Originally Posted by
AZFlyer
The airplane actually flew pretty well. We over estimated the power required and so our chosen motor got the airplane flying within about 10 feet or so. Way too much power but it was fun to watch the airplane rip it self off the ground.
Its been too long for me to remember now, but the airfoil design was based off of one of the tried and true NACA designs. We had a small wind tunnel and tested a section of the wing in it; sure enough, it worked.
The best part was when the pilot lost the plane in the sun after about 5 minutes of successful flight and stalled it. When the plane came back in sight it was in a vertical dive that was probably recoverable, but he hesitated and for some reason ended up attempting an inverted negative g recovery. The wings ripped off and the whole bit splashed into the dirt. Some people were disappointed, but I thought it was awesome.
Did you use a fully symmetrical design? With the models they are remarkably forgiving -- I used to build some that I thought would *not* fly but they would get up and be pretty ok - any "teardrop" shape will have adequate flight properties... may not be great, but always adequate. Wish I had a wind tunnel - that sounds like fun!