Conceptual Design Motorglider

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Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat Motorglider
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Thread: Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat Motorglider
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October 30th, 2015, 06:15 PM
Topaz #46
Re: Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat
Moderator Motorglider
General Design Decisions, Based Upon

the Discussion Above
These are some items I want to determine in the airplane, which
will help drive the ultimate configuration choice.
Join Date: Jul 2005 Seating Position

Location: Orange County, I’m selecting a supine seating position, typical of sailplanes, for
California drag reduction and pilot comfort. The seat back angle will be
Posts: 10,539 chosen by visibility requirements.
Landing Gear
I’m selecting mono-wheel main landing gear. I prefer this type
of gear from my glider experience, and I find it very easy to use,
especially in a cross-wind. Other benefits include low weight and
lower cost (only one of each component). I would prefer that the
main gear be retractable. I need the experience for my larger
two-seat design. However, nothing fancy. No hydraulics, no
electrics. Manual retraction only.
The outriggers will be manually plugged-in as-needed, on the

ground. I see retractable outriggers as a needless complication
for this aircraft. For soaring flights, I’ll either be out with the
soaring club and very likely have a wing-runner, or be operating
in a sailplane environment (manual "taxi out") from a smoothly-
paved runway where a wing-down takeoff should be a snap. Tip
http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/member-project-logs/19739-conceptual-design-inexpensiv... 06/12/2015
skids or small fixed tip wheels will protect the wingtip. For
powered missions to and from "regular" airports, the outriggers
can be plugged in to facilitate taxiing, and remain in-place for
the duration of the flight. In powered flight, the drag penalty
would be minimal. The vertical placement of the wing has
bearing here - a high wing would mean longer, heavier
outriggers. Whether or not that's actually an issue is something
to address later.
A fixed (non-retractable) steerable tailwheel rounds out the

landing gear. Drag reduction should be a concern with this, and
something that I will look at.
Canopy
Canopy choice is a strong cost driver in most situations.
Normally, the budget constraints of the project would preclude a
molded canopy, but I have an “out” in this particular area. My
friend from Boeing and I committed last year to build a canopy
molding machine that could be used for all of our aircraft
projects. By the terms I set up at the beginning of this project,
multi-use tooling doesn’t count towards the project cost total.
Obviously the plastic used in the canopy itself will count.
Wing Disassembly/Folding for Trailerability

If you’ll recall, the pending closure of Skylark Field airport has
made me put a much larger emphasis upon trailerability in this
project. There aren’t any other affordable hangar or tie-down
options in my area.
This means the airplane’s wings will need to come off for
trailering, and do so easily and relatively quickly. While I’ll leave
details of how this will be done for later, some constraints are
apparent right now. For example, I don't want to try wing
folding. Too complex for this design, in my opinion. I’ve already
determined that the wing span will be 42 feet. If I were to break
the wings into two panels, each panel would be roughly 21 feet
long, give or take a foot depending on the exact details of how
they attach to the fuselage. Looking back to the available
building/storage space in my garage, listed earlier in the project,
the maximum allowable part length is 19 feet, with 17 feet being
much easier to handle and store. Clearly, I will need to make
three-panel wings for them to fit into the garage for storage -
and to be built in the first place.
Looking at another factor, maximum legal road width in

California (and most of the country) is 8 feet. And the opening of
my garage door is exactly 8 feet wide. If I decide to keep the
middle panel of the three-panel wing permanently attached to
the fuselage, its maximum span would be 8 feet, less a little for
clearance that I’ll ignore at the moment. With that dimension
fixed, how long would the outer panels be?
Span = 42 feet
Center panel length = 8 feet
Outer panel length = (42-8)/2 = 17 feet
Neat! Sometimes it just works out. Now, a “real world” outer

wing panel will have some kind of attachment to pass bending
and torsion loads into the inner panel. I prefer sailplane-like
attachments, where a “stub spar” extends into the inner panel

and is engaged with pins. That would lengthen the outer panel’s
overall dimension, but it shouldn’t amount to two extra feet per
panel. Total panel length for each of the outer panels should be
somewhere close to, but less-than, 19 feet. That fits within my
storage requirement. It slightly exceeds what I'd like for
building, but the wings shouldn't take as long to build as the
fuselage, and so are a little less-critical here.
Next Post: Selecting primary construction materials and

methods.
Last edited by Topaz; October 30th, 2015 at 06:41 PM.
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is
where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." - Henry
David Thoreau
Design Project: Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat

Motorglider
Discussion Thread for the Project: Discussion: Conceptual Design of
an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat Motorglider
Reply With Quote
October 31st, 2015, 04:06 PM
Topaz
#47
Select Primary Construction Materials and
Methods
First off, a couple of points of business.
.
Join Date: Jul 2005 1. I goofed. I should’ve had this piece of work done
Location: Orange County, before I started the detailed description of the
California
airplane and, having it here, after that process has
Posts: 10,539
begun, needlessly muddies that description. Things
have been been beyond hectic in my “real world” life
lately, and I’ve been less organized than I should
be. This work needs to be included, and I can’t add
a post earlier in the thread because of the way the
forum works, so here is where it goes. Sorry!
2. Some of this material, particularly with regard to
molded composites, is hugely controversial here on
HBA. My description here is my own interpretation of
the issues, from my perspective, for this airplane
project. I appreciate that it’s entirely likely that a
“professional” scenario, in a proper aircraft factory
or university lab, would be an entirely different case.
My take is from the perspective of one completely
average guy building a one-off, single airplane for
himself, for the first time, with very significant time
and cost constraints. Your mileage may vary, of
course, and I know for a fact that, in the case of
several members here, it most certainly does. We’ve

discussed that at length here. I know your opinions
and, while I understand and respect them, I
disagree and there is no need to restate them in the
discussion thread for my project. While I normally
enjoy input in the discussion thread very much, let’s
not re-ignite the “"molded/moldless is
cheaper/quicker” debate there. If you just can’t stop
from correcting me from the vast litany of errors you
think I’ve committed below, please start up a new
thread on the subject and the world can decide for
themselves. I have no desire to have that debate yet
again.
I now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.
While a basic “airplane” shape can obviously be built out of any

