Thread: tiedown philosophy

Teamplayer,
I don’t have wing tiedowns.

Beaucial,
We tried wrapping a strap around the wing. You do not want the strap over the trialing edge of the control surfaces as this could put excessive loads on the control hinges and linkage. But even running the strap through the gap forward of the aileron still puts some load on the leading edge of the control surface. I don’t think I want to do that.
I think I’m better off letting the wing blow in the wind. Even if a gale force crosswind picks one wing off the ground, I don’t believe it will generate enough force to snap the down wing or roll the plane over (especially with our longer wings).
I think it’s the lift a wing produces that causes problems. The lift an airfoil generates is much greater than the lifting force of a flat surface (like a wing with the flow from tip to tip).

David,
You’re right; the elevator can be used to hold the nose down… and we also use a bungee from one pedal around the stick a couple times then to the other petal, to hold the stick forward. I'm glad you mentioned that... its probably more important than my nose tie down which will never be stronger than the anchor anyway.

By the way, I should have done a better job quantifying the axial force on the plane than just saying its equivlant to the output of a Rotax. At 62 knots (which is close to our best L/D speed) our lift to drag ratio is about 14:1. For our 1320 lb aircraft the drag would be just 94 lbs. My shoe laces are stronger than that. Crosswind loads would certainly be higher... but for our "cute" profile, still not near as large as the potential lift forces the wing can generate.

Thank you mckoerner, its a good education.

Roger, I've heard of the Micro-Mesh but not of the other cleaners. There is some slight distortion on the pilot's side of my w'shield and I'm wondering if this has been polished before? Does the Micro-mesh produce a little bit of distortion? There is a lot of talk about being careful with scratch removal products on plexiglass due to it being so soft and prone to waviness if buffing is not done correctly.

Hi Dick,

I didn't have any problems, but I never let any type of mechanical buffer sit still. I keep it moving evenly over the windshield.