Here is a 3 view dwg of the Rand Cam airplane. Any ten year
old child model airplane builder can glance at this drawing
and tell you what is seriously wrong.
Lets make it a quiz. What is the most serious, blatant and obvious
design error in this airplane?
If the CG mark is positioned appropriately for two passengers on board,
then the plane will fall on its ass when they get out.
Also, as Perry Mick can attest, ducted fans have abysmal thrust at rest.
How do these yahoos think they'll get a STOL aircraft using them?
Russell Kent
Close but not what I had in mind. More serious than that.
Rutan canards fall on their ass when the people get out.
You are absolutely right on the ducted fans. Perry Mick knows more about
ducted fans than any ten engineers at NASA. Perry is now flying a gear
box.
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Come on guys, put your thinking caps on and tell me
what is seriously wrong with this design. I don't have
much time as I am going on vacation about thursday
and the newsletter will be shut down. Surely I am
not the only guy in the world that can see this.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
It has very small conventional main wing area - the tail must lift to get
reasonable low-speed performance, but if it lifts to make low-speed
performance, how will the aircraft rotate and atain a takeoff atttitude?
That says that the tail can't generate lift at takeoff, and I think it
means that it's going to flop onto the runway. I think it would be toasty
to fly.
They list the wing area as 14m2 which would be reasonable for a nice
little 2 seater (126ft2). Based on the measements on the drawing, 14m2
includes both the wing and the tail. Their website says this will have
really good short field performance. I am skeptical. If you discount the
tail's lift, it has about the same wing area as a Varieze. Not horrible
for short runways (as long as MTOW is respected), but not very good,
either. And the Varieze takes advantage of having all of the exposed
foils generating lift.
I wonder if anyone has actually built scale flying models. Or an X-plane
sim, at least.
Matt-
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