Fixed-Wing Racing (NOT a Wing)

[PsyBorg]

Butthurt much? Maybe be a little less puffy and calmly discuss your thoughts? And above all please dont twist what I say into internet facebookie stupid to bolster your position.

The "Knuckleheads" analogy is for the many many inexperienced people entering the hobby seeing cool stuff experienced pilots do thinking they too can dive right in and do it. So some dude with spare cash to spend can buy and aircraft that will fly in excess of 100mph toss it in the air thinking flying is easy because he thinks racing is cool and ends up hurting someone or damaging property.

Whether you choose to stay here and intelligently promote you idea or not has zero effect on my feeling so the childish you dont agree with me so Ill leave thing just makes me laugh.

and again.. because YOU dont get what I said does not mean it does not make sense.

 

[JasonK]

I can second what PsyBorg is feeling. I am all for interesting ideas, however, I am rather leery about anything that makes it easy for someone to 'pick something up off the shelf' and do something dumb with it. Because to many people blame the tool instead of the person using it and then we [those of us that do our best to think first and keep stuff safe] get restrictions that make it hard for us to enjoy a hobby.

I am all for some sort of RC based racing setup, but it needs to be done in a way that fly aways/loss of control don't end up putting a 60+mph plane in someone's face or into their stuff. Which means cameras to watch from and/or trap nets between spectators and the race track. If you look at the site I linked earlier, they have specific rules about track layouts and the position of the pilots and specktators, to minimize loss of control situtations sending a plane going fast toward a person.

 

[Anomaly]

I’m not butthurt, I know that I won’t be able to change your mind, I just want to make sure your comments don’t influence others into thinking something like this can’t exist.

To be very clear, safety is an obvious and very valid concern! But it is not a valid reason for something like this to not exist.

The way Psyborg posted his reply saying that this shouldn't happen because of safety and because people will do stupid stuff just doesn’t make sense, and then I gave examples why.

People can buy a 700hp car off the shelf, a giant turbine RC airplane, a race drone capable of 100mph, etc., and do stupid stuff with it, that doesn’t mean those things shouldn’t exist?

 

[PsyBorg]

Im all about racing. I dont care if it flips, flys floats or crawls. I am however after getting permanently injured due to "Those other guys" exceeding the normal level of stupid extremely leery about letting just anyone even look at things these days let alone touch or operate them. Its been at least 20 years since I have not heard the first things out of a new person to RC's mouth say "That looks fun and cool!!!! Ill get me one a do (insert random stupid thing) with it" So yeah I am against general public having easy access to ANY and EVERYTHING having to do with speed.

EDIT: Wait to be totally honest.. they ALWAYS ask how much it cost before saying something really dumb.

 

[Anomaly]

that’s great, but your concern for stupid people doing stupid things is not going to stop this from happening. The same concern can be said for literally everything. What I’m trying to do is not enabling stupid people to do stupid things, they can already do that with what is currently on the market.

This thread is not for discussing what stupid people will do with fast airplanes, it’s about discussing rather people think this would be entertaining to spectate, what kind of aircraft would perform the best, and how to get more people involved.

 

[JasonK]

I think part of the problem is that everyone uses flying wings, which from an aircraft design point of view is inferior to designs with vertical control surfaces and dedicated elevators.

What makes you think that flying wings are 'inferior' to other designs? flying wings can be the most efficient flying system out there (or are you trying to claim that a 'traditional' airplane is more efficiently designed then a bird?).

"Traditional" airplanes aren't the way they are for efficiency, but to cope for situations like cross wind landings, engine failures (which for multi engine craft create a yawing motion that needs to be corrected for), [at one time] our limits in understanding on how things work (look up the prandle-d for a flying wing design that needs no v-stab, has coordinated turns/etc. - which ends up being one of the closest known designs to how birds actually fly).

 

[Flite Risk]

first you get good, then you get fast. Start with this airframe,
http://www.crashtesthobby.com/albatross-46.html

 

[Anomaly]

What makes you think that flying wings are 'inferior' to other designs? flying wings can be the most efficient flying system out there (or are you trying to claim that a 'traditional' airplane is more efficiently designed then a bird?).

"Traditional" airplanes aren't the way they are for efficiency, but to cope for situations like cross wind landings, engine failures (which for multi engine craft create a yawing motion that needs to be corrected for), [at one time] our limits in understanding on how things work (look up the prandle-d for a flying wing design that needs no v-stab, has coordinated turns/etc. - which ends up being one of the closest known designs to how birds actually fly).