of the common construction methods, the specific material(s)
and method(s) will have an effect on the final detailed shape of
the aircraft. For example, barring expensive draw-forming
methods or a high-skill tool like an English Wheel, building
complex compound curves in sheet metal is pretty much
impossible.
In my actual design workbook, I have an outline-style listing of

each material considered, and the pros and cons of that material
in the context of my design. I personally find that kind of
presentation great for examining alternatives and making a
decision, but it’s a bear to code it in here on the HBA forum and
it doesn’t provide context, since the context is all in my head.
But I think that you can’t justify a good decision unless you can
explain it, so I’ve retyped that material in a more forum-friendly
format, and added the background context. You’re getting a
much-expanded form of the conversation I had with myself on
this topic. I’ll warn you right now - this is a long post.
Tube and Fabric

This is the traditional Cub-style build, with a 4130 steel-tube
welded frame, wood wings, and a fabric covering. It’s very light,
and I do have some woodworking experience for the wooden
parts. However, the aerodynamics possible with this method are
wholly inadequate for the kind of soaring performance I want,
barring a hugely complicated build with hundreds of small
formers and stringers to push the fabric covering into the right
shape. Even so, the level of smoothness possible would never
allow any laminar flow. While I have started to learn welding, I
don’t consider myself competent to weld an entire structural
tube frame. I’d likely have to farm that work out. The last
consideration is that cutting the wood parts is going to be noisy
saw and router work. Recall that keeping the build noise down is
a requirement of my project.
All Wood
This type of build uses wood frames and a few longerons and/or
stringers, and then covers most of the aircraft in varying
thicknesses of plywood. Aerodynamically, this can be
surprisingly good if care is taken during construction - even
competition sailplanes were once built this way. It’s much harder
to build a low-drag fuselage this way, because of the compound
curves. That means steaming and bending - a skill I have not
yet acquired. But I do have some general woodworking
experience, so most of the build would be familiar territory for

me.
All-wood builds are generally either light and very complex (a lot
of little parts) or heavy and simple. Rarely are they both light
and simple, if the aerodynamics are any good. And again, we
have the noise problem of cutting out the parts with saw or
router, and finishing all the edges and surfaces.
Riveted Aluminum Sheet

Traditional riveted aluminum sheet construction can be one of
the easiest, lightest, faster-building methods out there. One has
only to look at Van’s RV-x series to see that. There’s a lot to be
said for this method, and the fact that it’s been the dominant
airplane construction technology for decades bears that out. If I
were doing a small pure-sport airplane like a Hummelbird, this
would probably be the method I’d choose. Obviously the
designer of that airplane feels the same way.
The problem in my application here is aerodynamic. The style of

construction for an RV-x is unable to provide the low-drag,
laminar-flow flight surfaces and low-drag fuselage surfaces that I
need for this project. Sheet metal construction can be brought to
that level of accuracy and smoothness, but it requires relatively
thick, stretch-formed skins, especially for the wing and tails
forward of the spar. Only one homebuilt design of which I’m
aware used this technology, and that’s the SX-300 by the now-
defunct Swearington kitplane company. The tooling requires
extremely precise solid metal forms and industrial-grade stretch-
forming equipment to stretch the final skins over the forms.
Stretch forming does allow compound curves to be developed,
which is a plus.
The biggest “plus” of sheet-metal construction is that it’s going

to be one of the two lightest construction methods of all the
ones I list. It’s also one of the easier building methods,
especially with matched-hole techniques. Structural “pulled”
rivets are also relatively quiet to set, as opposed to “set” rivets,
and cutting thin sheet can be done with shears and cutters,
rather than saws. Pulled rivets on the exterior of the aircraft are
a big source of drag - even if countersunk - because of the
roughness created by the stub of the mandrel. Unfortunately, I
don’t have a lot of sheet-metal tools or experience. This would
be a new method for me.
Moldless Full-Depth Foam and Fiberglass

This is the method pioneered on the first composite sailplanes by
the German akafliegs and made hugely popular in the 1970’s
and 1980’s by Burt Rutan’s EZ series of canard homebuilts. The
Quickie Aircraft Quickie 1 and Viking Dragonfly are two other
kitplanes that were entirely built with this technique. Numerous
others have used it for wings and flying surfaces.
The big plus of moldless composite work is that it’s probably the
fastest way to build an aerodynamically smooth airplane with
lots of compound curves. Rutan used this method at Scaled
Composites for early prototyping work, simply becuase it’s one
of the fastest build methods period, requiring virtually no tooling
or jigs. For me, there are two added bonuses: Building an
airplane with this method is virtually silent, and it’s a technology
with which I have some dedicated aircraft-building (models)
experience. I’m very comfortable with it.
This method is heavier than both riveted sheet metal and tube-
and-fabric, but probably lighter than all but the most complex all
-wood structures. At larger sizes (bigger than most homebuilts)
the full-depth foam core starts to become a weight issue, but at
the size of my aircraft, this method is actually lighter than all but
the most-optimized molded sandwich composite structures. The
square-cube law is my friend in this case.
Let’s take a moment to talk about finishing. “Everyone knows”

that moldless composite airplanes are a nightmare of sanding
and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling… I’m
going to say this once here, although I’ve said it several times
elsewhere on HBA: What “everyone knows” about finishing
moldless composite airplanes is completely wrong. If one takes
care during the entire build process to produce smooth foam
cores and fiberglass laminates without wrinkles and with proper
transitions between laminates, “finishing” is limited to simply
filling in whatever weave texture is left on the outer layer of
laminate and sanding that layer of filler smooth. A couple of
days for a wing, maybe four - not weeks or months. Then it's
primer and paint like anything else. If you’re having to spend
months sanding and filling your moldless fiberglass airplane,
you’ve done the earlier steps horribly wrong.
Moldless Full-Depth Foam and Carbon Fiber

