Butterfly Works Diary

July 3, 2002

WE flew the Carbon Monarch and have a printout of the altitude, vario and airspeed. Initial flights indicated a low speed of about 26 mph and we flew to about 50 mph. Note the tow climb rate of about 1400 fpm and the speed increased to about 46. The rope tension was 160 lbs. with a 3/16" polypropylene rope. We noticed that the sink rate and general performance seemed less than the Ohlrich fiberglass monarch fitted with the full windscreen which was expected. Mike (180 lbs) is flying with no weights in the nose with a measurement of about 6" from the tailpost to the pavement get the same CG position Mat (150lbs) flys with about 3 pounds in the nose. Both mat and mike feel that we would like more weight in strong conditions. The testing continues.

April 10, 2002

The Wednesday night meeting of the Butterfly Works had some new considerations this week.

We first looked and compared airfoils to Jim's Pioneer III. This airfoil is certainly a highly successful refined airfoil. We could not find an airfoil that gave us the same low drag at low and high CL values with a positive pitching moment. Then if you add in fact that there is no need for an elevator on the tail you are theoretically far ahead without the drag of the tail. We really look forward to the first flights of the Pioneer III.

Mike went off to fly his helicopter... he had new blades to try; Mat and Wes used the calm conditions to calibrate the flytec airspeed.

The flytec airspeed worked out very well. The airspeed was accurate to about plus 2 mph

Now back to Mike. His new helicopter blades (model) had done wonders for the helicopter. They spun much easier and it was a great step forward. BUT WHY... we measured them.... the new ones were thinner...the high point further back and much smoother and much more stiff. We did some airfoil analysis and yes there it was.. lower drag for a thinner blade... and with the highest camber back further than the older wood blades. All in all a great evening.

Bob Slavo sent a response for us to consider on the theory of shifting CG affecting performance.

"Another way of looking at it is to consider it a wing loading change. I
think you are reducing the wing area of the flying wing by the amount of
elevator area. If that is the case, the maximum L/D point on the polar
shifts to a higher speed by an amount equal to the square root of wing
loadings ratio. (I believe the maximum L/D stays the about the same, but
the speed at which it occurs changes.) This gives me the feeling that the
maximum amount of weight that could be shifted may be the ratio of the
elevator area and wing area times the gross weight of the Monarch times
some factor related to the movement of the weight. If you moved your
sliding weight from in back of the CG an amount equal to in front of the
CG, how much weight would you move; maybe one half of the elevator/wing
area * gross weight? "

We have also constructed the spreadsheet to allow for density, temperature and humidity below:

January 30, 2002

After thinking about performance calculations we decided to do some airspeed calibrations on our new instrumentation: the Flytec 4020 flight recorder as normally used on hang gliders.

Wes donated the use of his car and we ran up and down a private one mile road at our workshop. WE used a GPS to determine the accuracy of the groundspeed and recorded the airspeed with the flytec instrument packaged weather was not too good, rather cool and very damp. But the experiment yielded some good results that we will use in further testing.

So we had the GPS, the Flytec with the airspeed mounted on a broom handle sticking about 3 feet up from the slightly open sun roof and the laptop computer with our spreadsheet on it. We made multiple runs and averaged the requester was a 7 mph wind blowing as recorded from the handheld radio airport weather. Now Wes hasto explain to his wife how a couple of guys had fun doing this.... good luck!! ....and Wes also says his car will do 100 mph.... that will be done on the airport runway!!!

But this is just the first test for we have not entered in the pressure, humidity and temperature which will be done next wednesday evening of the butterfly works..... we might even do wome high speed runs!!

Dec 4, 2001

	The Monarch G. The last runs seem to indicate that the airspeed indicated in knots is in reality the same figure in mph.

August 9, 2001. We have not been sitting idle...during the last few weeks! Bob Salvo sent us a jiggler for the altimeter so we can begin testing the Monarch G, thanks Bob for the ingenious device that turns a small offset weight. Talking about the Monarch G.....yes we where out flying last night. It was very hot, no wind and the density altitude was very high. One of the things most apparent on the Monarch G is that it has a lot less drag which creates a problem in no wind launches for my old truck. To get the glider off the ground it needs the maximum tension of say 165 lbs. and the truck is going about 30 mph mph , the glider the same speed but once off the ground there is not really enough airspeed of the glider to climb so it needs airspeed which it gathers quickly.... catching up on the truck. My old truck can't accelerate quickly enough so we have a few moments of lag there before the glider can climb.With a wind this situation does not occur. A solution is to really belt the acceleration go beyond the 165 lbs by a fair margin but then you get into rope breaks..... solution... get a new rope! Which we did! Yes we Had fun flying the Monarch G. Greg Olrich was up from Florida and seemed very impressed with the glide ratio. Jim Marske and I did some quick calculations on the Glide ratio with a full canopy... yup about 25:1 or better. Something to think about!Jeff Took the pictures and Jud Haines ran the wing. for the guys flying it was superb.....for the guys on the ground it was hot and humid...... and bothersome flies! We did a weight and Balance and found that we are flying at the designers suggested aft CG.... but by the feel of the glider we still have some to go for the real aft CG. Some facts on the Evening. Our tow at 170 lbs. tension gave a 40 knot airspeed launch in the glider with about a 30 mph speed for the tow vehicle. The top of the launch at 1000 ft. we where about 50 knots airspeed in the glider. It was quite comfortable throughout the tow. The G Monarch has lots of elevator authority and at no time did we lack down elevator even at the beginning of the launch even using the optional tow fairlead. The Elevator chips when approaching stall.... One possible conclusion is to turbulate the dtube in front of the elevator to see if we can get the airstream to keep more attached and allow a higher CL. Without any refinements this glider is really something!We can't wait to calibrate the airspeed then do the sink rate and l/d calculations!   Mat enjoying the flight.