Flying wings are great for long distance, high payload, low maneuverability.

They are not great for highly competitive racing. Look at every race plane and fighter, all have vertical tails, look at any stunt plane, all have vertical tails.
My day job is to analyze combat simulations with fighter aircraft, so I work with designers routinely, trust me we want to get rid of vertical tails for various other reasons, but they always find their way back because of the lack of maneuverability without them.

Also due to wings being short in length, they are very sensitive in pitch, hard to hold a line when you are fighting the bad pitch tendencies.

 

[Anomaly]

[QUOTE="Flite Risk, post: 668198, member: 33174"

first you get good, then you get fast. Start with this airframe,
http://www.crashtesthobby.com/albatross-46.html[/QUOTE]
I have a scythe, great platform to learn on and transport.

 

[Flite Risk]

 

[Flite Risk]

O.P.
I found your people. They are in Atlantic City and they and they already have an airplane designed and specified.

I'm sure they race other places other than Atlantic City fortunately because Atlantic City is like the armpit of the East Coast.

 

[JasonK]

Flying wings are great for long distance, high payload, low maneuverability.

They are not great for highly competitive racing. Look at every race plane and fighter, all have vertical tails, look at any stunt plane, all have vertical tails.
My day job is to analyze combat simulations with fighter aircraft, so I work with designers routinely, trust me we want to get rid of vertical tails for various other reasons, but they always find their way back because of the lack of maneuverability without them.

My wings have __never__ lacked for maneuverability, and generally are more maneuverable then my tailed planes. Throw in some differential thrust and you have yaw control. A major _difference_ between RC and maned craft, is that maned craft needs more redundancy then my RC craft. if I lose a motor on my wing, I let it crash/glide to the ground. That isn't acceptable for manned craft, so it needs ways to make up for those types of failures.

here is a video about wing racing happening in a stadium:

Also due to wings being short in length, they are very sensitive in pitch, hard to hold a line when you are fighting the bad pitch tendencies.

Speak for yourself, haven't had that problem at all, my wings have been nice and stable once everything is tuned out and trimmed correctly.

 

[Anomaly]

Having a vertical tail has nothing to deal with redundancy. So my comparison still stands. So why do all of these aircraft have vertical tails?

When you are in a roll, how do you control altitude while holding that roll and staying on that line?
you can’t without a rudder.

A vertical tail is much simpler to build and more efficient for yaw control than thrust vectoring.

 

[JasonK]

Having a vertical tail has nothing to deal with redundancy. So my comparison still stands. So why do all of these aircraft have vertical tails?

When you are in a roll, how do you control altitude while holding that roll and staying on that line?
you can’t without a rudder.

A vertical tail is much simpler to build and more efficient for yaw control than thrust vectoring.

How much FPV flying/racing have you done? because last I checked 'slow roll' hasn't really been part of any plane racing.

Did you know that initially the need for a vertical stabilizer was because of adverse yaw with roll, and there is a a wing design that removes this need? (the prandel-d has proverse yaw). And because of wing span limitations and that the wingloading to minimize structure for a given lift in a limited wing span will always have adverse yaw, a vertical stabilizer will be required.

But I suspect you should know all of that given your indicated background. So is your argument that 'tailed' planes are better focused on that you want them to be? Also, you need to define your goals before determining what is best. If I want to do 3D flying, yes I am going to need a yaw control method - which could be differential thrust or a rudder. If I want to fly fast and race, it is unlikely that I need a yaw control as a distinct control input (most wings in fact have v-stabs, just no rudder).

The plane from my PFP was a design I did for FPV, it did not have much meaningful yaw control and basically flew bank/yank even with the A-tail in the path of the airflow from the prop (so I had a blown rudder).

- Did it have less throttle -> pitch coupling then a wing? yes (but does that really matter? no)
- Was it more fragile in a crash? yes
- Did it have more points of failure? yes
- Would I pick something like this over a wing for racing? absolutely not, so much wasted/dead weight.

Are wings better for all purposes? no
Are tailed planes better for all purposes? no
Therefore we need to define what requirements we are looking to solve, before determining which is better for the use case. My experience (and what appears to be many others who race FPV) points to wings betting better for fixed wing FPV racing. However I would be happy to hear what about a more complicated plane could make it more competitive for racing. IE what % of your craft ends up being power train vs air frame, efficiency in flight, things like that.

