Why are most R/C aircraft ridiculously over-powered?
Discussion
Or maybe they are not, but they seem to be.
Every model aircraft I see has a power to weight ratio that a Typhoon or English Electric Lightning can only dream of. Even models that are meant to be 'scale' are ridiculously over powered.
As someone once said, attach a big enough engine to anything, and it will fly.
By way of example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lFwmhUEXAw
Seems to be a nice scale model of a Spitfire, but it takes off like a startled grouse.
Why? Why?
Every model aircraft I see has a power to weight ratio that a Typhoon or English Electric Lightning can only dream of. Even models that are meant to be 'scale' are ridiculously over powered.
As someone once said, attach a big enough engine to anything, and it will fly.
By way of example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lFwmhUEXAw
Seems to be a nice scale model of a Spitfire, but it takes off like a startled grouse.
Why? Why?
That's the s
test take off I've seen in a while 
When I used to fly for Balsacraft and other manufacturers in a previous life we used to have much larger engines in small airframes (sometimes with tuned pipes) and boy did they go well
The idea then was to show off and encourage people to buy them thinking they would have similar performance......................little did they know
That said, I always had the largest engine I could fit into my own kits simply so you have more than enough power to have a good play.
Bit silly however if you are trying to fly scale!
test take off I've seen in a while When I used to fly for Balsacraft and other manufacturers in a previous life we used to have much larger engines in small airframes (sometimes with tuned pipes) and boy did they go well
The idea then was to show off and encourage people to buy them thinking they would have similar performance......................little did they know
That said, I always had the largest engine I could fit into my own kits simply so you have more than enough power to have a good play.
Bit silly however if you are trying to fly scale!
I think it's more to do with how many model pilots fly rather than them being over powered. There's plenty of people at my club who treat the throttle like an on/off switch rather than the proportional control that the radio equipment kindly supply! However, there are some other factors that also emphasise your point, especially in that vdeo:
1) Being on the ground is actually hard going on the models, especially grass. The undercarriage on most is pretty rudimentary and so the airframe can take a real pounding, so there's a sort of unconscious temptation to get off as quick as possible. It's fairly normal to see a model struggling into the air because it hasn't built enough ground speed.
2) The model in that video looks horrendously out of trim, with it's CofG set too far aft. That's why it's bucking around all over the place. I've flown a model set up like that and i't no fun at all. It only takes a few millimetres of adjustment to get it out of whack!
Like all hobbies, there are many ways to approach it. I like my models to be as 'scale' as reasonably possible and try to fly the model as such, others just don't care.
Olly
1) Being on the ground is actually hard going on the models, especially grass. The undercarriage on most is pretty rudimentary and so the airframe can take a real pounding, so there's a sort of unconscious temptation to get off as quick as possible. It's fairly normal to see a model struggling into the air because it hasn't built enough ground speed.
2) The model in that video looks horrendously out of trim, with it's CofG set too far aft. That's why it's bucking around all over the place. I've flown a model set up like that and i't no fun at all. It only takes a few millimetres of adjustment to get it out of whack!
Like all hobbies, there are many ways to approach it. I like my models to be as 'scale' as reasonably possible and try to fly the model as such, others just don't care.
Olly
Reynolds number has a lot to do with a lot of scale models having to fly at much more than scale speed. A small scale aircraft has to fly faster to avoid stalling, unless you do something rather clever like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
Boatbuoy said:
2) The model in that video looks horrendously out of trim, with it's CofG set too far aft. That's why it's bucking around all over the place. I've flown a model set up like that and i't no fun at all. It only takes a few millimetres of adjustment to get it out of whack!
Totally agree re the CofG comment and as you suggest it can be a matter of mm's to make a model unstable - too far back and it's all over the place with a touch on the elevator and you're flicking like a flicky thing, too far forward and it's unresponsive - both can make a model impossible to fly.dr_gn said:
Reynolds number has a lot to do with a lot of scale models having to fly at much more than scale speed. A small scale aircraft has to fly faster to avoid stalling, unless you do something rather clever like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
That was mesmerising. Didn't know such things existed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
Ayahuasca said:
dr_gn said:
Reynolds number has a lot to do with a lot of scale models having to fly at much more than scale speed. A small scale aircraft has to fly faster to avoid stalling, unless you do something rather clever like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
That was mesmerising. Didn't know such things existed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
mrloudly said:
Ayahuasca said:
dr_gn said:
Reynolds number has a lot to do with a lot of scale models having to fly at much more than scale speed. A small scale aircraft has to fly faster to avoid stalling, unless you do something rather clever like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
That was mesmerising. Didn't know such things existed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtqUg8R6Jw
Compare with this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyu2MBJyoqs
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