Same as fiberglass construction above, except carbon is used as
the fiber reinforcement. The addition of relatively inexpensive
carbon fiber fabrics to our available materials is huge. Carbon is
awesome not because it’s strong (although it is) but rather
because it is stiff. A structure can deflect less under the same
load with far less material, and therefore weight.
Carbon fabrics can be used for moldless laminates, just like

fiberglass. You get all the good things of moldless composites,
with all the extra benefits of carbon. Structures are stiffer, and
lighter for the same strength. The fabrics themselves are more
expensive than fiberglass, but you use less. Most comparisons of
which I’ve heard report that the cost difference ends up being a
wash.
So why didn’t the moldless composite world switch over to

carbon, en mass? Two words: Quality assurance. Not of the
fabrics themselves, which are probably as good or better than
the glass fabrics available, but quality control for the individual
airplane builder. Fiberglass, when “wetted out” by epoxy, turns
nearly transparent. You can see every bubble, fiber or dirt
inclusion, areas that are “dry” (inadequate amount of epoxy), or
delamination. Inspection is easy, entirely visual, and quick.
Carbon fabrics, however, remain as opaque when wetted out as
they were dry. You have to be much more careful at the
laminating stage to make sure you’ve gotten enough epoxy into
the fabric, haven’t included any bubbles, and so on. It’s not at all
impossible, but it takes practice and experience. In a regular
factory situation it’s a non-issue. They use fabrics pre-
impregnated with exactly the right amount of expoxy and
sophisticated methods like ultrasound for quality assurance of
their parts. For a first-time homebuilder, it’s a little more
problematic.
Except for the quality-assurance issue and the much better

stiffness that carbon provides, this method/material combination
has all the same plusses and issues as moldless fiberglass
construction.
Molded Sandwich Foam and Glass/Carbon

This is modern sailplane construction, with foam core/carbon-
fiber sandwich shells molded to shape in large female molds.
When taking aerodynamic and structural qualities into
consideration, it’s simply the best, particularly with carbon fiber
as the laminate.
The results, in carbon, are as light or lighter than any form of

metal construction. Even the fiberglass version is nearly as light
as the most-sophisticated sheet metal build. If the plug-and-
mold process of building the molds is done carefully, the
aerodynamics are second to none. For very small airplanes,
however, an interesting thing happens. Once you factor in the
weight of inside skins, closures, and so on, (all of which are
heavier than foam) sandwich construction can actually be
heavier than full-depth foam. It’s the square-cube law at work
again. I don’t know where the dividing line really is, other than
“somewhere at the high-end of Glasair/RV-x size territory”, and
it will vary from design-to-design,
But there are downsides. It all comes down to the molds. In the
case of fuselage molds, you’re essentially building the airplane
twice, or possibly even three times. In traditional molding
workflows, you build a “plug” - a thing that is exactly the same
shape, size, and smoothness as the airplane part you want to
build. Then you laminate a female mold onto this plug. Pull the
plug from the mold, add a bunch of really stiff structure to keep
the female mold in shape as you work, and then you laminate up
the airplane skin and structure inside this female mold. It’s not
actually as simple as I’ve just listed it out - you have to sand
and fill the plug to get it to the right shape and smoothness
(about the same level of work as on a moldless aircraft, done
well), and usually the female mold needs some finish sanding
and “dressing” to get it ready to go. You have to repeat this
process for every molded part on the entire airplane.
Modern molded airplane technology has made some advances on

this, generally eliminating the plug step by carving the female
mold directly with CNC equipment. You then hand-laminate the
actual mold surface as before. However, this time you’re not
laminating up against a smooth male plug, you’re laminating on
a negative of that shape, and the actual mold surface will need
much more hand finishing and dressing than one done against a
finished plug. There’s no way to avoid that labor, even with a
CNC mold. You just transfer it from the plug to the mold itself.
With parts like wings and tails, there are easier methods that do
not require a plug, and only a minimal mold. Most of the issues
above arise solely with fuselage parts.
All of this takes time. It takes material. And those mean money.
If you’re doing it the “modern” way, you have to have access to
a six-axis CNC foam cutter mill large enough to encompass the
entire part - which can be quite large if you’re talking about an
entire cowl, and worse if you’re doing a fuselage half. It has to
be accurate enough to hold laminar-flow tolerances. Plans and
even kits for hobbyist “maker” CNC foam mills exist on the
Internet for machines large enough for this purpose. Which, of
course, you would have to buy materials for and build itself. Or
you can contract the CNC carving out to a commercial firm, and
pay them for the service.
It is my considered opinion that all of this, taken in its entirety,

is going to take longer and be considerably more expensive than
Rutan-style moldless construction for the solo one-off airplane
builder. In the case of flying surfaces, the total trade-offs may
be slightly in the other direction, since virtually all sanding and
filling is eliminated for those parts. It is my opinion that, over
the entire airplane, the total balance of molded versus moldless
favors the latter in terms of construction time and expense.
Final Construction Method/Material Selection

