The Pitchy Plane Project

kimwcook · Post by **kimwcook** » Sun Mar 11, 2012 12:33 pm

Jumping off the barn with your Superman costume on. Now, things are starting to make sense.

Just pulling your cape.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 1:40 pm

Laugh boys laugh, sat wife on the tail end and i flew straight and level for about 30 seconds.
No control in any direction but it felt cool anyway, project over and thanks for humoring me.

Mescalero · Post by **Mescalero** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:45 pm

Whew!

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:01 pm

Mescalero wrote:Whew!

Here ya go, elevator to the front, can`t wait.

Lay on it and glide.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:49 pm

Ok i`m done now

Wife and i sat on the tail gate and we pulled it across the field to see if it would lift empty.
The only thing that lifted skyward was us, guy hit a big dip and us and the tailgate flew off and hit the ground.
Was going about 30, will be sore tomorrow but no broked bones.

Gobblerforge · Post by **Gobblerforge** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:37 pm

Looking at the rig I say you have a good start on a dog sled or something. Don't let it die.

Gobbler

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:19 pm

Thanks buddy, yea we`re ok, i`ll maybe put it away till next winter.

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:16 pm

Man I admire your tenacity.

There is a boys' life or something like that illustration showing how to make a glider that looks almost like that.

except

it has a lifting wing

and flight controls

but other than that there is a resemblance.

hope you fly some day

I'm pulling for ya

and I am really glad you didn't break something when the tailgate fell off.

the tailgate fell off?

Sincerely,
Grizz

Mescalero · Post by **Mescalero** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:20 pm

Somewhere early in this post I remember saying " no good can come of it "

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:32 pm

Grizz, we put some curved thin boards under the tarp to put some curve to the top of the wing. My field is too rough and not long enough to get a good tow.
I have a real hard time giving up on anything and usually whip it in the end, heck if no one took risks we`d still be walkin everywhere.
I`ll get it one of these days.

PS. the plane didn`t do anything wrong, we got thrown from the dern pickup

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:08 am

Pitchy,

Here's an idea for ya, it might get you up there:

http://humanbirdwings.net/

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:32 am

Oh chit, i`m in trouble now

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:33 pm

Check out this wing boys.

Test tow coming soon.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:45 pm

Mescalero · Post by **Mescalero** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:16 pm

OK, what happened?

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:21 pm

Mescalero wrote:OK, what happened?

That was a video, click on pic in case ya didn`t know.
Don`t know why it wouldn`t lift better, if we went faster i think it would but without ailerons it would crash anyway. But it was a improvement.

Mescalero · Post by **Mescalero** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:48 pm

Well'
at least it was unmanned

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:53 pm

I`ll be flying it before the night is done, stay tuned.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:13 pm

And we have lift off.

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video

FatJackDurham · Post by **FatJackDurham** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:17 pm

Borregos · Post by **Borregos** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 6:30 am

Pitchy, you crack me up

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:20 am

Thanks you two, i may be losing internet service so if i am gone that`s what happened.

Borregos · Post by **Borregos** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:30 am

Hope you don't loose service for two long I may get "Pitchy withdrawal" symptoms

KirkD · Post by **KirkD** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:00 am

Well I just went through this entire thread and enjoyed it immensely!

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:16 am

We are using internet, WI-FI from our neighbors and paying for it which we didn`t have to do.
Anyway they got some cats which were not fixed and they of course had babies and now we have at least four wild cats living under our barn.
They kill the young rabbits, grouse and now there are wild turkeys moving into the area which i`m sure they will kill they`er young too.
So i contacted them and said we were over run with cats and that we needed to get rid of them. I said if they wanted i`d live trap them and bring them over and if they wanted to claim them they could relocate them. We cause two of them which were wild and took them down there and they had them fixed and gave them away.
But now i get a email this morn saying how terrible i am because i`m going to shoot their pets, blaw blaw blaw.
So it wouldn`t suprise me if my internet gets blocked.
It never ends.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:04 pm

So Grizz why wouldn`t it lift better, nice curve and more area.
Suppose those bed sheets let to much air through them?

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:16 pm

Pitchy wrote:So Grizz why wouldn`t it lift better, nice curve and more area.
Suppose those bed sheets let to much air through them?

When it was on the tractor? Not enough airspeed for one, plus I think the wings aren't rigid enough and may be stalling themselves when they're flexing. And yes, they need to be airtight.

Behind the atv? Not enough line for one thing. No lateral stability for another.

Wings are built sort of like a box beam. When jet liner wings and sailplane wings flex they are still maintaining the lifting shape. It appears that when your wings flex they're sort of flapping and twisting.

Really light model planes will fly with dead flat wings that have no lifting shape, they're so light that the rubber band and prop overpowers the weight factor. But the wing covers are airtight.

The ones that fly really have a certain shape, and tightly stretched fabric that is painted or doped to make it airtight and watertight.

You could make some model wings and hold them in front of a fan and you'll be able to feel the lift effect. A lot of the effects of design changes will scale up. That's how the Wrights did it, they measured the lift of their wing designs in a wind tunnel they built.

