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Someone I know is adding area to the propellers by gluing more plastic on.

Does anyone know what tissue tubes are? Bill Gowen has quite a few plans that use tissue tubes to affix the wing onto the motorstick, I have no idea what a tissue tube is and why it is preferred.

These are small tubes made of tissue paper rolled up on a round stick, saturated with glue, then slipped off the stick to dry. These form a socket of mount the wing or tail posts.

Wright stuff has a fairly generous weight goal. the tissue tubes are a very lightweight socket. We simply add a peice of 3/16" thick balsa, height matches the motor stick (3/8"), length about 1/2", to the side of the motor stick. This is drilled with a 1/16 bit vertically. then our 1/16" wing post (square hardwood) is forced through the hole. Soak the hole with thin CA (without post in there), let it dry thoroughly, and force the post through again. This si a bit heavier than tissue tubes, but is fast and easy.

There are plastic tubes that some are using now too, but i have no experience with them.

Chuck

If your plane is making very short turns. How do you make it do wider turns?

So when I did wright stuff freshman year we had like a piece of wood on one wing slanted so it can turn. The more angled or closer to 90 degrees the more it will fly in short circles. To make it wider, simply lower the piece of wood. This is what I did though.

Nesh wrote:If your plane is making very short turns. How do you make it do wider turns?

Depends on the method you're using to turn the plane. If you're tilting the stabilizer, tilt it less, if you're tilting the rudder/vertical stabilizer straighten those out. If your propeller is slightly angled, angle it less.

So we just got back from Regionals and have had an odd pattern lately. Many of our flights do decent, ~1:20 range. Many flights have kind of an upward trajectory and then start dropping into a slow, shallow, nosedive after a while, like a tilted ring/donut shape, and then hit or skim on the ground. Can't figure out why as we don't see any difference between the OK flights and the bad ones except for after launch. ~7.02 g, .080 rubber, winds/torque close to breaking. Any help appreciated.

jgrischow1 wrote:So we just got back from Regionals and have had an odd pattern lately. Many of our flights do decent, ~1:20 range. Many flights have kind of an upward trajectory and then start dropping into a slow, shallow, nosedive after a while, like a tilted ring/donut shape, and then hit or skim on the ground. Can't figure out why as we don't see any difference between the OK flights and the bad ones except for after launch. ~7.02 g, .080 rubber, winds/torque close to breaking. Any help appreciated.

The fact that it is nosediving may mean that the plane doesn't have enough lift to sustain itself. How fast is it ascending at the beginning? If it isn't ascending steeply, you may want to adjust the wings or something to give it extra lift so it can sustain the descent.

jgrischow1 wrote:So we just got back from Regionals and have had an odd pattern lately. Many of our flights do decent, ~1:20 range. Many flights have kind of an upward trajectory and then start dropping into a slow, shallow, nosedive after a while, like a tilted ring/donut shape, and then hit or skim on the ground. Can't figure out why as we don't see any difference between the OK flights and the bad ones except for after launch. ~7.02 g, .080 rubber, winds/torque close to breaking. Any help appreciated.

We see that exact same behavior sometimes too. You need to check if your wing is warped. Assuming that your are flying in a left-turn circle (counter clockwise as seen from above), you want the left wing to have slightly more angle of attack than the right wing. By left, I mean the side pointing in to the circle. You can break your wing slightly on the front left side and then re-glue it to have a little bit of an upward direction so that you get slightly more lift on the left side than the right side. This should help balance your plane when flying in a left-turn circle.

Also, pay close attention to your stabilizer. Your stabilizer should be flat or slightly positive angle of attack. If your stabilizer is aimed downward a little (negative angle of attack), it won't always have the effect you want and the effect will change with different plane speeds. Often that is the reason a plane turns nicely when climbing (high speed), but straightens out when descending (low speed). If your stabilizer has a negative angle of attack, change it to a positive angle of attack. That will, in-turn, cause you to nose dive at first, so you need to move the wing more forward on the motor stick and also maybe increase the angle of attack of your wing, but I would try just moving the wing forward 3-4 cm first. Better to stall first and work back than to nose dive first and break your propeller.

So check your wing for warping, check your stabilizer for warping, and check your stabilizer for a positive angle of attack.

Crtomir wrote:

jgrischow1 wrote:So we just got back from Regionals and have had an odd pattern lately. Many of our flights do decent, ~1:20 range. Many flights have kind of an upward trajectory and then start dropping into a slow, shallow, nosedive after a while, like a tilted ring/donut shape, and then hit or skim on the ground. Can't figure out why as we don't see any difference between the OK flights and the bad ones except for after launch. ~7.02 g, .080 rubber, winds/torque close to breaking. Any help appreciated.

We see that exact same behavior sometimes too. You need to check if your wing is warped. Assuming that your are flying in a left-turn circle (counter clockwise as seen from above), you want the left wing to have slightly more angle of attack than the right wing. By left, I mean the side pointing in to the circle. You can break your wing slightly on the front left side and then re-glue it to have a little bit of an upward direction so that you get slightly more lift on the left side than the right side. This should help balance your plane when flying in a left-turn circle.

Also, pay close attention to your stabilizer. Your stabilizer should be flat or slightly positive angle of attack. If your stabilizer is aimed downward a little (negative angle of attack), it won't always have the effect you want and the effect will change with different plane speeds. Often that is the reason a plane turns nicely when climbing (high speed), but straightens out when descending (low speed). If your stabilizer has a negative angle of attack, change it to a positive angle of attack. That will, in-turn, cause you to nose dive at first, so you need to move the wing more forward on the motor stick and also maybe increase the angle of attack of your wing, but I would try just moving the wing forward 3-4 cm first. Better to stall first and work back than to nose dive first and break your propeller.

So check your wing for warping, check your stabilizer for warping, and check your stabilizer for a positive angle of attack.

Thanks! We will work on that.