It’s not going to be any surprise to anyone that I’m selecting
moldless full-depth composite as the overall construction
method. For me, as that “solo average Joe building a one-off
airplane for himself,” I don’t want to spend the time, materials,
and money on plugs and molds, garage-sized CNC machines, or
professional CNC services to carve those molds. Not for an
$8,500 airplane. I want to stay clear of that time and expense
even if it means I have to spend a few extra days or even weeks
filling and sanding by hand. I personally don’t see the extra
time, money, and material in molds as a valid trade-off for a
little elbow grease on an airplane like this. The final
consideration in the decision is that I’m already familiar with
moldless and am comfortable with it. That’s extremely important
for any builder.
I’ve disqualified tube and fabric and riveted sheet metal as being
aerodynamically inadequate for this particular application. Wood
(and the wooden portions of tube-and-fabric) is simply too noisy,
for the many parts that go into an airplane. The reasons for my
concern about noise were detailed earlier.
Now for material selection. From a purely structural and

engineering point of view, carbon fabric is the clear winner. It
has all the good qualities of fiberglass, only better. However,
strutural and engineering considerations are not the only valid
ones. Cost is pretty much a wash between carbon and glass,
from everything I’ve read, so that’s of no help. That leaves
production issues. I have to be able to build this thing, with my
own two hands, in my garage, and be able to make sure that
I’ve done an adequate job before risking my life flying it. I’ve
italicized that last sentence because it’s what drove my final
decision to use primarily fiberglass in my airplane. I’ve outlined
the quality-assurance issues with carbon versus glass above,
and I do not have what I feel is adequate experience with
laminating carbon fabrics to feel really solid assurance that I’ve
done every laminate properly, over a large area, with no voids,
air bubbles, or delaminations.
With the long sailplane wings on this project, it may well be that
fiberglass is not adequate for high-stiffness parts like the main
wing spar. Use of carbon fabric or pultruded carbon rods for such
parts is not out of the question. For relatively small-area parts
like spars, I can probably develop enough skill with that
specialized kind of layup. If not, pre-made pultruded carbon rods
will do the trick. That’s something to be determined during the
later “preliminary” design phase between “Conceptual” and

“Detailed”, and I will not be touching that subject during this
conceptual design phase.
Last edited by Topaz; October 31st, 2015 at 04:28 PM.
PTAirco, Himat and RPM314 like this.
David Thoreau

Motorglider
Reply With Quote
November 1st, 2015, 06:36 PM #48

Topaz
Select the Gross Configuration

I’m selecting a conventional one-main wing, one aft tail
configuration for this airplane. Here's why.
The list of possible configurations.

Join Date: Jul 2005 1. Conventional
Location: Orange County, 2. Flying wing/Tailless
California 3. Canard/Tandem/Joined Wing/Biplane/Three-surface
Posts: 10,539 4. Lifting body
Lifting bodies: While I'm fascinated with designs like the

Facetmobile, I know from my earlier work that, to reach all the
performance specifications for this design, I need the airplane to
have an aspect ratio of about 17.6. A high-aspect-ratio “lifting
body” is a contradiction in terms. Cross this one off the list.
Canard/Tandem/Joined Wing/Biplane/Three-surface: For my

purposes, these types are the same, in that the primary lift
system is split across two or more flight surfaces. Lift theory
shows that, for a given wing area, a monoplane will have lower
induced drag than a multi-surface lift system, unless span is
constrained. Low induced drag is critical for a sailplane or
motorglider. Joining the lifting surfaces (“Box plane”, etc.) can
reduced the induced drag for multi-surface designs, but not to
the level of a monoplane of the same area and unconstrained
span. Is span constrained on my design? Not within the limits
imposed by my requirements. I need 42 feet of span to get the
right aspect ratio with 98 square feet of area, and that amount
of span will fit within my build and storage space.
The sub-set of multi-wing aircraft where the wings are spaced

fore-and-aft of the center of gravity (canard, tandem, joined
wing, three-surface, etc.) can be designed so that they are stall-

resistant. We’ve discussed this at length here on HBA, and while
such stall-resistance might be beneficial for some kinds of
aircraft, in a sailplane, full pitch control is needed right up to the
stall, and that’s not possible with any form of aerodynamic stall-
resistant design.
For both of these reasons, I struck the entire class of multi-

lifting surface designs.
Flying Wing/Tailless: This was a more challenging choice. I like

tailless aircraft for a variety of reasons. For one, there’s simply a
lot less airplane to build, and that means less money spent - a
big attraction on a project like this. The reduction in parasite
drag possible with a flying wing would be a big help during
powered cruising flight, enabling more speed for less power. The
induced drag penalty inherent in tailless aircraft may or may not
be an issue in this design, although I’m going to be using a fairly
small engine, in the entire scheme of things, and I’ve already
struggled a bit to keep the climb rate up and takeoff distance
reasonable in the hot-and-high conditions I’ve specified.
I’ve done enough research and design studies with the tailless
configuration that I don’t accept the old saw that flying wings
inherently have some issue with stability and control. The fact is,
they fly by the same physics as a Piper Cub or any other
airplane. They are however, much harder to design because so
many design issues must be integrated together into the wing.
With a low-power design such as mine, the difficult trade-off
between factors promoting high efficiency from the wing and
good stall and post-stall behavior make the task very
complicated.
In the end, I decided that, despite a big possible reduction in

build cost, the design issues are more complex than I want to
tackle with this project. I don’t think it’s impossible to do this
airplane as a flying wing, but I want to keep this as simple as
possible. Yeah, too late, I know.
Next Post: The Inspiration Wall
danmoser, Himat and RPM314 like this.
David Thoreau

Motorglider
Reply With Quote
November 6th, 2015, 06:54 PM

#49
Topaz
Moderator
Motorglider
The Inspiration Wall

I'm a graphic artist by trade, both design and production, and a
tool I learned from the graphic design half of that profession is
Join Date: Jul 2005 the “inspiration wall.” When you have a task at hand that
Location: Orange County, demands synthesis of many factors, find as many images as you
California can that apply to the situation in some way. Put the pictures up
Posts: 10,539 on the wall and take time just looking at them. Take a lot of
time. Doing so makes connections in your subconscious, and
helps you see issues much more clearly than you could with
simple visualization in your mind. In the case of airplane design,
I chose pictures of examples of my candidate configurations that
are already flying, pictures of some aspect of a design that I find
interesting in light of my design goals, possible solutions to
configuration issues I already know about, or simply an airplane
that reminds me of my design goals in some way. I have a big
magnet board behind my desk in my office, and I use that for
inspiration walls for work projects and personal projects like this
one.
I’ve put together a “virtual” copy of my inspiration wall,

which you can view here:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?...UU&usp=sharing
The images aren’t in any particular order, other than

