Amen
Amen again. Heck, all of dynamics is often missed. I would like to include apparent mass in my ciphering, but I don't know how. Can you point me to a source?
You betcha.
Yeah, I mean, people love to look at airfoils and try to predict how and airplane will fly, but it doesn't work that way. Airfoil data is steady state, 2D flow in a laminar stream. Not very real -world for a CLPA stunter twisting and gyrating about it's CG!
Sure, if I get tasked to head a design team for a new aircraft we go through mission segments - taxi, takeoff, loiter, cruise... and do the whole sizing exercise, determine the gross weight and then decide how much it will cost. Bet the company you got it right and pass the gate review.
But airfoil selection is more about efficiency, how much fuel can we cram into the wing...how much structure do we need to support 4 JDAMS at 4 G's?
Maneuvering is about shedding vortices off the TE, and how efficient your control areas are.
I remember back to either Lake Charles or Oshkosh, looking at the airfoil on Rabe's Mustang and thinking how weird it looked. It looked like an ellipse with a flap on it. But it worked. And back then, hang gliders were soaring just fine with Ragallo wings. And lifting body aircraft had the curve on the bottom!
Long story short - for a CLPA stunter, after years of study and lots of cold beers thinking about it... how you build it and the wing's aspect ratio are important, airfoil selection is way, way down the list.
A sharp trailing edge and a tight gap between the wing and the flaps trumps any airfoil. At least IMHO.
BTW Howard, busy here, give me a few days to find some stuff on the apparent mass....busy at work and this weekend Reading PA for Top Fuel dragsters. I LOVE being in a cloud of nitro!