Above, Mike with the workshop in the background!

July 2, 2001.

We have made a discovery! The Monarch will get a much higher L/D with nose weights.

Mike and I also measured the position of the control stick vs the elevator deflection and found that
at the airspeed what we think should be approximately the best L/D we seem to use too much down elevator.
As demonstrated in the charts below notice that the L/D increases as we add weight to the nose.
We have two weights one roughly twice the weight of the other. With both weights installed the glider
definitely has the better L/D. The elevator has definitely less deflection down to maintain the same spped with the nose weights which leads us to one conclusion that if we reduced the amount of reflex we could have less control deflection and
have a better L/D. Pressures at the stick would definitely lessen which for some may feel uneasy but
easily remedied with springs. One other adverse side effect of adding the nose weights is that the glider cannot fly
well with very low speed. Some of these effects are due to the pendulum effect of the pilot under the high wing.

On this run we tested the airspeed again and found that with my GPS we where only about .8 mph off with the aircraft airspeed as seen below in the second chart.

Note that the sink rates and L/d reflect the days conditions and are not an indication of the true sink rate or L/d but they do serve a purpose in doing a comparison for things tried on that particular day.

June 27, 2001. Wednesday night for the Butterfly works! Mat has done more calculations and has a few changes to the Monarch F to make. The first was to be a new windsheild..... but he had the wrong tools!!! So that was delayed a day, but in the process we discovered a leak in the static system. So we needed to calibrate the airspeed again!!! Unfortunately the figures do not look right. Mike and I both know the glider is flying faster for a given airspeed indication. We did two GPS runs to try get a calibrated airspeed....and then a couple of sink rate and l/d runs. Not the ideal conditions at all but good practice.

June 24th. The second set of test runs was flown by Mike Couts in the morning of Sunday June 24, 2001. Our flights where done about 8:30 am to about 10:00 am so it was less than idea but good for more practice at setting times and such. The 30 mph run was compensated for in airspeed since we managed to get one airspeed correction by GPS. (thanks to Dave wells for the formula)

Since one must constantly tap the altimeter to get the correct reading and in all of our runs the GPS and Aircraft altimeter read pretty much the same we decided that the GPS was accurate enough for out testing after todays results.

We still have not been able to compensate for temperature and pressure... but the formulas are being entered in our spread sheets.

We only did three runs, within the limited time as well as the one 30 mph airspeed calibration.

Late in our testing session an addition to our rope of 500 ft made a great difference in our altitude gain... now to 1300 ft!!!. but it was late in the day and our radios had died.... so next session!!

There are still a number of errors and as we refine our methods the results will be more accurate.

As always one wants to get very high L/D results... but we also notice a great compromise in the enjoyment when you add a canopy... adn hte enjoyment goes down considerably. So we will refine our Monarch as much as we can without giving up the open cockpit feel. The addition of a small windshield does help with windnoise and does not get rid of the op[en cockpit feel..... so now to measure the effect of the windshield!

There is still the question of the correctCG placement. On these runs we noticed that the best sinkrate occured with a slight elevator down position, indicating a too aft CG or too much reflex in the airfoil..... point to ponder.!

Results for June 24, morning, with wind from the north at 3 mph, very humid, 3012 altimeter with 1300 density altitude at 1000 ft. Temperature was 65 degrees for the first test and 68 degrees F for the last test.

	June 24, 2001 test results Note the very high sink rate at 35 mph, we believe this might be in error . Due to lack of time we could not redo it.
	June 24, 2001 test results. Again the very poor results for 35 mph indicate we may have an error.

June 22, 2001. We did our first performance test runs in less than ideal conditons. It was just before a thunder storm with winds down runway 24 at 7 mph and diminishing. It was a good test run. We decided to time the Monarch F over a certain decent which in the air proved to be 300 ft. Mat flipped for the first pilot and with the many new things to be done swimming around in his head, he was so totally confused that he forgot what runway to call his departure. When at altitude Mat ran crossways to the wind from 900 ft. to 600 ft. holding a certain airspeed. There where lots of errors but this gave us the necessary understanding of what it takes to get performance figures. Holding a course and airspeed needed attention while constantly tapping the airspeed indicator, calling in information and getting back to airport. Our open cockpit had problems with the microphone picking up all kinds of static wind noise making the transmission difficult. At any rate we got some figures and have some more ideas on how to calibrate the airspeed and results for sea level.