alphabetically by file name. I’m hosting my wall on Google Drive
because I don’t want to use up this much of Jake’s storage. The
link should allow you to view the Google Drive folder that I'm
using as an inspiration wall. If it doesn't work, let me know.
Photo credits
Most of the images were taken from the Internet (my usage
here falls under the Fair Use clause of the US Copyright Act), but
there are a number of images that were either posted on HBA by
members or sent to me by members privately by e-mail. I asked
permission of the two members involved before I made this post
today, and received permission to use their pictures in this way.
I want to give appropriate credit for the images, and I thank you
both for the inspiration and for allowing me to show your work to
everyone!
The E-ticket is a creation of our own Victor Bravo. There are

several really clever things going on in this one view.
The images of the Macro airplane are from its designer, our very
own “Head in the Clouds”, who is showing his current build in
the “DooMaw” build log thread. Those of us participating in the
“VP-21” thread could do a lot worse than looking at this little
airplane for inspiration. In my case here, in the course of my
various design studies I’ve wrestled mightily with “scope creep”.
The airplane always gets bigger, fancier, higher-performing,
more-complex, and more-costly. The Macro is a wonderful
example of the benefits of keeping it light, keeping it simple, and
keeping it fun!
The DS27 perspective view is one of my own earlier design

studies. Clearly based on the work of Dipl. Ing Richard Vogt and
the WWII-era Blohm und Voss design team, in particular the BV-
141, which is also pictured. It's one way to have both a tractor
propeller and a great view forward.
If I've overlooked anyone whose images are included in this

group, please contact me immediately so that I can give you the
proper credit for your work.
I’ve spent a lot of time looking over these images and using
them to guide my final detailed configuration choice. They’ve
been a lot of help in that regard. I don’t know that I can really
give you a commentary on the entire collection, but I’ll do my
best to answer any questions in the discussion thread. Any
questions except for one: “Which of these did you pick for your
final configuration choice???”
The answer to that question is, yes, I’m still a bit ahead of what
you’re seeing here, and I’ve narrowed the pack down to two final
candidates. I’m strongly leaning towards one of them, but I
haven’t made the final decision, and no, I’m not tellin’ yet!
Other than that, you can read my two recent posts regarding
design issues (#45 and #46) and review these images in that
light. It’s exactly what I’ve been doing.
Next Post: Define the major wing geometry, so I can start

sketching candidate configurations.
Last edited by Topaz; November 7th, 2015 at 05:54 PM.
David Thoreau

Motorglider
Reply With Quote

#50
Topaz
Baseline Wing Geometry

As I've reviewed my inspiration wall, I'm getting ready to start
sketching out four candidate configurations so that I can see
them in scale, and also so that I can show what I'm looking at
here. Since I know a lot about the geometry of the wing at this
Join Date: Jul 2005 point, it's a good place to start drawing. Pulling the known
Location: Orange County, dimensions from my earlier analysis:
California
Posts: 10,539 Span = 42 feet
Area = 98 square feet
Aspect Ratio = 17.6
While an elliptical wing is the "ideal" for low induced drag,

they're devilishly difficult to build. Even competition sailplanes
break the wing up into two or three straight-tapered panels,
coming close to an elliptical shape while being easier to
manufacture. Since top-notch performance isn't a requirement
for my airplane, but moldless composites make taper relatively
inconsequential, I'm going to choose a two-taper wing instead of
three. A "rule of thumb" formula for minimum induced drag, in
both Fundamentals of Sailplane Design by Thomas (p.99) and
Sailplane Design by Pajno (p.123) goes as follows: Inner panel
taper is 0.8, outer panel taper is 0.4 (from the root), and the
"break" between the two panels occurs at 60% of the semi-span,
from the center line of the airplane. Research has also shown
that keeping a straight trailing edge and tapering the leading
edge only can produce slightly lower induced drag than a pure-
elliptical planform (Thomas, p.105, Pajno p.108). The same
holds true for dihedral - a polyhedral approaching a elliptical
curve when viewed from the front can also reduce induced drag.
The former - planform - is easy to build, while polyhedral is
more complex a task. I've decided to stick to the easy road and
make the trailing edge straight and perpendicular to the
centerline, but use a straight dihedral.
A few dimensions had to be calculated from these choices. I built

up a little spreadsheet to calculate the chords at the root, taper-
change, and tip while holding the specified span and area, to
guide my drawing. The root chord ends up being 3 feet. The
spreadsheet is not really much of anything - you could easily do
this with calculator and a pad of paper - so I'm not going to post
it here. If you want a copy, PM me.
There is a center section that remains attached to the rest of the

airplane, and this will be 7.75' in span, to allow a little clearance
for my 8' wide garage door and 8' maximum legal road width in
California. The wing panels outboard of this section remove for
trailering.
Putting that all into a picture, here's my baseline wing. All my

candidate configurations will use this same wing geometry. And
yay! The first actual drawing for part of my airplane!
EDIT: Ugh. This image doesn't show up very well. The forum
software is sizing it down. If you want to see a larger version,
click here.
All the control surfaces and drag brakes are completely notional
in this drawing. Eyeballed in, and don't necessarily reflect the
final size. While Thomas (p.127) suggests that sailplane ailerons
are generally about 15% chord because of the extent of laminar
flow over the wings, I've drawn these at 20% for now, just
because I think 15%-chord ailerons look silly. I'll do the math
later and redraw as necessary. I haven't decided if these will be
ailerons and flaps, or nearly-full-span flaperons. I've drawn a
split in them at the change in taper, to keep the hinges simple.
Again, this is notional and not necessarily the final design. That
6 foot tall drafting dummy that shows up in airplane drawings
has made his appearance, to give a sense of scale.
No, I have not chosen an airfoil yet. That comes in the major
analysis after I've selected a single final configuration.
Next Post: Review inspiration wall and requirements, and

choose no more than four candidate configurations. Sketch them
and discuss.
Last edited by Topaz; November 8th, 2015 at 12:58 AM. Reason: Cleaned up some
grammar ad typos.
Himat likes this.
David Thoreau

