I too love flying wings, my 2-meter klingberg is decorated to resemble the YB-49. Got the 100-inch Klingberg still NIB, unbuilt, I was scared to start on it with my mediocre building skills, and i really *need* days in a row of "quiet time" to work undisturbed on sheeting, glassing, etc. which my kids and job do NOT allow... (sigh) if i could find a guy in central Illinois who would build it out for me, for an unreasonably low sum, i could get around to FLYING it....
Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom seems to be you can't launch flying wings as high as conventional tailed designs, assuming identical conditions. The reason is the high alpha (angle of attack) in a histart or winch launch requires you to crank in so much up-elevon, you ruin the efficiency of the wing's airfoil. Other "articles of faith" include sloppy yaw control unless you add some vertical surfaces, winglets, etc. (which was the Achilles heel of the YB-49, even with a state of the art Sperry autopilot yaw damper, it wobbled too much for accurate bombing or recon photo-taking, despite it's other advantages) and that deltas, at least, lose lots of energy in banked turns, which means less efficient thermal circling. For my money, a flying wing can loop in almost it's own length, good enough for me. Are they aerodynamically slick and efficient, with low wing loading for their size/ Youbetcha. At least, at a certain speed range and CG. My 100-inch Klingberg came with an in-flight adjustable CG so you could always have the proper trim for every speed, and not need to create extra elevon drag. If you want to find out much more about flying wings, Bill and Bunny Khulman have (still?) a magazine and web site, called B2 Streamlines, I believe. Try them. I am obsessed with flying wings for just one reason: they look COOL! And that's reason enough for me;-) RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
