much lower than 5/1 starts making you pay the price and demands more of the powertrain. A very high aspect ratio ship--my 1977 720 square inch nameless ship--would have flown competitively with a strong OS .35S. It had an A/R of a little over six and was very light. I'll try to post a picture of it.
The reason A/R is so important is that it takes "X" amount of lift to do a loop or fly a corner, etc. How much drag is produced while providing that lift is a function of A/R and changes made to the airfoil to increase the lift of which the surface is capable...but producing more drag while doing so. A very high A/R of a given area would need much less in the way of high lift devices because lift increases substantially with modest angle of attack increases (a low A/R requires much more A of A...watch the body angle of an SST on final approach for an example and compare it to a higher A/R subsonic jet such as a B-757).
I've no doubt the USA-1 does a great job. One beat me often enough. I've never had the privilege of flying one, however. It's clearly a substantially more updated design than most of those we're discussing.
My experience with a green box Nobler is very limited (even less than with the original version that Shareen finished for me). I built one as a teenager (I remember it was white with yellow and black trim). It looked very nice and may have been a good airplane although I crashed it the first time I took it out. Some sort of control failure as I recall but don't take that as gospel. I had probably 25 or 30 flights on the original version and (after adding a wart to the outboard flap to compensate for the large amount of asymmetry) it flew wonderfully. That's about as far as I can go. My early Moby Dick jet styled ships (1974 and 1976 nats ships) were Nobler wings with funny curled down wingtips and a higher aspect ratio tail of slightly larger than stock Nobler area. My memories of those two ships are mixed. Both, however, qualified for the final in their respective years and place somewhere in the middle of the pack.
I've had two Ares in my lifetime. The first I built right after attending the 1959 Nats and watching Billy kick butt with his dark blue one. The second was built for the first VSC held in Los Angeles. There's a picture of that first one attached (I hope). Both of mine were built from the magazine plans and the tail on those plans was very small. The ones Billy flew at VSC were apparently from a later version because the tail was significantly larger. With the large flaps it was really important to reduce the flap travel and balance the ship carefully to get a decent pattern out of mine. The ship tended to by sluggish in response at the start of the flight and got very "flicky" towards the end of the pattern as the fuel burned out. That change in response is predictable and present in pretty much any of the period airplanes with tail areas often as little as 16% of the wing area. Although I remember liking my original (I was building it when I first started dating Shareen in high school) the VSC version came after a lot of exposure to more up to date designs and I didn't particularly like flying it for the reasons above. Phil Granderson also tried to fly it at a later VSC and will be happy to second my impressions.
I'm not sure I totally agree about the powerplants being a big issue with the "classic" "Classics" like the Nobler and T-Bird and their kin. 500 to 550 square inch ships of good design fly well with a "good" Fox or an old McCoy Redhead .35 or .40. Even better a little small case Johnson "s". The bigger ships that became de rigueur in the '60s probably improve more with some of the good modern stuff such as the Aero Tiger, LA .46, the Stalkers, etc. The majority of my classic ships were powered with the engines I mentioned until the little Rustler .40 came along with its rear exhaust option. I love the cleaner look and the already very light engine fits nicely into a classic ship with the muffler moved behind the engine thus not making a nose heavy CG problem. It is not particularly powerful, however. I've needed to find a really good combination of fuels and props on the various airplanes I've flown with it; the Tucker Special, the original Nobler and the Ruffy.
As I recall, Bobby Hunt cut the wing for my Excitation. I'd check with him as he usually keeps everything. The Imitation airfoil was very similar although the wing was tapered more and had the swept forward hingeline. As I recall, the plans showed the root and tip ribs so any competent foam cutter ought to be able to do one up pretty easily.
Good to chat with you Bill.
Topic: Chizler versus Ruffy (Read 3096 times)