Motorglider
Reply With Quote
Topaz #51
Interlude: A small adjustment
Over in the discussion thread for my project, we got into a

discussion regarding the span of the center panel of my baseline
wing design, starting about here. I had set this at 7.5', so that
Join Date: Jul 2005
there was some clearance passing the airplane through my 8'-
wide garage door for trailering and storage. Some members here
Location: Orange County,
California expressed concern that the clearance wasn't big enough for day-
Posts: 10,539
to-day operations. Various solutions were offered, ranging from
simply shortening the center-section span, on up to making this
a four-panel wing with the two major panels meeting at the
fuselage and large-ish outer panels coming off so that the pieces
would fit inside my garage.
After some back and forth and some recalculating on my part, I

decided that shortening the center-section span to 7' was the
way to go. Overall span is set by my performance calculations at
42', and remains the same. The outer panels, with an 18" stub-
spar continuing on into the center panel to join the wings, are
now exactly 19' in length, which is the largest size that can be
accommodated in a standard-sized US garage (20' deep).
I'm not going to provide an updated drawing of the baseline
wing here, but you'll see the change when I post drawings of the
candidate configurations I've been exploring.
David Thoreau

Motorglider
Reply With Quote
Topaz
Moderator #52
Motorglider
Select the Final Detailed Configuration

Candidates
After reviewing my inspiration wall, and considering the images I
posted there in detail over a couple of weeks, I chose three
Join Date: Jul 2005 candidate configurations to explore for this project. My goal now
Location: Orange County, is to describe and refine these towards a single final choice,
California which will then be developed into finished form for this study.
Posts: 10,539
Please read this note first: The drawings of the three
candidates below are not final “completed designs”. These are
really fancy “back of an envelope sketches”, done “pretty”
because I’m a graphic artist by trade and have a professional
aversion to presenting something as rough as a pencil sketch in
public. As such, they only show the concept of the particular
design accurately, not the details. You already know how well
the wing is actually refined in these drawings (they all share the
same baseline wing). I have not done a weight and balance for
these drawings - position of wings and such are by “eyeball”,
and could very well be “off”. I did a very rough volume sizing for
the horizontal tail for candidate 1 based on the drawing, just to
get the tail size in the ballpark, and then reused that tail as-is
for the others. (I’ll re-do that calculation in detail for the final
winner, and I’ll explain it then.) Vertical tail sizes are by eyeball
alone. The one concession to accuracy in these sketches is that
they are to scale. I’ve found that hand-sketches and mental-
visualization tend to be overly forgiving when trying to fit
components into a design, and I always do even my “envelope
sketches” to scale where possible. I recommend the same to
everyone.
All three concepts are 18 feet in length, use the same wing, and
the same rough “envelope” sketch of the Hummel ½ VW engine,
based upon the drawings provided by Scott Casler at Hummel
Engines. The main gear tire is simply an RF-4 tire, since that’s a
similar airplane in a similar weight class. It looks a little large
relative to the airplane, but you have to remember that there is
only one main tire, which has to support the entire aircraft. The
pilot is scaled to 6 feet tall. The propeller is 54 inches in
diameter, with a tail-up ground clearance of 5 inches in the first
two candidates. In each of the drawings, the green rectangle is
baggage, while the blue one is fuel.
As rough conceptual sketches, all three could use some pretty

thorough aesthetic refinement, although I have to say that
Candidate 1 is pretty snappy-looking to me, even at this stage.
Consider these to be “suggestive” of a potential final design
derived from each, not a cast-in-stone final “look”.
The side-views are to a larger scale than the plan views, because
of limitations in the way the forum will allow me to scale the
latter. The “DS Candidate” tag in each view is scaled
proportionately, so it should give an indication of the size of the
aircraft in each view. For those interested in software, these
were hand-drawn in Adobe Illustrator v19.1.1.
So here we go...
Candidate 1 - Conventional
I’ve always been attracted to unconventional designs, and I

doubt I’m alone in that here on HBA. However, the tried-and-
true conventional layout has some pretty strong things going for
it, in that the body of design methodologies out there are
pointed at this configuration, making it very low-risk. It’s hard to
argue with the fact that, barring a pretty sophisticated structure
and structural analysis, the conventional configuration can be
the lightest option.
Candidate 1 is essentially a smaller, more-sophisticated RF-4,

SFW-31, or ASK-14. Mark Calder’s Robin is another take on the
same idea. His emphasis was placed on fitting within FAR Part
103, whereas mine is placed on higher soaring performance, but
they're essentially very similar aircraft.
Plusses of this layout are its relative structural simplicity,

probable light weight, simple control and throttle runs, and the
short outriggers that the low wing allows. There is ample room
and easy access for the baggage. The tractor propeller helps
reduce or prevent foreign-object damage to the propeller on
poor runway surfaces.
The biggest of the weaknesses of this candidate is, to my mind,

the relative lack of forward-and-down visibility. While I’ve
provided an honest 10 degrees of downward visibility over the
centerline of the nose, the cowling cheeks block the view down
and to the sides a bit, and the wing blocks the view down and to
the side. On the other hand, the view upwards from the
centerline of the aircraft is completely unobstructed.
Other relative weaknesses revolve primarily around drag,

especially under soaring conditions. The forward engine pretty
much rules out any laminar flow on the fuselage, and the low
wing is draggier and should have small fillets to help with flow
near the wing-fuselage junction. Yes, as-drawn, this may have
some spin recovery issues because the horizontal tail might
blanket the rudder in a stall, but that’s a matter for more-
detailed design later.
Those of you who insist on housing the fuel in the wings will be
disappointed in this design - it uses a Cub-style forward fuselage
tank. That doesn’t bother me at all, but I know some of you will
be getting eye twitches over it.
Candidate 2 - Asymmetric
If I got doubtful looks for the fuel tank in Candidate 1, this one
ought to have some of you questioning my sanity altogether!
This concept is based on an earlier design study (DS27) I did
many years ago for a two-seat tandem sportplane. I always

thought that design would also make a nice motorglider. (I'd
post an image directly here, but the forum software only allows
twelve attachments per post, and I need those for my
candidates!)
That design was, itself, based on the WWII-era Blohm und Voss
BV-141, a contender for a Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft
requirement that was ultimately won by the Focke-Wulf FW-189
Uhu.
The BV-141, designed by the gifted aerospace engineer Dipl-Ing.

