adjusting elevator

For general discussion of the Just Aircraft family of aircraft.
Includes: Highlander, Escapade, Summit and SuperSTOL.
levyland
Veteran Member
Posts: 254
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2012 3:50 pm

Re: adjusting elevator

Post by levyland »

Thanks for that Roger

The airplane is so controllable in slow flight it is unbelievable.

I have to say the airplane is a real joy to fly. I went out with a mate of mine in his Hornet yesterday for nearly four hours, landing at high country stations, in shingle river beds, and in very short paddocks. I had not had so much fun in years, in fact I woke in the middle of night and could't get back to sleep I kept thinking how cool it was. I have not been able to stall the airplane in really any configuration. It kind of reminds me of my Varieze where the canard was set a a bit of a higher angle of attack than the main wing and when it got close to a stall in fell like a leaf. With the Catto climb prop with two guys, and full fuel it climbs at a 40 degree angle of attack. It's weird climbing at 30 knots corkscrewing in a 360 but it does it flawlessly.

If I could only go a wee bit faster, but it is pretty cool the way it is.
av8rps
Veteran Member
Posts: 480
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 5:01 pm

Re: adjusting elevator

Post by av8rps »

John,

I played around once with adjusting my Kitfox Model IV flaperons so they could be reflexed in cruise, and act as spoilers for spilling off lift during descent (Skystar did that on their latest model IV called the Lite Squared - so I followed their directions). It was kind of cool how you could increase your descent while still keeping the approach relatively flat (kind of like they do with spoilers on airliners). But from that experiment I discovered my particular Kitfox had the flaperons set wrong since it was first built. Turns out that all along my flaperons were somewhat reflexed when the flaps were in the off position, which was causing it to fly a bit tail low. After more experimentation I learned that my Kitfox actually cruised faster with about a notch and a half of flaps on. After resetting my "flaps off" position to the setting that gave me the highest cruise speed, my plane flew much flatter, and was considerably more stable. Who would have thought something so simple could have made such a big difference in an airplane?

I do agree with the general consensus that the wing incidence on the Super Stol is probably the main culprit on the tail low issue. But I think if we keep bouncing ideas off eachother it is likely we will find a reasonable cure for the problem. The Super Stol is such an unbelievable aircraft already, but solving this issue will just make it even more incredible. Your last post in this thread confims that :D
levyland wrote:Gidday Av8rps

Thanks for your input...
Early in the piece I thought a way of getting the airplane to go faster was to negatively reflex the flaps in cruse, but Steve Henry suggested lowering the flaps 10 degrees which did raise the tail with a minimal amount of drag. About 1 knot.

It does help a bit, however the flap seals made the greatest change.

So clearly creating a negative reflex will make the tail go down. (snip, snip)...

Cheers,

john
levyland
Veteran Member
Posts: 254
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2012 3:50 pm

Re: adjusting elevator

Post by levyland »

your on to it!!!!
Post Reply

Return to “Just Aircraft”