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wingtips

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Joe Curtis

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2013
Messages
24
The previous builder of my S1 had crafted the wingtips out of aluminum on an English wheel-- a ton of work, but unfortunately, they were significantly asymmetrical. I have pulled them off and am looking at options. A previous post of Ed's on weight saving tips included using flat wing tips. A friend of mine owns several hobby shops and has a lot of experience with large scale RC models. He said many of their flying wings and acro models with flat tips were greatly improved by adding wingtip plates or "splates". Much more stable in cruise, high AOA and landing. It appears the wingtip plates function as a physical boundary for the vortex that forms a spanwise cylinder around the wing. It would be pretty easy to bolt on various "splate" configurations to test effectiveness. Does anyone have any experience with this on a sonerai? Might it improve high speed stability of the S1 in cruise? I'm leaning toward Hoerner tips for aesthetic reasons, but wanted to get some opinions before I jump in.

Joe
 

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I presume you know Fred sells the standard ones for $170/pair. Did you want to try something different to get better performance?

O'Bill
 
Yes. Jeff mentioned that he got significantly better landing characteristics with his Hoerner tips.
 
Hoerner wing tips. I filled the tanks today and measured the contents out. They each hold 14.3 litres. Or both hold 7.5 US Gals. Useful fuel is 28 litres or 7.4 gals.
Gravity fed the Hoerner tanks take 10 minutes to drain down to unusable fuel. They will be plumbed in to transfer to the AUX tank which holds 10 gals. Actually there is a transfer pump, which should take around 5 to 6 minutes.

Also I had swapped out all the 5/16" fuel fittings for 3/8 and the flex hoses as well. My 6 gal main tank is say 2 feet above the carb bowl with a full tank. With the new fittings, the gravity fuel flow is 108 GPH. Even so I have both engine and electric fuel pumps.
I thought some of you guys who are building would like to have this stuff.

Bill E
 
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