Richard Vogt and his team at Blohm und Voss, completely defies
conventional thinking about airplanes. Although it may seem
difficult to believe, the airplane actually flew very well. Instead
of making the airplane “fly crooked”, the asymmetric design
actually cancels P-factor and the airplane flies straight even
during power changes! (I can expand on this in the discussion
thread, if you like.) My interest in this configuration stems from
the combination of a tractor engine installation - great for
preventing foreign-object damage to the prop on rough fields -
with an unobstructed forward view for the pilot. The cowling
blocks the view somewhat to one side, but the critical forward
and down sector has the same view as a conventional sailplane.
I checked with our own SVSUSteve a while back, and fears of a
thrown blade impacting the pilot pod have no particular basis in
fact. GA airplanes almost never throw a blade, and there’s about
a 60-in-365 chance that the blade will hit the pilot pod if it
happens anyway.
The pros of this candidate are visibility, visibility, visibility, while

maintaining good FOD characteristics. This design also has
ample room and easy access to the baggage. This is the only
one of the three candidates that isolates the fuel (blue rectangle)
from the pilot entirely, so it’s clearly the best if you’re into that.
Downsides of this candidate are its relative structural complexity

(compared to Candidate 1), probable higher weight, and the
complex airflows in the area where the two “fuselages” intersect
the wing. Control runs to the tails all have to take two 90° turns.
The canopy is pretty massive, making the tooling for it pretty
large, too.
And then there’s the problem of the main landing gear. I have
no idea how to make this retractable and keep the system light
and simple. The only really viable way to retract the gear is
sideways, into the engine fuselage between the engine and fuel
tank. However, the doors and covers for doing that are pretty
complex in any variation that I can conceive, completely
inappropriate for this low-cost design. I strongly suspect that,
for this project, I’d have to keep the main gear on this candidate
fixed and faired. I don’t really like that.
Candidate 3 - Pod and Boom
I’m sure you noted all the images of the Stroknik S-2 and its
derivatives in my inspiration wall. It’s hard to argue with
success! The S-2 was the first homebuilt motorglider to complete
flights winning all three FAI Diamond badges. That says a lot
about good soaring capabilities.
This is the only pusher in the list. It gets its FOD protection for
the prop by virtue of the tail boom acting as a shield against
material thrown up by the main wheel. In every other pusher
configuration I looked at, FOD on the prop was a serious issue
on poor-quality runways, requiring “fenders” or other shields on
the main wheel, and still not providing really good protection.
Plusses of this candidate, like Candidate 2, mostly revolve

around visibility. As-drawn, this design provides about 13
degrees over-nose visibility, and completely unobstructed
visibility down and to the sides. Visibility up and back are
compromised by the wing, but that’s a less-important sector.
The cowling acts like a bullet fairing for the rear wing-fuselage
junction, and this design has the lowest wetted area of the
three, as well as good chances of laminar flow on the front of the
pod. As a result it could have the lowest overall drag of the
three.
This candidate has some challenges. It’s probably about the

same weight as Candidate 2, which is to say, heavier than
Candidate 1. While the cowling works as a bullet fairing, the
airflow in the wing-fuselage junction is still pretty complex, with
a lot of opportunity for flow separation. This has been a problem
on many pod-and-boom designs, so it’s fairly high-risk. I don’t
like the “L-shaped” firewall necessitated by positioning the fuel
underneath the engine, and the baggage will need some kind of
restraint to keep it from crashing forward into the pilot’s head in
an impact. In fact, this is probably the “least crashworthy” of the
candidates, because the thing doing the energy-absorption
between the engine and the ground is the cockpit. I’m also not
exactly sure where to put the fuel filler. Under the wing is
awkward, and anyplace else is worse, from a fire-safety
standpoint alone. When plugged into the wings for powered-
cruise flights, the outriggers are going to be really long!
Something came up in the layout of this concept that validates
my use of scale drawings, and also ruled out all the other
“pusher” engine installations at which I looked. To maintain
reasonable prop efficiency, I placed the prop about 0.6 of the
local wing chord behind the trailing edge. That’s a minimal
separation - it ought to be about 0.7c. But pushing the engine
aft starts pushing the CG aft - and that means a shorter tail arm
and bigger tail for the same static stability. I just eyeballed that
effect here, but this wing is about a foot aft of the wing position
in the others, even so. My design is length-limited by the build
and storage space to about 18 feet (all three candidate designs
are exactly 18 feet long in these drawings), so I do not have the
option to simply lengthen the tail. The Strojnik S-2 is nearly four
feet longer than even the maximum length I can accommodate
in my garage.
So there they are! My job now is to look these over and decide
which is the most promising for further development. Which
would you choose, and why? I’m itching to satisfy my curiosity
about how my choices are fitting into the pilot population at
large, so I’ve decided to see what you all have to say about it!
Since you can’t add a poll to an existing thread, I’ve set up a poll
here: POLL: DS54 Design Study Candidate Configurations
Let me know what you think!
Last edited by Topaz; November 28th, 2015 at 06:04 PM.
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David Thoreau

Motorglider
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December 5th, 2015, 07:57 PM
Topaz #53
And the Winner is…
Join Date: Jul 2005

