StanFoster
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2003
- Messages
- 17,139
- Location
- Paxton, Il
- Aircraft
- Helicycle N360SF
- Total Flight Time
- 1250
I thought I would start a new thread on my "attempt" to make some landing gear fairings for my Helicycle. Here are some pictures of a posterboard pattern that initially made me realize this was within my skill level, some aluminum flashing that is painted white and brown on opposite sides. This stuff is perfect and it is very tough.
A picture of my landing gear that exposes 8 feet of 1.5 inch tubing to the airstream. Any source on aerodynamic streamlining shows there is a lot of potential drag reduction here. As mentioned in the other thread it figures out to 8.8 horsepower being consumed to pull these through the air at 110 mph. This can in a perfect world be reduced to 9% of that....but I am not in a perfect world, nor is my work.....and if I can carefully align my airfoils chordlines with the airstream, I am shooting for only getting the drag down to 20%. I feel that is a very achievable conservative number....and would give me 7 extra horsepower to go either in reduced collective....or higher top end.
Like I have mentioned....these must look nice or they are not going on. I have a fast enough ship, and wont trash its looks to gain 5 mph.
If I fail at this attempt...it wont be my first failure in life...and I will still learn from this. This project will either succeed or fail quickly as it is #1 priority to do this month. In case anyone is wondering about my windshield project...it is happily in a stalled mode as I find the time to get back on that project.
The last picture is my digital level. I am going to 0 it out with the skids nice and level in my shop....then make a 100 mph flight tomorrow. It has a feature that is called a "Hold" button. Whatever the angle the skids are down in the front...I will know EXACTLY!!!! I will then optimize the airfoils chordline to be parallel to the actual angle that my Turbinator is flying at 100 mph. I chose 100 mph..because I have decided to optimize my cruise at that speed....and just be enjoying less collective load to my drivetrain. I will still be able to gain the extra mph that whatever my extra 7 horse will give me.
Stay tuned...success or failure.....it will be coming out this week. I have several stairshop glueups that will allow me an hour between to pursue this new project.
Stan
Stan
A picture of my landing gear that exposes 8 feet of 1.5 inch tubing to the airstream. Any source on aerodynamic streamlining shows there is a lot of potential drag reduction here. As mentioned in the other thread it figures out to 8.8 horsepower being consumed to pull these through the air at 110 mph. This can in a perfect world be reduced to 9% of that....but I am not in a perfect world, nor is my work.....and if I can carefully align my airfoils chordlines with the airstream, I am shooting for only getting the drag down to 20%. I feel that is a very achievable conservative number....and would give me 7 extra horsepower to go either in reduced collective....or higher top end.
Like I have mentioned....these must look nice or they are not going on. I have a fast enough ship, and wont trash its looks to gain 5 mph.
If I fail at this attempt...it wont be my first failure in life...and I will still learn from this. This project will either succeed or fail quickly as it is #1 priority to do this month. In case anyone is wondering about my windshield project...it is happily in a stalled mode as I find the time to get back on that project.
The last picture is my digital level. I am going to 0 it out with the skids nice and level in my shop....then make a 100 mph flight tomorrow. It has a feature that is called a "Hold" button. Whatever the angle the skids are down in the front...I will know EXACTLY!!!! I will then optimize the airfoils chordline to be parallel to the actual angle that my Turbinator is flying at 100 mph. I chose 100 mph..because I have decided to optimize my cruise at that speed....and just be enjoying less collective load to my drivetrain. I will still be able to gain the extra mph that whatever my extra 7 horse will give me.
Stay tuned...success or failure.....it will be coming out this week. I have several stairshop glueups that will allow me an hour between to pursue this new project.
Stan
Stan