Friday, October 9, 2009
Immelman Turn
An Immelmann turn is 1/2 of a loop starting at a low altitude and ending at a high altitude. At the top of the 1/2 loop the plane is inverted and will do a 1/2 roll to the non-inverted attitude. The overall maneuver results in an increase in altitude, a decrease in air speed, and a 180 degree course reversal.A real place would use the elevator to perform the 1/2 loop and then use rudder and ailerons to roll .Obviously a paper airplane can't change its flight controls in flight like a real plane so you will have to use a paper plane that has the following characteristics.1.) a plane that will pitch up with an increased throwing speed. One that will do a loop if thrown hard. Yet when thrown slowly will stay level2.) A plane desigh that has a high wing mount design with a low center of gravity. The natural tendency for a high wing plane if inverted would be to roll to a normal attitude with the heavier fuselage below the wing.Doing an immelman would then rely upon throwing the plane with just the right amount of air speed to do 1/2 of a loop and ending up with a low air speed at the top where gravity would then cause the plane to roll to its non-inverted atitude. The low air speed stops the plane from looping. If too the plane is thrown with too much speed then you will get either a full loop or a "1/2 Cuban Eight". If thrown with not enough speed the plane will pitch up and stall falling nose first towards the ground
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I don't know if the same applies to paper aircraft, but the classic "chuck glider" made of balsa, is designed to do just that.
ReplyDeleteThey have a wing with both dihedral and polyhedral, high mounted, so the lift is very high on the model, thus very stable.
It is launched by "chucking" it by hand, at a speed at which excessive lift is generated, causing the model to start a loop. By judging how hard you "chuck" it, at the top of the loop the airspeed will have decayed to "normal". The model rolls out, due to the raised lift from the wing, and continues in flight in a stable manner.
I would expect a similar thing to be possible with a paper aircraft. Just get the wing as high as you can with lots of dihedral.
rectangular piece of paper.
ReplyDeletefold right end over diagonally so that the upper right hand corner is touching the left side of the paper, and the lower right hand corner is a point.
repeat with other side except just make the lower left hand corner a point. make sure something sticks out the other side.
thrun the plne around and fold the extra over on top of the plane.
fold the whole plane in half so that it is symetrical.
on an imaginary line from the nose of the airplane to the middle of the rear, fold your wings along that line. repeat for other side.
from http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/dmitri.php
http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/dragon.php
ReplyDeleteallen, i think we should use the Cobra airplane for bulll's eye. I tried and it goes pretty straight. Not that far, though.
ReplyDeleteIt's on the first website u gave me on the blog.
k...
ReplyDeletesure if it works
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