FoamandTape
Well-Known Member
Thinking about cobbling together another primitive flying contraption but wanting to explore the idea of a canard for a few reasons, but I can’t quite find out much info regarding experiences with canards in the ultralight spaces.
First, airfoil selection, it’s imperative that the main wing not stall before the canard but reading the big thread here on airfoil selection on 103 and more specifically my target AS of 25-30kts seems to make this much less critical than a cozy or any of the high performance flavors that I’ve seen referenced in design discussions. It seems as long as I get the proportions/loading right and go for a higher aspect ratio plus a sharper leading edge it should be fine however with such a slow airspeed a lot of this criteria doesn’t seem to matter as much but I’m ultimately unsure of what airfoil selection I should aim for with the canard section.
Second, how bad of an idea is a full flying canard, not sure how true it is but I believe I saw it stated somewhere here but the CL can be greater on a full flying surface that can lead to the canard layout getting into an un recoverable condition, but if the canard was mechanically restricted from traveling too far should this relive this issue? Parts count dramatically drops off with just two big surfaces to build which is the main attraction.
Third, this may be a bit more stupid but what angle of incidence should the main wing be set at? I surprisingly couldint find much info with google but it’s an awful search engine.
First, airfoil selection, it’s imperative that the main wing not stall before the canard but reading the big thread here on airfoil selection on 103 and more specifically my target AS of 25-30kts seems to make this much less critical than a cozy or any of the high performance flavors that I’ve seen referenced in design discussions. It seems as long as I get the proportions/loading right and go for a higher aspect ratio plus a sharper leading edge it should be fine however with such a slow airspeed a lot of this criteria doesn’t seem to matter as much but I’m ultimately unsure of what airfoil selection I should aim for with the canard section.
Second, how bad of an idea is a full flying canard, not sure how true it is but I believe I saw it stated somewhere here but the CL can be greater on a full flying surface that can lead to the canard layout getting into an un recoverable condition, but if the canard was mechanically restricted from traveling too far should this relive this issue? Parts count dramatically drops off with just two big surfaces to build which is the main attraction.
Third, this may be a bit more stupid but what angle of incidence should the main wing be set at? I surprisingly couldint find much info with google but it’s an awful search engine.
