Thread: Stab over/under
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Old 07-12-2016, 09:17 PM
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Rich Holmes Rich Holmes is offline
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Location: Syracuse, NY
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Default Stab over/under

In case the following questions don't make it plain, my understanding of rocket glider design is pretty minimal, and my experience building them is zero, so please bear that in mind...

I'm building Geoffrey A. Landis's Nymph rocket glider. It was written up in the March 1974 Model Rocketeer, which I've downloaded from the NAR site. There also used to be a redrawn (in 2002 by Wolfram von Kiparski) plan on the NAR site; it's evidently not there any more but can be found on the Wayback Archive at http://wayback.archive.org/web/2013...s/pdf/nymph.pdf.

There are some slight differences between the two plans, the most significant being that the 1974 article shows the stab mounted on top of the fuselage boom while the 2002 plan has it underneath. I would assume on top was Landis's actual design even if it weren't for the photos accompanying the article, which are not the world's clearest but I think there's no question they show the stab on top.

But then that raises two questions: Why didn't von Kiparski draw it that way... and why did Landis write 'put one 1/8" long piece of launch lug under the wing, one over the stab, and it's built'? Maybe I'm reading too much into one preposition but to me that description of the launch lugs arrangement doesn't make any sense if the stab is on top of the fuselage.

Of course there's a third question (possibly related to the first): Regardless of how Landis designed it, is there a good argument for doing it differently?
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