Flaps on a 1/2A?

I just saw a picture of the "Little Brother," an all-wood
1/2A profile by Rick Sarpolus (Dick's son) that has a flat
sheet balsa wing with coupled flaps. Do coupled flaps
really offer a benefit on a flat wing, and on such a
small plane? Just curious.

Couldn't tell you from experience about flaps on the flat wing. However, I've seen several plans for flat wing airplanes with flaps. I have built a number of flapped and non-flapped 1/2A stunters with airfoiled wings. Flaps work fine on 1/2A size airplanes, but it's my feeling that only 15 or 20 degrees of flap movement is useful on a 1/2A. I've thought that for long enough that I don't remember why.

Dick has a good picture of the "Little Brother" in his CL book (page 10).
George

Just built a "Wingmaster" from an early 90's issue of MA that my dad had laying around. It's a Sarpolus sized wing all sheet 1/2A with coupled flaps by another gent. Powering it with a Black Widow and am very pleased by the plane. Flies really nice maneuvers but really had to cut back on the control movements and line spacing to do it. Seems much less likely to stall in tight maneuvers presumably due to the increased lift provided by the flaps. It actually GLIDES also!

Quick anecdote, my son learned to fly on a small Sterling beginners series 1/2A that's all sheet balsa. When it dies, he gives full up and watches it do a carrier landing/crash. Sooo, while having problems with my Fox 35 Banshee I was faced with 7 minutes of so rich I could only do level laps. I called Scott out in the circle to fly the plane out of gas. He really enjoyed it, his first time on the controls of a bigger plane. Since it was slowed down, his light 7yr body could handle the pull better. Well, when it ran out of gas, guess what he did! Yep, full up! Quite a sight, me getting off the grass, grabbing the lines (only, NOT the handle), running like mad, yelling for him to give it full up after the ensuing stall while the plane was nearing a major hit. He did, recovered most of the now low attitude and all was well except a broke prop.

Tools

Ed --

Oddly, I was reading your post while watching Norm Abrams on the Home and Garden channel. A fun idea, and perhaps not overly impractical idea, is to build a 35 or 40 size stunter from solid wood, using flaps. Never thought of it before, but I am not sure it wouldn't fly all that poorly. We would call it "Norm"

First, build a solid wing based on stock balsa sizes. The wing is 54 by 9 without flaps. That is, take three sheets of light contest balsa 3 by 36, snd slice them up and glue them up to a 6 by 54 slab with no waste (and no glue joints at the fuselage). Jig on a 3 inch by 1/4 TE slab, giving a full 486 squares with no flaps. Use your round over bit or sandpaper and make the slab resemble an airfoil, blending in the 1/2 to 1/4 to a pollywog. Build a simple profile fuselage to contain the wing, and make the tail moment a little on the large size. Add 3/16 thick flaps to taste, and couple them on the low ratio side. Make the stab/elev ratio in the high twenties to wing area. That gives an 11% foil, fairly heavy, easy to build, low tech stunter, with no foam. Total squares (including the flaps)is a little over 500. Fairly indestructible, fast, and quite odd.

Anyone out there ready to build one? I might try it this winter.

Check Tom Dixon's plans list. I believe there is a larger all sheet stunter has has plans for that originated overseas (Italy I think). The decscription says it's surprisingly good flying. Can't remember if it's .35 sized or slightly smaller. I'll go see if I can find some more details.

>Ed --
>
>Oddly, I was reading your post
>while watching Norm Abrams on
>the Home and Garden channel.
>A fun idea, and perhaps
>not overly impractical idea, is
>to build a 35 or
>40 size stunter from solid
>wood, using flaps. Never thought
>of it before, but I
>am not sure it wouldn't
>fly all that poorly. We
>would call it "Norm"
>
>First, build a solid wing based
>on stock balsa sizes. The
>wing is 54 by 9
>without flaps. That is, take
>three sheets of light contest
>balsa 3 by 36, snd
>slice them up and glue
>them up to a 6
>by 54 slab with no
>waste (and no glue joints
>at the fuselage). Jig on
>a 3 inch by 1/4
>TE slab, giving a full
>486 squares with no flaps.
>Use your round over bit
>or sandpaper and make the
>slab resemble an airfoil, blending
>in the 1/2 to 1/4
>to a pollywog. Build a
>simple profile fuselage to contain
>the wing, and make the
>tail moment a little on
>the large size. Add 3/16
>thick flaps to taste, and
>couple them on the low
>ratio side. Make the stab/elev
>ratio in the high twenties
>to wing area. That gives
>an 11% foil, fairly heavy,
>easy to build, low tech
>stunter, with no foam. Total
>squares (including the flaps)is a
>little over 500. Fairly indestructible,
>fast, and quite odd.
>
>Anyone out there ready to build
>one? I might try it
>this winter.
>

Larry F : Oddly enough, there was a 48" one of these in the August Aeromodeller (Brit mag). 1/4" wing. Said it flew well.

Full size inserted plans, too! Sharp looking model.

Who's brave enough to build one? A weekend's work? Currell