I've been mulling over an idea in my head for a while - I was working on two different designs which were both low and slow stol types, but since having learnt to fly my idea of what I want has changed. So those have been shelved for now.
I fly a eurostar ev97 microlight. 450kg mtom, 80hp rotax 912, 35kt stall speed. My wife may or may not want to come up with me, if she does i can hire the eurostar hourly. For the most part I'll be solo flying so I'm designing an aircraft that suits me, naturally.
I'm designing for the SSDR microlight rules -
300kg MTOM
35kts stall speed OR minimum level flight speed
(maybe focus on post stall control, and make use of that 100hp on the nose to keep flying level?)
I don't have fancy renderings at this point, and I'll save the numbers for a bit later as I'm still in preliminary sizing.
The basic concept:
Take a SD1 minisport, make it a tad longer with a tapered wing, reduce chord for a higher wing loading, add a bit of composite sexiness, and stick a 100hp rotax 912 on the nose. Add some better high lift devices to bring the stall speed back down (mcr-01 style double slotted inboard, split flaps mid section, drooping ailerons/flaperons outboard). A little bit of increased complexity in the pursuit of low stall and high cruise. The issue in my head currently is how to slow down - because my current preliminary number crunching has told me that's going to be an issue. Getting from cruise speed down to top of white arc will take a good while, unless the flaps are immensely overbuilt and heavy. Without trying to add more complexity, I think speedbrakes of some form might be required.
At this point, this thread is really just to hash out my initial thoughts and tap in to the collective wisdom of the forum. I realise I'm not giving you all much to go on. I've not even bothered sketching the fuselage yet, just been working on wings, control surfaces, and W+B calcs - so there's not a huge amount to look at. I did mess about on planemaker and modified an RV3's wings and weights to try work out stall characteristics but I'm not sure how valuable it is as a tool.
I fly a eurostar ev97 microlight. 450kg mtom, 80hp rotax 912, 35kt stall speed. My wife may or may not want to come up with me, if she does i can hire the eurostar hourly. For the most part I'll be solo flying so I'm designing an aircraft that suits me, naturally.
I'm designing for the SSDR microlight rules -
300kg MTOM
35kts stall speed OR minimum level flight speed
(maybe focus on post stall control, and make use of that 100hp on the nose to keep flying level?)
I don't have fancy renderings at this point, and I'll save the numbers for a bit later as I'm still in preliminary sizing.
The basic concept:
Take a SD1 minisport, make it a tad longer with a tapered wing, reduce chord for a higher wing loading, add a bit of composite sexiness, and stick a 100hp rotax 912 on the nose. Add some better high lift devices to bring the stall speed back down (mcr-01 style double slotted inboard, split flaps mid section, drooping ailerons/flaperons outboard). A little bit of increased complexity in the pursuit of low stall and high cruise. The issue in my head currently is how to slow down - because my current preliminary number crunching has told me that's going to be an issue. Getting from cruise speed down to top of white arc will take a good while, unless the flaps are immensely overbuilt and heavy. Without trying to add more complexity, I think speedbrakes of some form might be required.
At this point, this thread is really just to hash out my initial thoughts and tap in to the collective wisdom of the forum. I realise I'm not giving you all much to go on. I've not even bothered sketching the fuselage yet, just been working on wings, control surfaces, and W+B calcs - so there's not a huge amount to look at. I did mess about on planemaker and modified an RV3's wings and weights to try work out stall characteristics but I'm not sure how valuable it is as a tool.
