Supersonic biplane

[maxmwill]

Whilst reading an old book(copyright 1986, so that kind of old), a short collection of science fiction tales by the author Ben Bova. Ben's style of writing science fiction is to incorporate as much current understanding, or anticipated shortly into the future, to craft good scifi stories(and I have read a lot of god, indifferent, kinda bad, and down right terrible scifi and fantasy tales as I walked these nearly six decades on this mortal coil, and Ben is one of the good writers). Anyway, in the story, The Great Supersonic Zeppelin Race, this being 1974, and aerospace corporation engineers are still using slipsticks, a name is mentioned that I never noticed before(have you ever had that happen, in reading still once more a story you've enjoyed in the past, you notice something, a name perhaps, you never remarked upon before?), the name of Adolph Buseman, and his sonic bangless supersonic designs.

So I got curious and looked up Adolph Buseman. Turned out he really did exist, and was even one of the German aerodynamicists who was allowed to emigrate to the US under the cover of Operation Paperclip.

To make a tale of tedious length a tad less cumbersome, this is what I found in relation to Adolph Buseman:

http://www.themarysue.com/supersonic-biplane-concept/

I'm not sure if this has been posted before in the forum, but, I thought a supersonic biplane would be an item well worth discussion.

[PR19_Kit]

Hm, yes..........

Reading that I wasn't at all sure about their explanation of how sonic booms are formed, and one of the comments below the piece says they got it totally round their neck.

I still like the biplane idea though, even if the MIT guys seem to have re-invented the supercritical wing profile en route to making it 'work'.

[maxmwill]

Still, as a model project, wouldn't you say that it's got potential, more than a lot of similar oddities, monstrosities, and outright weirdly strange?

I mean, while the article doesn't show much, here is another angle with landing gear extended to help prevent a belly landing:

http://www.cctvdream.com.cn/bbs/data/attachment/album/201204/21/140235comovm44cdoo4gd5.jpg

[maxmwill]

Here, another wiki entry on Buseman's Biplane, with some explanation as to why no boom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busemann's_Biplane

[PR19_Kit]

Still, as a model project, wouldn't you say that it's got potential, more than a lot of similar oddities, monstrosities, and outright weirdly strange?

Absolutely, I said I liked it.............

[maxmwill]

Now, as an RC model..........................

[Old Wombat]

Now, as an RC model..........................

The trouble will be getting the airfoil to work at mega-slow speeds ...

[maxmwill]

A lot of low time RC scale modellers run into that problem, too, because each one wants to build that perfect ultimate museum scale model, complete with the exact airfoil and the cockpit so complete that it features a figure of the original pilot accurate down to the wart on his left nostril.

For the most past, you can't use the same airfoil, so, you do like the other oltimers, you cheat and use an airfoil that is better suited, Now, if you're building a 1/3 or a 1/12 scale J3 Cub, or a Pietenpol in any scale, you can get away with the same airfoil.

But for something like this, I'd go with either a symmetrical airfoil and hope to the gods you're a good enough RC pilot, or you should use either the 24 series or 230 series NACA airfoils, preferable something about 10% thick or a little thinner to help  get close to expected scale performance.

I mean, that's how I've done it in the past.

The name of the game is to have it fly in a manner that you find enjoyable, unless you are one of those who prefers something that is doggy in the air, or whip stalls the moment it is a couple meters off the deck.