Did not mean that..
Bad wording on my part.
Should have said, you did away with the frontal bulge and the rear fuselage. No need for coke bottle. ;-)
I would love to talk to Paul. I may even make arrangements to go visit him. He lives in a real nice area and I now have four friends that live in nice places in AZ and they all keep inviting me over.
I saw his Gull right about the time he was finishing up with the re-cover and HKS installation. I went to his place a couple months later and a new owner told me he had sold out and moved. I have talked to Chuck Ross a couple of times since but he never had his contact info handy.
Is he building the Sonex kit he bought?
Loren
--- On Fri, 2/25/11, thundergul@aol.com <thundergul@aol.com> wrote:
From: thundergul@aol.com <thundergul@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [Earthstar_Aircraft] Re: low drag airfoil for fairings?
To: Earthstar_Aircraft@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, February 25, 2011, 1:09 PM
Hi Loren
I am sorry if I made you think that I was saying you were stupid. that is
certainly not what I mean to say. Nor is it how I feel.
Paul has sold his plane and ordered another one. this one he is
building from a kit but has spent much time in the shop drilling lighting holes
in the lighting holes. and has knocked about 10 lb out of it all ready.
Hi is the one that I gave my wheel pant molds to finish up. so if he has
time they should be really slick. if you don't have his contact info I can get
that for you.
Happy Flying,
Mark
In a message dated 2/25/2011 11:15:39 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
meflyslo@yahoo.com writes:
--- In Earthstar_Aircraft@yahoogroups.com,
thundergul@... wrote:
>
>
> Hi Loren
> The "Coke
Bottle" shape is called the area rule. It has to do with the area
> of
the exposed surfaces on an aircraft and the way they interact with the
> mass flow around the aircraft. The wing causes Pressure deference's
on the
> fuselage and it turns out that narrowing the fuselage at the
point were the
> wing is imposing its effects on it works to reduce the
size of the mass
> flow disturbance. If you think of an airplane
traveling through the
> undisturbed air and causing a bubble of
pressure and a turbulent wake behind it that
> is reduced pressure
sucking it bakwords. than any thing that is done to
> reduce the volume
of the disturbance results in increased speed without
> addition of
more power.
> Happy Flying
> Mark
>
Thanks Mark, I
followed the automobile speed record attempts for years and was a mechanic on
mach 2 jet aircraft for several years so I know how important shapes become at
high speed. Change the shape some and get more speed but it soon comes down to
more HP. As you all know already, it takes a lot more HP at 100 mph to gain
another mph than it does at 50mph so instead why not cut down on drag and the
wheel pants are about the only place left on the TG etc.
I am not totally
stupid, I know why you designed your planes with the engine back where it is
and I have loved them from the very start.
Do you know if Paul
McDonald ever made his main gear pants?
Before he moved to AZ, he landed
at my place with his new nose gear pant and it looked awesome. He brought it
up before he installed it to show me the job he did and I was very impressed
indeed. It was made in two pieces and designed to separate (horizontally, not
lengthwise) for removal and installation. It was tiny compared to the ones
Aircraft Spruce sells. He bought a DVD on glass layup and followed it step by
step.
BTW, the nose gear was narrowed some so the pant could be made even
narrower.
Loren