Yep, remember the purpose of flaps is to increase descent ANGLE without increasing speed.. Dang, I wish I had an electric sailplane with flaps.

Originally posted by Joni Piililä
Well this is the case if you do have a field which don't have
high obstacles. However it is not possible to have a steep approach at reasonable airspeed with flaps 30 - 40 degrees.
When flaps are set to 80 degrees, its possible to start a steep approach after high obstacle is behind plane and still make the landing without hitting the end of landing area.

Joni,

That's exactly why I want the flaps. I get tired of hearing the you don't need that much deflection, you can just use spoilers, just use a long approach, etc... All of these are viable solutions if you have enough field space. If you have launch and land steeply, then you need steep deflections.

You know what's funny how people extrapolate their situations into yours, and then make inappropriate comments. Finally, I have seen spoilerons, full flaps, and partial flaps. I want FULL CROW. Crow will stop a plane in the air (well pretty close to stop it).

Jay

Originally posted by soholingo
Joni,

That's exactly why I want the flaps. I get tired of hearing the you don't need that much deflection, you can just use spoilers, just use a long approach, etc... All of these are viable solutions if you have enough field space. If you have launch and land steeply, then you need steep deflections.

You know what's funny how people extrapolate their situations into yours, and then make inappropriate comments. Finally, I have seen spoilerons, full flaps, and partial flaps. I want FULL CROW. Crow will stop a plane in the air (well pretty close to stop it).

Jay

Wow! Get up on the wrong side of bed today??

Folks are trying to be helpful and give their honest opinions and experiences. Sorry if I was the one that started the comments on flaps that got you upset.

Originally posted by Gary Retterbush
Wow! Get up on the wrong side of bed today??

Folks are trying to be helpful and give their honest opinions and experiences. Sorry if I was the one that started the comments on flaps that got you upset.

No I didn't. I understand your point Gary, but it sounds as if you are discouraging people to do the extended flaps because it works for you. You have to understand that others may have other goals.

The comment wasn't directly soley at you, and don't take it as a condemnation of you personally, (heck you are the reason I bought a mini graphite, now if I don't like the plane THEN I will blame you )

I have just had several people tell me repeatedly "why do you need flaps?" And they don't fly in spaces the size of football fields surrounded by trees. Sorry if I seemed angry, I really am not...

No strain; no pain!

BTW, I have flown the M-G in the Alps and the start and landing areas are pretty wild by any standard.

Fully agree that there are times and places that one needs all he can get in the way of "stoppers". As I said before, to each his own.

The M-G is a real lady in the landing pattern no matter where it may be.

A summary of my opinion / experience of MG flaps

The whole idea of having flaps is to increase lift and drag. This combined with a right amount of lifted ailerons makes it possible to fly with lower speed while landing and/or it allows steeper approaches.

With "normal flaps (30-40 degrees)" combined with lifted ailerons (crow) the MG is easy to land and can be landed on a small spot.

With 80 degrees flaps and crow the drag is even larger (propably the lift is also somewhat larger) and you can make a very steep approach and the speed remains reasonable (as Joni explained). I have seen Joni's plane land and the difference to 30-40 flaps is big.

80 degrees is good for a really small field or if you have fly in over high obstacles or if you just like steeper approaches.

If you have good quality servos, 80 degrees flaps are no problem while in the air, however you have to be carefull to take the flaps back to smaller angles before you touch down (to avoid flaps touching ground and create servo- and/or other damage)

What you need depends on two things
1) what kind of flying field you have
2) how you want to fly your plane

Good thing is that you can try by youself and then decide what is good for you.
I have been happy with my 40 degrees, but I will try the 80 degrees (just to feel the difference).

Olli

Yes, the whole idea of flaps is to be able to make a steeper approach without gaining speed.... Flaps increase drag (keep you from going fast) and flaps increase lift (keep you from stalling at that slower speed). I'm actually surprised they have just recently seemed to be catching on with F5B, F5F type planes.. Soho and I witnessed whizwaz flying his S10 a year ago, he did a dive and came across the field at a very good clip, then, he hit full crow and we were both so impressed our jaws dropped.. It really did appear to literally "stop" in midair.

Tic...that sounds like something I'd like to see. Actually I am looking forward to seeing any F5B stuff. It seems like I'm the only one around here interested in it.

Originally posted by tic
I'm actually surprised they have just recently seemed to be catching on with F5B, F5F type planes..

No surprise needed, that's because of the rule changes( 1500g and 2000g minimum weight). This was done to "force" people to make stronger planes, well actually to stop them from making them too light(and small in F5B). Of course, they quickly found out they could fit in a couple more servo's now, and started missing landings like there was no tomorrow ( the whole secret in landing easily is a LIGHT(wingload) plane. No amount of flaps can substitute for this...)

Before that , Ulf Herders plane (F5F, 36 dm2!) weighed around 1380g, the lightest (27 cells!) F5B plane a bit less than 1700g.....

There is a Minimum weight for F5B of 2000g for the whole plane AUW. There is a Maximum battery weight of 1100g. and a Maximum surface loading of 24.5oz/ft^2 right? So all the wings for the new models are sized so that they have the max surface loading at the min weight? I'm trying to understand the new rules. Before, there was no minimum weight, (S-9 times) but there was a max surface loading, and a max battery weight. Since there is now a minimum weight, folks figured they could either add more motor for better climb, or flaps to do better landings. Please correct me if I do not understand.

Thanks,

~~fred

Ok, I didn't forget about this thread. I haven't done much new work on the MG since I got the hoot. Well time to finish the build here and the comparison in the other theread...

Here is a pic of my wing prep and my wing harness. That piece of ply is there so that I can make the wing self plugging rather than have a pig tail....

FWIW it took me an hour to make those two wiring harness and thats the fastest I have ever built them...

jay

Here are the prep holes in the wing. I covered the wings with masking tape marked off the space where the fuse will be, and then drilled a hole. The hole was originally cut to hold 4 pin deans. I am going with multiplex connectors instead. No reason other than thats what was at the hobby store...

Here is the wire passed through the wing. The fact that there isn't any careful threading to do is a wonderful thing. all of that space is hollow. I am starting to get excited about building this plane again...

Ok, an hour later and the four servos are soldered into place. I have about 3 hours into the wing to this point. I don't know why they say "Just an evening or two of pleasurable building is alll that's needed...." Its NEVER an evening and rarely pleasurable.... MAYBE on the s11 where the servos are already molded in....

Looking good so far...