REFLECTOR: Porpoising (was TruTrak AP)

[Chuck Jensen]

Pat,

It is solid in cruise.  If the air is smooth, it tends to stay pretty stable, though there's always a barely perceptable trend up/down, left/right as things are rarely in perfect balance, but it's certainly not something you have to consciously correct or fight.  

>From an upset condition, it moves back to stable.  There is a formal test protocol for measuring this but I've never done it, so my observation is purely qualitative, not quantitative.  With the winglets providing the stability that would normally come from dihedral of the wing, when correctly rigged, the Velo seems as inherently stable as the best of them.

Chuck 


-----Original Message-----
From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org]On
Behalf Of Pat Shea
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 1:25 PM
To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list
Subject: RE: REFLECTOR: Porpoising (was TruTrak AP)


Chuck,

Thanks for the input. One of my tests will be to fly
without the sparrow strainer.

I'm also curious as to the degree of my problem. Is
your plane's pitch rock solid in cruise when lightly
loaded (pilot only/rearward cg), or does the pitch
wander a bit? How about if you induce a pitch change
without adjusting the trim - does the plane return to
a stabilized airspeed within a few cycles? Of course
this is only relevant with the a/p off.

Thanks, Pat

--- Chuck Jensen <cjensen at dts9000.com> wrote:
 
> Final thought.  Rather than adjusting the sparrow
> strainer to fix your problem, may be it IS the
> problem.  Try removing it and see if the porpoising
> goes away.  Stranger things have happened.
> 
> Chuck 

> 



		
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