{"id":10028,"date":"2023-01-19T10:01:54","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T15:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/blog\/?p=10028"},"modified":"2023-01-19T10:01:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T15:01:54","slug":"pondering-peanut-power-and-propellers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/pondering-peanut-power-and-propellers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pondering Peanut Power and Propellers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been building Rubber-Powered Free Flight Peanuts for just about 40 years.\u00a0 I imagine that I have built 50 or more Peanuts.\u00a0 And yet, I still am looking for better performance.\u00a0 Where can we find those last little bits of performance?<\/p>\n

There are a couple of obvious considerations:\u00a0 subject matter, stability designed in, straight building, and weight are some of the most obvious.\u00a0 For several years, I’ve been predicting basic performance or a potential subject by measuring the wing area and guessing at what weight I can build the model.\u00a0 By dividing the weight by the wing area, we can come up with Wing Loading.\u00a0 Having kept track of all of my models for an extended period, I can compare a potential subject to past models and, knowing how past models flew, I can guess that a new model with similar numbers might fly roughly as well as the old model.<\/p>\n

Checking my records, I see that my Peanuts have had wing loadings as low as 0.22 g\/sq in (Fike, BD-4) and as high as 0.46 g\/ sq in (Stuka).\u00a0 The average of 13 designs that have been built and flown (and have detailed records) is 0.33 g\/sq in – that’s a good target for those of you who are looking to adopt this sort of tool.\u00a0 But I have come to believe that this is just the start – there are other considerations – such as your power pack; the prop and rubber combo.<\/p>\n

Everyone knows that the prop and rubber combo is important.\u00a0 In fact, you can also add that to your “predictor” tool – just keep track of what all of your old models have used and when you get a new model and calculate the Wing Loading, you can start with a similar prop and rubber combo.\u00a0 Everyone should do this – and they probably do, even if is inst as formal as keeping a spreadsheet.\u00a0 But…there’s more…<\/p>\n

When I first started building, I used plastic props, as everyone does.\u00a0 In fact, one of my first Peanut designs that I did in the late 80s shows that I used the Guillows prop (now hated by me).\u00a0 But my go-to props were the Peck props – 5″ and 6″ grays that were – and still are –\u00a0 the standard for so many.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As I started to look for better performance and build lighter, I started using wood\/carved props.\u00a0 These were designed from formulae found in such places as Don Ross’ book and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

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Both the Maule and the Stallion were built very light (for me) and flew away.\u00a0 But I still used mostly plastic props until maybe 8 years ago.\u00a0 I started using Superior Props (6″ is the smallest we make) and stacked props.\u00a0 But the problem was – I would almost always get beat at a larger contest.\u00a0 I might be able to get 60 seconds or so.\u00a0 And I had some Peanuts that I just could not get to fly, even given relatively low Wing Loading and lots of rubber.<\/p>\n

Last year, as I got beat again in Peanut by Pat Murray, I asked him about his Peanut Fairchild.\u00a0 It would zoom up and get great long flights while I was still stuck around 45-60 seconds.\u00a0 He told me he uses a 4″ plastic prop.\u00a0 I was amazed – that is a tiny prop.\u00a0 But it got the wheels turning.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I had been working with Archie Adamisin, helping him sort out the 3D printing of propellers, mostly for larger and sport models (Archie sells some great P-30 props, possibly game-changers).\u00a0 With his help, I printed a 4-blade prop for my Peanut Corsair – and I started getting some really nice flights with it.\u00a0 But look at the prop … its not very wide.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I had been trying wood props with a 5″ diameter and up to 1″ blade width.\u00a0 I got decent (sub-60 second) times, but this “skinny” 4-blader really allowed the model to fly better.\u00a0 By the way, the model weighs about 10 grams (0.27 g\/sq in WL) and uses a loop of 3\/32″ rubber.<\/p>\n

The next adventure was my Peanut Stallion.\u00a0 Again, I tried to build as light as I could and it came out to be 7 grams (0.32 WL – its got a really narrow wing).\u00a0 I had imagined and hoped that I could fly it on a loop of 1\/16: rubber. I decided I wanted a scale-looking prop and changed the parameters to print out a narrow-bladed, 4″ diameter, 5″ pitch, 3-bladed prop (and spinner).\u00a0 While I figured it would work, it did much better than I imagined and I get around 70 seconds indoors with regularity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Things started to click – or gears started to turn – or something.\u00a0 In my most recent Peanut build, I projected that I could get similar results with the BD-4 if I could keep it light.\u00a0 My model again weighed 7 grams, but has a fatter wing so it has a 0.22 WL.\u00a0 I took the Stallion prop, changed it to 2-blade, increased the diameter to 5″ and the pitch to 6.25″ and kept the blades skinny.\u00a0 Compare this picture to a Peck 5″ prop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The result – on a loop of 1\/16″ rubber – was 84 seconds indoors.\u00a0 Astounding for me.<\/p>\n

Here is a question – have I (and to a greater extent – we) been over-propping our Peanut models?\u00a0 We all have been using 5″ diameter plastic props with a fat blade (Peck) because that is what has been available. We also know that a higher pitch than is available on the plastic props is better for duration.\u00a0 These props that I have printed have narrower blades and a higher pitch than the Peck props, especially for the 1\/16″ motors.\u00a0 The 3\/32″ motored models have a wider blade.\u00a0 I am a convert – I’ll be printing props for my Peanuts from now on.\u00a0 I feel I have two good sets of data – for 1\/16″ powered light-weight Peanuts and for 3\/32″- powered middle-weight Peanuts.\u00a0 But of course, I’ll keep experimenting and adding data points.<\/p>\n

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I’ve been building Rubber-Powered Free Flight Peanuts for just about 40 years.\u00a0 I imagine that I have built 50 or more Peanuts.\u00a0 And yet, I still am looking for better performance.\u00a0 Where can we find those last little bits of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-builds","category-products"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}