Best

Grizz

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 8:28 pm

Grizz i wasn`t trying to fly it on the tractor, that was a joke, as we are not the Wright brothers but the wrong couple.

As far as the roll i understand there is no control over that at this time and just the difference in the way they hang will make it roll.
The only thing i`m concerned about at this point is to make it lift at a slow speed.
I may try sealing the cloth with something and try it on a windy day, there was no wind in the last try.

1894c · Post by **1894c** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:14 pm

FatJackDurham wrote:+5

count me in... +1 ... :)

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:11 pm

Gliders can fly without aileron control if they are perfectly balanced aerodynamically.

Looking at your wing again it appears that the highest part is almost in the middle, is this correct?

I believe the best lift will be with the highest portion of the wing between a quarter and a third of the total distance back from the leading edge.

You can probably find stuff online about low speed wings. The goat's wing falls in that category and you can see in the drawings how it's layed out.

Here's the CH 701 wing form. It will fly without the accessories. It is specifically for low speed flight.

Is this similar to your wing design? I can't tell for sure from the fotos.

I know you'll get it workin.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 7:45 am

Thanks Grizz for your input and everyone else's support

Let me say something about me and how i do things, anyone can buy plans or a finished product asnd it will work right off. I like to try and experience what the early pioneers felt like when they were inventing something and working the bugs out with no literature.
They tinkered until they made it work and had many setbacks along the way.
That`s in a way what i`m trying to do here and with most things i build, like the 15 spinning wheels i built from just a picture.
I know i have asked questions also and appreciate the help from everyone, the encouragement and acknowledgement being the most valuable.

That being said the wing is curved with the high point in the middle, i figured it would catch enough air to lift it the way it is and i`m sure it will in a gusty head wind.
The story continues.

http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/the-w ... X_-2DobZuQ

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 8:29 am

That being said the wing is curved with the high point in the middle

This is why the Wright bros. made a wind tunnel. You can see a replica of it at the Air and Space Museum in VA. It's pretty cool.

With the high spot in the middle the wing chord is effectively shortened because the extra surface in front of that spot isn't helping provide lift. You can test this.

I'm with you in experimenting and discovering something that works. That's good stuff. But I don't see you welding up the cylinder on your revolver and putting flint ignition behind the bullets.... know what I mean? There's a 100 year history of flight where basic principles are pretty well hashad out. Not saying there's no room for innovation, there truly is an amazing variety of ways to make flight work. They all have certain things in common.

Like, we don't put the bullet in the case and the powder on top, that kind of stuff in common. Imitation of successful precedents isn't cheating. There have been flying replicas of the Wright Flyer. They had those certain basic fundamental things in common with the original Flyer..... that's why they can fly.

BTW, it's amazing to visit the museum in Kitty Hawk built on the site of their first flights, and to see the stone markers that show just how short that hop was. Stunning that it wasn't all that long ago.

I hope this is encouraging to you 'cause I love seeing what you can build, and I might be your biggest fan in the flying thing. Definitely want you to succeed.

Grizz

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 8:36 am

I understand what your saying and agree, i just don`t want to put any money into this and its a learn as i go project.
What i`m going to do next is spray the wing with some shellac to seal the cloth a little, i have some on hand.
Then i`m going to wait for a windy day and we will put a person on each wing tip and pull it at walk speed into the wind and see if it will lift. That way we won`t damage it as with trying to tow it fast.
I`ll see what i can do to make the wing higher in the front.

hightime · Post by **hightime** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:25 pm

It must be a MN thing.

Owen

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 2:20 pm

Ha, cool Owen

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 8:22 pm

What say you?

You’ve probably been told that an airfoil produces lift because it is curved on top and flat on the bottom. But you shouldn’t believe it, not even for an instant.

Presumably you are aware that airshow pilots routinely fly for extended periods of time upside down. Doesn’t that make you suspicious that there might be something wrong with the story about curved on top and flat on the bottom?

The misconception that wings must be curved on top and flat on the bottom is commonly associated with the misconception that the air is required to pass above and below the wing in equal amounts of time. I

A symmetric airfoil, where the top surface is a mirror image of the bottom surface, has zero camber.
At small angles of attack, a symmetric airfoil works better than a highly cambered airfoil. Conversely, at high angles of attack, a cambered airfoil works better than the corresponding symmetric airfoil. otherwise the two are pretty much the same. At any normal angle of attack (up to about 12 degrees), the two airfoils produce virtually identical amounts of lift. Beyond that point the cambered airfoil has a big advantage because it does not stall until a much higher relative angle of attack. As a consequence, its maximum coefficient of lift is much greater.

At high angles of attack, the leading edge of a cambered wing will slice into the wind at less of an angle compared to the corresponding symmetric wing. This doesn’t prove anything, but it provides an intuitive feeling for why the cambered wing has more resistance to stalling.

