Following NASA’s recent results with fixed-wing aircraft and the benefits it could bring to full-size aircraft, [Think Flight] figured if it helped those planes, maybe it could be a boon for model planes, too. With the recent construction of a carrier aircraft for small drones, he decided to give the concept a whirl to see if it would make a difference compared to conventional wing designs. This carrier aircraft has a cargo hold that can be opened in flight to release the drones stored inside, making any potential cargo capacity increase and flight performance improvements welcome.
Truss-braced wing designs have been studied by NASA and Boeing, with the design offering a high aspect ratio indistinguishable from glider wings. The obvious disadvantage of those long, narrow glider wings is that they are also long and brittle, which are not desirable qualities on a commercial aircraft. By adding truss bracing, the wing design can be optimized for high aspect ratio while brittleness is compensated by the truss. For a commercial airliner, this can mean significantly less fuel consumption.
how [Think Flight] However, it turned out that the typical problems with scaling up and down the wingspan were also evident here, with the Reynolds number explaining the “why”, including the aerofoil chord length, which is obviously different between the full-size airplane and the model. hold in your hand. Effectively, this means that the effect of a higher aspect ratio at model scale is not as pronounced as for airplanes, even if trusses can provide some advantages in terms of structural stiffness.