OK after thinking about the tandem seating Idea for a few days I feel like it will be a little bit harder than I thought it would... But based on my limited knowledge of aerodynamics, and a few basic assumptions, this might still be worthwhile. Obviously I would like to get the maximum performance out of my project that I can. There are 2 reasons that I am fixated on the tandem seating arrangement.
1. I feel like the decreased width of the airplane will benefit in making it as slippery as possible. obviously something 44" wide is gonna be harder to push through the air than something 30 inches wide. 2. The tandem seating just feels sporty to me. Much more like sitting in a fighter plane than a cross country cruiser. Well, doesnt everybody wanna feel like they are flying a fighter? The drawbacks are the rather large adjustments that will have to be made to the airframe. Im thinking the wing will have to be moved back. The front passenger will have to sit somewhere right on top of the foreward spar. while the pilot (rear) will basically be sitting directly on the trailing edge of the wing. I havent done the math(nor do I know how to ) but this is definately going to necessitate moving the firewall foreward. If I follow the suggestions of previous builders(Mark L) and use the full length of longeron material provided in the boat kit I think I will have enough material to massage the dimensions around enough to get the aircraft to be able to balance properly. There are only 2 pictures available of the only flying kr I know of with tandem seating. There is very little daetail on the modifications done to make it fly properly, so I am kind of just winging it and theorizing right now. Am I just dreaming and making this more difficult than it should be? If I had the finances I would be looking at something like the thunder mustang, but of course I dont(as so few of us do). Perhaps I should be looking at other designs? _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage1_052009
