Flew a low in in MS flight sim 2k2, and the difference is very obvious, the high wing has a slow turn rate. The low has a fast turn rate. Now what I want to know with this low wing I am rebuilding, what will the low will do different from those high wings? Will they turn faster? Landings, will they slow, or be quite fast? This has no flaps, its aileron, rudder, elevator. More or less, just want to know what is different between the high wing and low wing, as far as handling...


Jeff

Will tend to go where you point it.(Can't blame anything but the pilot) :)

Won't recover by itself necessarily so will fly the way you fly it. Probably less dihedral and also CG is not way below wing so doesn't tend to right itself.

May actually be easier to fly because it won't have a mind of it's own :)

One thing you will notice on landing is that the plane won't suddenly jump up a few feet if a breeze comes up. Cross winds that come up also don't bother the plane as much as a high wing. Also much, much better flying in wind. With a good low wing, you can comfortable fly in winds that will have you leaving your trainer in the car. A lighter touch is needed on the sticks of a low wing because the response time is very quick and precise. Once you get used to this its easier than a high wing because the planes movements follow the sticks and you aren' t waiting to see what the plane will do. Low wings for the most part cut into the wind well and don't drift like a high wing will. Low wings can turn very quickly compared to most high wings, but you quickly get used to this so its not a problem. Landing speeds vary greatly on low wings so it would help us if you can tell us what kind of plane you have. I had a Hobbico Brightstar that would land slower and easier than my LT40. My 60 sized Hawker Sea Fury lands about the same speed as the LT40. There are small high wing planes such as an Avistar that land faster than my Sea Fury. Other low wing planes like a P40 have to land faster to keep from stalling. It really depends on which plane. Hope this helps, Fast!

http://www.ny-weather.com/rc/images/shadow.jpg

There it is, I don't beleive it is still made, heck got it about 5-6 years ago so a lot has happened since then :). The high wing I am flying however is a ARF kit that my cousin got (no idea where) and he left it at one of the farms house that he was staying, so I rebuilt it into a gas powered plane (was made for electric). This plane actually won't right itself, if its banked, it stays banked. Its kind of a intermediate high wing, however no ailerons with it. This low wing will not only be new to me (sounds easier from what you guys say) but the ailerons will be new to me as well.. I notice in the sims, the rudder is harder to deal with, but ailerons banking and using elevator to make the turn, I like that. Because with high wing I find, atleast with the rudder,elevator only (steering) the planes tend to want to fall as they make that turn, due to the rudder turning the nose. Well thanks for the help!, oh and that little wind thing on landings, god I hate that :), about to be a perfect landing, wind brings it up a few notches (trees getting closer) have to abort... Thanks again!


Jeff

The plane will be ALOT more responsive with the ailerons and the nose won't drop as bad as with a rudder turn.

I owned 2 of those things.
I highly Recommend you have help with it till you get a feel for it.
That plane is fast....... easily over controled!
One thing i want to mention is the tail feathers..... They are a poor version of foam with a paper sideing for strenth. You need to trace them out and make a pattern for them as you will break
them in the very first mishap. if the plane flips over onto the rudder..... Its history. with the pattern you can trace on to balsa and make you a new one. The wing is very strong and the fuse is very resiliant to crash's...... but the tail feathers.... UGH!!!

if you have any questions just holler!
southerngent

I noticed a big difference when I transitioned from my Aerostar 40 high-wing trainer to my FourStar 60 low-wing intermediate. It's almost like you can feel the difference through your transmitter controls. The high wing has all the weight of the airplane suspended below it, sorta' like everything is hanging from the wing. When you get used to a high-winger then change to a low-winger, all of a sudden, all the weight of the airplane is above the wing. Instead of everything "hanging" from the wing, now everything is "pushing down" on the wing. To me, it is a lot different. The high winger would ( I guess) always try to right itself, or keep the wing on top. The low winger won't, when it's upright in it's normal attitude, it continually has the rest of the airplane pushing it towards the ground. I guess the ideal situation, as far as the weight of the airplane, would be a mid-wing airplane. The other thing about a low-winger (when you are just starting to fly one) is it's very easy to lose orientation of the aircraft. You no longer have a big wing high above the fuselage. Now you have a wing mounted directly to the bottom of the fuse. The wing blends into the fuse very easily. Make sure and have a good contrast of highly visible colors on the fuse and on the wing's upper and lower surfaces. My 4*60's total upper side is metallic teal, it's lower side is neon pink. I would have thought it would be very easy to see in the air and to tell "what's up and what's down", but it's not at all. It looks good on the ground, but in the air, it was bad news. When I'd get it out from me a ways, I would have no idea what attitude the airplane was in. I'd have to put in up, down, left or right to try and tell where the airplane was headed. Once you get to where you are flying by your inputs instead of flying by the airplanes attitude, this won't be such a problem. The good thing about the low-winger is it's aerobatic abilities and it's sleek looks. Now when you do an aileron roll, you get a nice crisp roll with little or no elevator input. Inverted flight (although I am not good at it) should be very easy on a low-winger compared to a high-winger.

