Center of Gravitiy quesiton

[rrinker]

 I'm talking real - check the history of the B-2 Bomber and its predecessors like the YB-35 and YB-49, not to mention the Ho 229. Model aircraft tend to be way overpowered and can fly pretty much no matter what - there are flying Snoopy doghouses even - with all the aerodynamics of a shed. With enough thrust to weight and enough wing to keep the thing from spinning on its axis, darn near anything can be made to fly. How well is a different story. Physics doesn't scale, so models almost always tend to have far better power to weight compared to the prototype. This applies to lots of scale hobbies, not just airplanes.

[ataradov]

My record is a foamy RC flying wing that flew itself for 10 minutes without any input.

All REAL fighter jets are unstable. Stuff you do from foam may or may not be stable, it is irrelevant here.

[Rick Law]

My record is a foamy RC flying wing that flew itself for 10 minutes without any input.

All REAL fighter jets are unstable. Stuff you do from foam may or may not be stable, it is irrelevant here.

Stability is not necessarily a friend.  In fact, stability is the enemy of agility.

Imagine the situation like a book sticking out the edge of the table.  If you tilt the book outward by a certain amount (angle), it will fall off the table.  But if you tilt the book just a little but below that "fall off the table" angle, it will just fall back to its initial state.  That there is a force to brings it back to the initial state is what makes it stable.  When the book's CG is very near the edge of the table, the "fall off the table" angle is very small.  Add just a little energy (ie: tilt the book just a bit) and off it goes dropping to the ground.

So, stability describes an energy to keep it at current state.  On an airplane, to make a turn or a slow dive, you need to overcome (over-power) the energy that keeps it stable so you can change state.  The more stable, the more energy it takes to break the stability, the more energy, the more time it takes to add that energy.  So it will take more time to turn, rotate, dive --  ie: less agile.

In fact, even more extreme than flying wing, stuff like forward sweep wing is of interest is because it is inherently unstable and thus inherently more agile.

[ataradov]

Stability is not necessarily a friend.  In fact, stability is the enemy of agility.

I never said this. I said exact opposite long time ago in this thread.

[Rick Law]

Stability is not necessarily a friend.  In fact, stability is the enemy of agility.

I never said this. I said exact opposite long time ago in this thread.

I did not mean to imply you say it.

I am the one saying it.  I am adding it to the discussion - stability is an enemy to agility; along with the explanation why it is so.

[D3f1ant]

In the case of the F16, I do not think those large pods are bombs, they are extended range fuel tanks, and they be kept in balance by pumps.

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[Monkeh]

In the case of the F16, I do not think those large pods are bombs, they are extended range fuel tanks, and they be kept in balance by pumps.

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It's fully capable of carrying 2000lb bombs on those pylons. What's fitted in $IMAGE is irrelevant to the question.

[D3f1ant]

Yeah I just looked it up, it's quite impressive and versatile for a relatively old plane.

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[Kilrah]

I'm talking real - check the history of the B-2 Bomber and its predecessors like the YB-35 and YB-49, not to mention the Ho 229. Model aircraft tend to be way overpowered and can fly pretty much no matter what

You must have missed the fact that my flying wing was unpowered since it was a glider.

Those designs you refer to are not unstable because a flying wing can't be made stable, they are unstable because they were designed to be since that is a desired characteristic as it is for every plane that must be agile in combat.

[CatalinaWOW]

Aircraft cg and stability issues are not the big issue!