Float AOA on Slow Stick

[flipstart]

Built a set of foam floats for my slow stick from a set of plans posted by Jim on Parkflyer forum. They work great-just wondered about the AOA on the floats. My back support is about 1/8" shorter than the front-do you measure the AOA by the top of the floats vs the fuselage or what? Seems like the plane may fly better if the top of the floats was level with the fuselage. lP.S. This should be a great forum-flying off water is great-even if retrieval is sometimes scary.

Flip Start

[Ironsides]

Flip:

The AOA is measured from the imaginary line going through the leading edge and the trailing edge of the wing (chord line) against the top of the floats. In general, the vertical line from the leading edge of the wing to the top of the floats is slightly greater than the line dropped vertically from trailing edge of the wing (which is what you have).

In theory, as the floats plane along the water the top of the floats is parallel to the water surface. In such position, the wing chord line is slightly positive and will lift the plane off the water.

David

[flipstart]

Thanks David-I did see an article-might have been the one by Cunningham-where the dimensions were up to the chord line on the wing. The SS has a fairly agressive AOA anyway, may go back and lengthen the back strut to get about 1/2" AOA, floats would then be about level with fuselage.

[jimsp]

I probably didn’t make it clear on my thread about the SS floats (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=123956)
but because the wing on the SS is positive relative to the fuselage I try to mount the floats so the tops are parallel to the fuselage.

[flipstart]

Jimsp-thanks for the follow up-I should have made mine level also but somewhere I had read to make the back strut 1/8" shorter and forgot about the amount of AOA that the slow stick has, made a second set wider and level-flys great now-I went through all the formulas for float design and your dimensions were right on, float building is a lot of fun as well as flying off water. Still need a boat from time to time.

Flipstart