 

[Anomaly]

The goal is simple, make fixed-wing racing more popular. Clearly what is being done now isn’t working which is why the scene has died down since 2016 where I believe it was at its peak. I have a couple of theories on how to do that.
Right now wings are being flown like quads, on very tight courses and are all over the place. I haven’t been able to find a single race video where the wings aren’t jumping around all over the place. I think part of the reason why is course design and airframe. Even with very skilled pilots they are all over the place, as a spectator this is hard to follow.

Theory 1: make the races easier to watch and follow for spectators. This can be accomplished by making tracks similar to other motor sports where it is about finding the fastest line, and staying on it while passing others. And less of the who can turn the sharpest and flip the fastest.

Theory 2: use “cooler” less hobby like looking airplane designs to help attract spectators. Make it look more professional.

 

[JasonK]

Theory 1: make the races easier to watch and follow for spectators. This can be accomplished by making tracks similar to other motor sports where it is about finding the fastest line, and staying on it while passing others. And less of the who can turn the sharpest and flip the fastest.

The RedBull air races have gates, chicanes, & Immelmann turns, similar stuff as to the wing racing. I only found out about the RedBull air races because of looking into plane racing stuff because of Flite Test and various wing racing things, not the other way around. Making the track less interesting and we might as well go to RC car races, as if you remove those interesting things, that is what your limiting yourself to.

Theory 2: use “cooler” less hobby like looking airplane designs to help attract spectators. Make it look more professional.

This is 2 separate things:
- "cooler" less hobby looking airplanes -> which I take you to mean scale planes.
I don't think the theory that 'scale planes' are going to be more attractive to watching the racing then planes designed for racing. Our racing hobby planes are more directly designed to go fast and be efficient doing so, making them scale is unlikely to make them better at the core idea of racing.

- make it look more professional.
This is something that takes time and money (and therefore pre-existing intrest or an inventor), not 'scale looking planes' which is completely different.

 

[Anomaly]

Batteries and cameras strapped to the top of a foam wing is not professional looking and lacks the design aesthetic you will find in other racing sports. And design aesthetic is a powerful thing.

also never said scale flying, but I know for a fact watching 8ft wingspan unmanned aircraft duke it out will be way more entertaining than watching 36” foam wings.


What is currently being done isn’t working, can’t argue with that. So why do you think that is?

 

[JasonK]

Batteries and cameras strapped to the top of a foam wing is not professional looking and lacks the design aesthetic you will find in other racing sports. And design aesthetic is a powerful thing.

last I checked, spec wings have everything inside the wing. Also, it feels like you and me have way different ideas of 'looks like a toy'.

also never said scale flying, but I know for a fact watching 8ft wingspan unmanned aircraft duke it out will be way more entertaining than watching 36” foam wings.

for you, sure. But that doesn't automatically transfer to everyone else. If there was some wing racing near me, I would be more intrested in watching some spec wings racing over some 'larger' rc planes.

What is currently being done isn’t working, can’t argue with that. So why do you think that is?

why hasn't a niche of a niche of a hobby gone mainstream? the answer is right there.
people who want to watch plane races are a small part of people who watch racing in general
people who want to watch RC races are a small part of people who watch any sort of racing
now your talking about the overlap between those 2 groups, people who want to watch RC planes race

I don't see any reason to argue that it is the choice of airframe when there is already a much better explaination (not enough interest in the general public).

 

[Anomaly]

Last reply and after that I have put way too much effort into this conversation.

There is a low public interest for a handful of reasons, one of those could be because the airframe for all of the reasons I have named.

Ever heard of Battlebots? It’s a niche of a niche but seems to be doing pretty well with a large audience. All RC by the way.

Drone (quad) racing is a niche of a niche, seems to be doing well, much better than fixed wing. It has even sparked the creation of Airspeeder.

but your right, people don’t want to watch RC fixed wing racing. Because they look like toys, because they are toys. So change that and you could get more spectators.

But you clearly think unmanned fixed wing racing has reached its potential and nothing about it could improve it, because you have made zero suggestions for how to improve it, only argued against mine, so good day sir.

 

[JasonK]

...

seems like you clearly have your mind made up and aren't looking to have a discussion

/wave

battlebots has lots of stuff that looks like 'toys' [using your apparent defintion]. What is different is that it got picked out by a major TV channel, who dumped $$$ into it to make money themselves. Had that not happenned, battle-bots would have similar main stream interest as RC FPV races.