Wednesday 21 August 2013

Flying Flea, insufficient throw at the main wing.


The flea is dependant on the wing incidence of the main wing for attitude of the plane.
If hooked up as it is, I think the change in angle of attack of the main wing is insufficient.
Yesterday, I thought of moving the lug points closer to the wing pivot.
I could do a temporary lug with temporary pushrod to see how the flea flies.
An alternative is to extend the actuating arms.

The actuating arms are approx. 17mm long and the throw is approx. 10mm.

The distance between wing pivot point and lug points is approx. 65mm and the distance between wing pivot point and trailing edge is approx. 90mm.

If I want the throw at the trailing edge to be 20mm, then the actuating arms should be approx. 24mm.

I don't fancy additional lugs, I don't fancy changing the actuating arms, so maybe I should extend the actuating arms instead.

A bit of nylon fishing line to form an eyelet at the end of 25mm long carbon fibre rod of 1.5mm diameter, heat shrunk to existing actuating arms might be good enough.

How long should my wing pull wires or pushrods be? How to make it adjustable? How much of wing incidence when neutral?

The first thing to answer should be the fore wing incidence, relative to the rear wing. Do I want the rear wing to exert a downward depressing (stabilising) force like a normal flat plate horizontal stabiliser or to utilise the rear wing to provide some lift as well? Since the rear wing is already a lifting section, I choose that it should contribute to the overall lift. So if it is going to lift and I don't want the front wing to underwork either, I shall arrange 0-0 degree decalage (if you consider treat both wings to be a set of biplane). Motor is also at 0 degrees, so increasing the power to the motor should accelerate the model causing both wings to increase lift due to increased speed and minimal loss or correcting force.

With everything at zero degree, how shall I have adjustable pushrods/pull-lines? If it is pushrods, I could use collet, I could take use heatshrink (which 'ought' to be tight enough but I have no way of knowing until I try), or I could just have a kink. If it is pull-lines, I could use loops and aluminum tubing.

I think I could also just use one actuating end with kinked wire pushrod to determine the length after flying it.  Then when it is flying ok, to fit the other actuating arm extension and to replace the kinked wire with pull-lines, and if found that push rod is required, to heat shrink on a carbon fibre rod to one of the pull-line.

Or shall I just install 2 actuating extension arms and use pull-lines without adjustable feature? Relying on quick and stable jabbing of the transmitter?

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