Location: Orange County,
California
Posts: 10,539
Candidate 1
Click on each image to enlarge
Having dithered back and forth for a couple of weeks, I have

finally made the decision to adopt Candidate 1 as the airplane I’ll
continue to develop in this project. I know a lot of you really
liked the other two, and obviously so do I, but “there can be only
one”, as the movie line goes. Here’s how I arrived at my
decision.
Downselect 1
First to go was Candidate 3. While this did the best in the polls,
in the end I just couldn’t accept the idea of my fragile body
being in a direct line between an impact point on the ground and
102 pounds of engine. I also didn’t like the fuel accommodation
on this design. The fuel tank is directly under the engine and,
even if protected by a horizontal firewall, anything that catches
fire on the engine and drips down will be headed right for the
fuel tank, on the outside of the airframe if not directly.
As was noted in the poll thread once or twice, the aerodynamics

in the wing-root/cowling area are somewhat risky. Many
attempts at this configuration have had issues with flow
separation in that area. While I think my solution of using the
cowling as a bullet fairing was a good one, I don’t know for sure,
and couldn’t really know until the airplane was finished and
flown.
All in all, Candidate 3 just had too many potential issues for my
taste.
Final Downselect
This one was a very hard decision. I’ve been in love with my BV-
141-based DS27 configuration for years, and someday I’m going
to build that airplane. Somebody has to build that airplane.
However, if it’s going to be designed and built, it ought to be

done right. It really ought to have full retractable tricycle gear, a
beautiful big custom canopy, and an uncompromising level of
attention to aerodynamics and aesthetics. It would be best with
some of the more-sophisticated composite structural methods
we debated in the discussion thread. But the severe cost and
simplicity restrictions I’ve placed on this project just won’t allow
all that.
In the end, the decision came down to one about “scope-creep”.

It’s extremely easy to let a bunch of little changes, that make
the airplane "better", completely blow a project out of the realm
of reality. You start with a Piet-like concept and end up with
something more like the Lancair IV. I'm sure I'm not the only
one who has experienced this.
So do I blow the budget and timeframe making the “awesome”

airplane that might take another few years to develop, or do I
stay on-target and build a “fun and good enough” airplane and
have it a lot sooner and more affordably? Scope creep is a killer.
I’ve battled it ever since I started drawing airplanes, back in my
teens. This time, I’m sticking to plan.
Another factor that played into my final decision was stated very
well by DeepStall in the poll thread:
... Designing an airplane is hard enough as it is. Why make

things harder the first time around with a non-traditional
configuration?
That same sentiment has been nagging at the back of my head

ever since I added Candidate 2 to the final list. Is it really wise
to reach for the Moon the first time out? One of the goals I listed
at the start of this project was to keep it simple, for this to be a
good learning experience for me of running a design all the way
through to a build, should I take it that far. Again, despite my
strong desire to take a crack at Candidate 2, it's a very large
bite to take at my first attempt.
All of this together means Candidate 2 will have to wait for

another day, when I can really do it justice.
I should make clear that I'm not at all disappointed with

Candidate 1. While the visibility isn't the best of the lot,
obviously it's "good enough" in similar airplanes like the RF-4,
and in nearly every other way, Candidate 1 is the simplest,
easiest, most-manageable of the three designs. Performance
should meet all my specifications, and this is going to be a heck
of a lot of fun to fly!
Next Post: I’ve spent a lot of time on this decision, and so

progress on the project has stalled. Now that I know what it’s
going to look like, overall, it’s time to get the numbers rolling
again!
PTAirco, bmcj, mcrae0104 and 5 others like this.
David Thoreau

Motorglider
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Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat Motorglider - Page 4 Page 1 of 23

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Results 46 to 53 of 53 Page 4 of 4 First 1 2 3 4

October 30th, 2015, 06:15 PM

General Design Decisions, Based Upon

Join Date: Jul 2005 Seating Position

The outriggers will be manually plugged-in as-needed, on the

A fixed (non-retractable) steerable tailwheel rounds out the

Wing Disassembly/Folding for Trailerability

Looking at another factor, maximum legal road width in

Center panel length = 8 feet

Outer panel length = (42-8)/2 = 17 feet

Neat! Sometimes it just works out. Now, a “real world” outer

attachments, where a “stub spar” extends into the inner panel

Next Post: Selecting primary construction materials and

Last edited by Topaz; October 30th, 2015 at 06:41 PM.

Design Project: Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat

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October 31st, 2015, 04:06 PM

several members here, it most certainly does. We’ve

I now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.

While a basic “airplane” shape can obviously be built out of any

In my actual design workbook, I have an outline-style listing of

Tube and Fabric

experience, so most of the build would be familiar territory for

Riveted Aluminum Sheet

The problem in my application here is aerodynamic. The style of

The biggest “plus” of sheet-metal construction is that it’s going

Moldless Full-Depth Foam and Fiberglass

experience. I’m very comfortable with it.

Let’s take a moment to talk about finishing. “Everyone knows”

Moldless Full-Depth Foam and Carbon Fiber

Carbon fabrics can be used for moldless laminates, just like

So why didn’t the moldless composite world switch over to

Except for the quality-assurance issue and the much better

Molded Sandwich Foam and Glass/Carbon

The results, in carbon, are as light or lighter than any form of

Modern molded airplane technology has made some advances on

It is my considered opinion that all of this, taken in its entirety,

Final Construction Method/Material Selection

Now for material selection. From a purely structural and

later “preliminary” design phase between “Conceptual” and

Last edited by Topaz; October 31st, 2015 at 04:28 PM.

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Design Project: Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat

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November 1st, 2015, 06:36 PM #48

Select the Gross Configuration

The list of possible configurations.

Lifting bodies: While I'm fascinated with designs like the

Canard/Tandem/Joined Wing/Biplane/Three-surface: For my

The sub-set of multi-wing aircraft where the wings are spaced

wing, three-surface, etc.) can be designed so that they are stall-

For both of these reasons, I struck the entire class of multi-

Flying Wing/Tailless: This was a more challenging choice. I like

In the end, I decided that, despite a big possible reduction in

Next Post: The Inspiration Wall

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Design Project: Conceptual Design of an "Inexpensive" Single-Seat

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