The Football was designed after I saw an old airplane from the 1950's called the Planet Satellite and from a more recent design called the Celera 500L..
Details
All composite materials made from molds of the original aircraft. Wet wing holding 40 gallons of fuel. Retractable landing gear. Holds four people comfortably.
Engines from 100 to 150 horesepower. More details will be published as I get further along on this airplane.
My goal with this airplane is acheive the best laminar flow possible over the fuselage and wings. I am hoping that the cruise speed will be somewhere around 200mph! Most aircraft designers think a thin, long fuselage is more aerodynamic than a larger round fuselage but this is not the case. The best shape is much like what you see in a "drop tank" for our fighter aircraft in WWII. The optimum shape is 3 units long and 1 unit wide.
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The optimum shape for a fuselage is a fineness ratio of 3:1 as you see above. Why don't other aircraft designers design airplanes like this? In aircraft design there are thousands of small trade-offs. Making a fuselage of this shape would make it heavier than it needs o be and there would be a lot of wasted space. It would also take much taller hangar space. |
I named this airplane, "The Football" because of its shape. As with most of my aircraft designs, this airplane has a roomy cabin. It has a high aspect ratio. As I continue to work on this design, I will made some changes to the size of the wings and tail. I want the aspect ratio to be a 7 or above for better climb and high altitude flight. With today's modern composite materials I will be able to achieve laminar flow very far back on the fuselage. Having the propeller at the rear of the plane helps keep the laminar flow going too. A vertical fin will be placed at the rear of the fuselage to eliminate any chance of a prop strike. Like Rutan's VariEZ, the rudders will only open outwardly. This give the abilty to use the twin rudders as airbrakes. Fowler flaps will help slow the airplane for landing. The large Lexan canopy will give excellent views.
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