(I am using the term "fairing" because that seems to be the full size plane nomenclature for the hangs above and bellow the trailing edge of wing and stab that hide the hinge line gap).
The concensus of the "experts" here seems to be that, by moving the pivot point back, creating a round leading edge at the control surfaces and adding the "fairings", the resulting hinge line acts like a "sealed" hinge line.
Does it effectively create a sealed hinge line? Yes Is it worth the extra effort involved in the making of it? It is to me Is there any other benefits and how does it compare to a tape seal. Super free movement
I don't know if this topic should be in the Open Forum or Engineering board, but someone can sort that out later.
With a recent "influx" of Yatsenko Sharks here in Brazil, a discussion sprang at the field regarding hinge lines fairings vs. tape (I am using the term "fairing" because that seems to be the full size plane nomenclature for the hangs above and bellow the trailing edge of wing and stab that hide the hinge line gap).
The concensus of the "experts" here seems to be that, by moving the pivot point back, creating a round leading edge at the control surfaces and adding the "fairings", the resulting hinge line acts like a "sealed" hinge line.
Does it effectively create a sealed hinge line? Is it worth the extra effort involved in the making of it? Is there any other benefits and how does it compare to a tape seal.
I'm interested in your opinions on this.
There was at one time a gapless hinge. It was a heavy cloth that was stitched down the center. It was an iron on and you had to make sure the seam was centered. I had one of the sets and wound up removing the thread and cutting the cloth into separate hinge pieces. My self I'm not that good at flying the pattern, but I try to make the hinge gap as close as I can get it.
(Snip)
The various knuckle-type hinge deals are a different way to go about it. Al's car-hood experiments showed the "blended-flap" type of flap and knuckle hinge (like Keith Trostle's NATs winner), to everyone's surprise, gave less lift than a conventional hinge and flap. That may have been for the reason Al thought -that the upper surface discontinuity caused separation. His solution (much like Igor's) was to move the high point aft to that the fixed and moving sections faired in better with the very large deflections used at the time.
(Snip)
Brett
It is undeniable that the so called "gapless hinges" look amazing, but the extra work is killer. Perhaps if there were ready made hinges things would be different.
There is a way to tape these hinge lines. I have found on all of my stunt ships for the past 20 years or more that it is effective to tape the elevators, less effective to tape the flaps with these kind of hinge lines. When fabricating the TE fairing, allowances should be made to be able to tape the hinge line. For those that are interested, I will explain.