Item by item discussion of analysis
Item 5: A spreadsheet entitled “Rotor”, previously developed by the Principal Investigator and used in class as well as for other research projects, was employed to verify that a ducted prop of a size consistent with the Meekins configuration was capable of providing the required performance with reasonable efficiency. The initial design was a chosen to be a 4-blade, 6-inch chord, 5-foot diameter prop. Pitch angle distribution along the radius of the blade was massaged to make this prop absorb 210 HP (70% power) at 200 MPH forward speed. An efficiency of 82% was quickly achieved and accepted as verification of the feasibility of the configuration.
Item 6: Digital photos of the concept definition model were scanned and visual estimates of component center of gravities were made and marked on the photos. This is shown in
Figure 2. Rough estimates of weight of each component were made and a spreadsheet was set up to use this data to calculate overall center of gravity position. The output is
Table 2, and the result is that the CG is 12.52 feet aft of the nose. This is in the immediate neighborhood of the 25% mean aerodynamic chord of the wing planform, verifying the feasibility of the configuration from a stability and control perspective.
Figure 2
Table 2
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