Sparky Paul,

I actually am in the process of working through the computations in Nicolai's paper. I'm at a bit of a jam now because we need to measure the static thrust of the engine. We spent most of today working on getting last year's plane rigged up to do that.

Nat, I used a digital fish scale behind the plane supported by a block of foam .
I set up the tach on a box in front of the prop. I could then read both scales.

Interesting, a minimum wingspan limit this year. Those are going to be heavy models compared to a couple of years ago, since the high Cl(max) airfoils that have been popular are Reynolds restricted (min 200,000 for the 1223). That would mean a min chord of about 12" @ 25mph...and a min wing area of 1400 sq" (12"x10'). Bring out the composites folks!

Late to join the discussion, but I found SoarNeck's comment interesting. SoarNeck's span and cord for competition and Re driven minimums result in an AR of 10. I haven't crunched the numbers and I'm not sure how the competition has gone in the past, but 10 doesn't sound out of reason when working the compromise between strength to weight and induced drag.

The last 4 years of competition:
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/aerostuff/sae2000n1.htm

Originally posted by Sparky Paul
The last 4 years of competition:
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/aerostuff/sae2000n1.htm

Sparky,

I can get pictures, but no design details. Link just returns to the picture. Am I missing something?

Gerry

This year our wing has an aspect ratio of about 13, just to give you an idea. I'm really curious as to how large the wingspans are of other team's aircraft.