Fuselage Shape

[Lon Enloe]

I've noticed that a large fraction of electric aerobatic planes with built-up fuselages (all flat foamies aside) have fuselages that are really wide in front, even the non-scale ones. Given that electric motors can pack a lot of power into a small cross-section, I've been wondering--is there an aerodynamic reason for this, or is this just a stylistic thing, to look like their full-size cousins with big, whopping engines?

[BMatthews]

It's to get the right distribution of side area for knife edge flying. When the model is sideways the fuselage is now your wing. To fly properly the area has to have it's 25% point centered pretty close to the CG to work well.

[raptor22]

I think he means horizontally. If so, then yeah, they want it to look more like an extra. Notice that some of the best KE planes do not have that wide fuselage..i.e. quiet storm and shockflier.

--Alex