Sorry to ramble. Hope this helps and Good Luck,

Jon

My Spacewalker is a low winged Cub... Flies as gentle as a kitten. Floats on a cushion of air on landing(comes is sloooow and gentle and dosen't want to set down)

Well I am not not even sure this thing will even be able to sustain a flight. Today while putting the hinges, a crack developed. This fuse has been sitting in the attic for 5-6 years and let me tell you, it has weakened a little bit. Its strong enough atm, but lets say she gets off the ground and is ready to land. I do not even know if the tail section will hold up, im talking the whole back end. We shall see, the duct tape and expoxy with a metal rod should help it out. I am almost done redoing it, and will be done by wednesday, and getting the engine thursday. If I fly its not going to be distances, so seeing it shouldn't be a problem, I might monokote some red on the wings to see it better, white and yellow kinda sucks for visibility. My high wing needed some red, and that made a difference. Anyways, thanks for the info everyone, keep it on coming :)...


Jeff

P.S. I will know if she works by friday (breaking the engine in thursday)

Check that cg before you head for the field. Just to let you know that low wings have to be inverted when checking the balance. It also helps to check the lateral balance before the wings are covered. It makes it easier if you have to add weight in one side of the wing. Now whats this stuff about yellow not being good for visibility??!?! What kind of yellow are we talking about here. I use Neon Yellow on my planes(a lot!) and I can almost fly them in the dark.

I already flew the beasly on thursday, flying again saturday, and hopefully sunday. The take off was via a hand launch (ground here is to clumpy). Due to not being used to how fast the ailerons actually work she did a couple rolls, and almost hit some power lines :). But she flew and the landing was excellent, landings are easy, its the take offs that get me nervous :). But I did do a roll on purpose and it went well, just dove a little, but this is because I didn't have it full throttle and wasn't flying super fast. but I am rather impressed how well low wings do handle, compared to the high wings, the low does kind of float. Now with my landing gear strong, and everything all adjusted, it should work well.

As far as colors, its white, with red and black on the wing, was easy to see, even though it was cloudy out :). All I need to do now is touch up some stuff on it (put more color on it) and its 100% done, but like I said it flies, and the reason it reacted so dramatic. I had to adjust my ailerons the other night, made them not so touchy, and also got them so they are even....


Jeff

P.S. allllll self taught here :)

This weekend, I flew my first low (fully-symmetrical) wing tail-dragger. It's a Modeltech Dragon Lady 40 that I bought from another club member. The last time this model flew was back in 95, when it crashed. Another club member did the bulk of the rebuilding, and I picked it up for $35 in more or less ARC. This is what I've found:

1. The plane is more difficult to control on the ground. This may be due to the spring setup I have on the tail wheel, but it's more challenging to get her to track straight on takeoff.

2. Takeoff speed is about 50-75% faster than my Avistar. It seems that my Avistar with a plain brushing 42 motor can lift off in less than 20-30 feet off grass. I need about double this with the DL and a BB 46.

3. The plane reacts MUCH more to trim than my trainer.

4. The plane can land at about the same speed as my Avistar.

5. Landings are actually easier because as other people have noted, there's less tendency to act like a balloon. I can hit my landing strip where I want.

6. The plane is MUCH more responsive, this may be the kind of plane, but it's more or less point and shoot.

7. Roll rate is 2 to 3x that of my Avistar and are much more axial, almost no barrel tendency unless you inadventently feed some elevator. I actually had to tune down the ailerons to 60% recommended throws on low rates so that I could control it on takeoffs and landings.

8. Inverted flight needed a lot less down elevator than my Avistar, and it tracks straight inverted (even though it was just about the same dihedral as my Avistar).

9. It flew much faster than my Avistar. Up to this point, I thought my Avistar was a speedy little plane... Now I know better. This is probably more due to the engine than anything else.

10. On my one deadstick landing, I noticed that even if I held the nose up as much as I could (without stalling), it descended faster than my Avistar.

No night and day differences, just small ones. But it did make me feel good to bring the plane back home in only two pieces (I broke the landing gear off on the deadstick landing because I was expecting it to glide like my Avistar, only my nylon bolts broke).

http://ipbandit.net/RC/images/P2240002_2.jpg

I too noticed how responsive the ailerons can be, and how carefull you have to be when operating them, especially on takeoff. Speaking of deadsticks, my plane ran out of gas yesterday as I was coming around, I could hear it go, blaahhh sputter, blahhh sputter, then she quit. But this plane glides extremely well, it flew level flight for approx 1-200' and the landing was not perfect (went over a rise, couldn't see it :D). But it glides extremely well, better than my high wing. This made me feel even more confident in the plane, know it glides in, I can idle the engine wayyyy down on landings, my other one doesn't glide as well, but it will glide. While I was flying sunday, was getting the ailerons level, once they were level it flew even better. Inverted flight was very cool, almost had a nose dive into the ground, I was inverted and thought I wasn't, but I recovered it :). Did a fly by inverted as well. I haven't taken off the ground yet with this plane, I could behind the house but I don't because its to small of a place to land, and fly. Well im glad you had a successfull flight as well, these low wings are awesome :).

Here she is after the first flight, notice the duct tape (holding the crack back there, hey its still strong and holding up to the forces of rolls, etc.

http://www.ny-weather.com/rc/images/fly39.jpg
I have changed the colors on the body, put a red streak and put black letters saying "Shadow"

Here is my high wing

http://www.ny-weather.com/rc/images/fly41.jpg

This plane has been through 20 flights without any problems, sure 9th had a landing gear mishap, but that was a rut that did that.

www.ny-weather.com click R/C for the whole lot of pictures.

Jeff