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Conference vmszoo::rc

Title:	Welcome To The Radio Control Conference
Notice:	dir's in 11, who's who in 4, sales in 6, auctions 19
Moderator:	VMSSG::FRIEDRICHS

Created:	Tue Jan 13 1987
Last Modified:	Thu Jun 05 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1706
Total number of notes:	27193

1405.0. "Power Plane Airfoils" by USRCV2::BLUMJ () Fri Jan 24 1992 13:28

    I am looking for some input on power plane airfoils.  Airfoils
    and drag considerations are hot topics in the glider world,
    which is where my experience is, but I do not read or hear much
    about it in the power plane notes/articles.  
    
    I am now interested in flying power planes, but have decided to
    use electric power instead of IC engine.  Since the power to
    weight ratio of electric is not as good as wet power, I would
    like minimize the drag, thereby increasing the overall speed and
    efficiency(which allows the use of less batteries and results in
    lower weight).  
    
    Other than the venerable CLARKY I am not familiar with other suitable
    options for power planes.  I understand that pattern ships use
    symmetrical airfoils and many sport planes use semi-symmetrical
    airfoils.  How do these airfoils relate to the CLARKY in terms of
    stall characteristics and drag?  
    
                                                  
                                                     Thanks,
    
                                                     Jim

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1405.1		CLOSUS::TAVARES	John -- Stay low, keep moving	`Mon Jan 27 1992 10:40`	5
	There's some discussion of this in the airfoils note, the one that has the foil drawing program. In a nutshell, look at the NACA series; the 2415 is a popular foil for sport flying, and the 0009 is used often for aerobatics. Of course, each of these foils can be made thicker or thinner until they "look right".
1405.2	symetrical airfoils info wanted	KBOMFG::KNOERLE		`Wed Jun 17 1992 09:44`	15
	I'm looking for some symetrical airfoils for a future fun-flight (a' la Twister) and a future pattern plane. I have the coordinates available for NACA0009, SD8020 and E168. These can easily be thickened or thinned, no prob. Now, the SD8020 and 0009 look alike, but the Eppler looks significantly different. Does anybody has a recommendation for the one or the other ? Bernd (my current project uses the SD8020 with 15% thickness, should be a high (relatively) manouvrable, small backjard plane. Since it is not finished I don't know about it's real flying charakteristics)
1405.3	The Evil One Is Who To Ask...	CXDOCS::TAVARES	John-Stay low, keep moving	`Wed Jun 17 1992 11:39`	7
	My own humble and inexpert opinion is that for power planes, especially using the informal foam cutting or balsa/monokote construction, you're working too hard with anything besides a NACA foil. This is especially true of the newer Selig, etc foils since they inherently depend on very close tolerances for their performance gains. Go easy on yourself, the 009 is tried and true. Personally, I like the semi-symetrical 24xx series, particularly the 2412 and 2415.
1405.4	Book of Light Aircraft Airfoils	LHOTSE::DAHL	Customers do not buy architectures	`Thu Sep 09 1993 13:11`	12
	For future reference: I have a book which contains about a hundred airfoils with their lift and drag curve plots. I originally bought it for the curve data to use with the FLIGHT simulator. If people are interested in lift and draft coefficient data for a particular airfoil, I could look it up to see if it's in this book. I can't recall the name of the book, something like Airfoils for Light Aircraft (full scale), compiled by Rice. All of the airfoils are fairly old, from the 1920s to 1930s mostly (determined by the wind tunnel test dates on the graph plates). -- Tom