On some airplanes, the airfoils have no camber at all, and on most of the rest the camber is barely perceptible (maybe 1 or 2 percent). One reason wings are not more cambered is that any increase would require the bottom surface to be concave — which would be a pain to manufacture. A more profound reason is that large camber is only really beneficial near the stall, and it suffices to create lots of camber by extending the flaps when needed, i.e. for takeoff and landing.

Reverse camber is clearly a bad idea (since it causes earlier stall) so aircraft that are expected to perform well upside down (e.g. Pitts or Decathlon) have symmetric (zero-camber) airfoils.

under ordinary conditions, the amount of lift produced by a wing depends on the angle of attack, but hardly depends at all on the amount of camber. This makes sense. In fact, the airplane would be unflyable if the coefficient of lift were determined solely by the shape of the wing. Since the amount of camber doesn’t often change in flight, there would be no way to change the coefficient of lift. The airplane could only support its weight at one special airspeed, and would be unstable and uncontrollable. In reality, the pilot (and the trim system) continually regulate the amount of lift by regulating the all-important angle of attack

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 902AAjTsY2

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:59 pm

I say that is mostly correct for mostly highly overpowered aircraft.

Airplanes that are underpowered, or overweight, don't do well flying upside down.

Airplanes that need slow speed lift, like the Zenith CH 701, are optimized for their intended flight regimes. They can do loops and rolls and whatever else is in their performance envelope. I seriously doubt that they can fly upside down in level flight for any protracted length of time.

Additionally, their horizontal stabilizers are in fact "upside down" for increasing the short take off capabilities:

"Thanks to its thick, high-lift wing, full-span flaperons and fixed, full-span leading-edge slats, the 701 needs little more runway space than the typical backyard with clear access at the ends. Because of its stellar short-field capabilities, the 701 stands as one of the few kitplanes to serve in the sort of serious utility roles usually reserved for larger airplanes such as the Helio Courier, Piper Super Cub, Maule or Aviat Husky. That includes missionary and utility work in third world countries as well as cattle herding, fence patrol and crop dusting."

KITPLANES magazine, January 2004

OTOH jet fighter wings are pretty flat and seem symetrical in comparison:

Aircraft are highly optimized affairs.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 8:53 am

Interesting, ya can picture the Wrights trying different wing shapes in their wind tunnel.
Speaking of wind tunnel, maybe that would be cool, find a huge fan and put it in the end of a building and fly in place.

I lowered the front of the wing some, i think it was at the wrong angle to create lift and am now waiting for a windy day to try it again.

olyinaz · Post by **olyinaz** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:09 pm

Pitchy wrote:Here it is fellers, weeeeeeeeee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLygZUrL ... re=related

That was great! For some reason I'd never seen that.

When I was a kid by best buddy bought a kite like that at a garage sale and brought it home one day and hid it in the woods. We spent the next morning putting it together while his folks were at work, got it assembled, carried it across the pasture to the biggest hill we could see, strapped in and flew the dang thing all afternoon!

Longest "flight" was probably something like 20-30 yards but we was flyin'! Some pretty good crash landings but we soon learned not to stall it out. Well, the folks came home and THAT WAS THAT.

It was similar to our stump-dynamiting afternoon at about the same age - all fun stops when the adults get home and figure out what you're up to.

Oly

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 7:50 am

Thanks gents.
30-45 MPH wind today so will be taking it out to see if we can get it off the ground, empty.

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:10 pm

Didn`t get er done, had to go to the dentist and have a flap done to grind part of my jaw bone away

Every day is a learning experiance.

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:27 pm

I oughtn't jump in here based on how little I know, but... I seem to recall that lift (the basis of "flight"), is achieved thru suction created on the upper surface of a wing. It matters not what shape that wing is... but rather what it's attitude is. A traditional wing as drawn by Grizz can fly straight and level because of it's shape. For it to fly upside down, the attitude must mimic that shape when inverted. I've never seen a plane that can fly, straight and level but right side up and upside down. For inverted flight, th wing must be cutting thru the wind at an attitude that creates that "suction" on the upper portion of its surface.

I don't know that I described that adequately...

Wing.jpg

The curved line extending to the back of the wing indicates where "lift" is applied... in the upper picture, that "lift" would be sucking the plane DOWN! Therefore the leading edge of the wing in inverted flight has to be raised in order for that suction to be applied on the upper (or bottom) surface of the wing... making straight and level inverted flight an impossibility. Way too long-winded, huh?

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 6:32 pm

Arn`t planes tails flying low when up-side down which would create the condition that your explainin.

If nuttin else i`m freekin out the birds that fly over, no sign of any stayin in the area.

TWHBC · Post by **TWHBC** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:25 pm

Pitchy wrote:Arn`t planes tails flying low when up-side down which would create the condition that your explainin.

If nuttin else i`m freekin out the birds that fly over, no sign of any stayin in the area.

Guess that would rule out you becoming Father Goose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uurn-Nrljbw
Of course it could lead to another project......a mounting system for a shotgun!

Keep us up to date!

Pitchy · Post by **Pitchy** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:29 pm

A flock of geece flew over the other day when we had the wing out in the field, bet they thought something was wrong with that picture.