First test run June 20, 2001 Wednesday

Conditions: Winds at 7 mph from the west, density altitude about 2000 and temperature falling ,starting at about 73 degrees F. We did these tests just before a thunderstorm and rain. The air was not perfectly calm.... but it was great to get out and give a trial run. The results are obviously flawed and we need to refine our methods and procedures but it gave us a start.

Next outing we will check our airspeed with a GPS..... found a formula that Dave Wells left me to do this by flying three different directions at a set airspeed then recording the GPS ground speed, temperature and pressure.

With Mike Couts as Pilot with the winds dying he got one good run in at 30 mph which indicated a much better sink rate of 163 ft. per min and an L/d of 19 but we had to cut his flying short due the rain and the imminent thunderstorm.

One of the things we did conclude is that there is definitely the best sink rate at around 30-32 mph indicated airspeed.... but exactly what the figures are is unclear.

June 19, 2001.Below we have worked up some theoretical performance data for the Monarch F. The Glider performance values at the bottom are a good guess that need to be confirmed with flight testing which we will do shortly.We also note that each airfoil program derives different theoretical values for the Airfoil drag.For this chart I am using airfoil II.

June 13, 2001. We took the afternoon off to fly and confirmed our belief in the necessity to keep the yaw string in line when in turbulent conditions. Many no wind launches got to speeds of 35 mph in the tow vehicle... whereas normally we would be a 15 mph. The Glider is working very well. There is still the necessity to get some solid figures on the performance so we have a number of devised methods for measurement.

June 6, 2001 Rain again!! So we settled into discussion of more turbulators for the struts and underside of the wing. We viewed polars for the 43012 airfoil and confirmed the theoretical separation on the upper and lower wing surface. There was also a discussion of Fences on the Ailerons.

The Group did not like the carbon skinned aileron just made. They felt it was too heavy and put 3 pounds of weight at the wing tips where you do not want it. I have phoned Wes to see if he will change to the cloth covered ailerons.

We decided to delay getting the Pioneer from Texas until July 4th.

The Monarch G is ready for flying.

Thoughts where given as to doing an oil test on the wings to see where the separations are occurring. Other suggestions to substitute for the motoroil where, Veggie oil and vegetable dye, or water vegetable due and food coloring. Mike also suggested squirting the oil on the wing once in flight then pulling off the tube which should be easy in Monarch flight.

A great deal of time was spent discussing the production of the new trailers. Mike is hung up on his proposed cross country flights since the present trailer is used for the mold. Various ideas for finishing the mold where discussed.... the shrink wrap plastic used on boats appealed to us most ..... so off to the boat yard.

May 30, 2001
.This is really exciting!~! We test flew the Monarch F with turbulators over the elevators then we test flew it with turbulators over the entire length of the airfoil placed just aft of the Dtube.... remarkable results! The sink rate went down at all speeds! And the Handling improved too! Well now we have to measure the results! This will be more of a problem getting hard data.

Both Mike and Mat flew the F Monarch and witnessed the great improvements we have had over the test program. Mat also did some very high banked turns.... very solid and then did a whip stall with no dropping of any wing tip..... absolutely solid. Infact setting up the landing was very hard as the glider continued in a very low sink rate even with the spoilers extended at speeds of 40 mph.

I'm impressed with this glider!!!

The first test with the turbulator tape at the rear of the dtube before the cloth covering. The ailerons improved greatly!

May 23, 2001.
The weather was too cold and set to do any flying so we put our heads together in the workshop.

We discussed the Carbon Monarch progress , the newly installed elevator and recent spoiler We then went on to find solutions to some of the problems coming up such as how to attach the carbon tubes to the metal end rod bearings. A number of solutions was offered and a final design arrived at.

Most of our time was spent discussing the making of a trailer to move the Monarch F to Texas and retrieving a pioneer IId. It actually was amazing how four guys could come up with such good ideas!

May 20, 2001
Controllability and wing loading, what is the best combination? . Handling is a very subjective issue however our benchmarks are the Monarch F and Monarch G and at the moment I prefer the Monarch G.

In the Monarch F Mat flies with about a 1.94 lbs. per sq. ft. (350lbs. /180 sq. ft.) We should ballast the F and see if the handling improves.

In the Monarch G, Mat flys with about a 2.18. lbs. per sq. ft. which controls more crisply in turbulent weather.

The F has larger controls but the G has higher aspect ratio control surfaces.

May 19, 2001
Today was a perfect time for experimenting with differing sizes and materials of tow ropes.

1/8 inch Nylon rope from phoenix rope supply had a breaking strength of 550 lbs.

1/4 inch Nylon rope from phoenix rope supply had a breaking strength of 850 lbs.

It had been suggested to us that nylon was better than hollow braided polypropylene so we had to try it. Part of the problem with nylon was the difficulty of tying it to the towing bridle. We figured out a way to attach the nylon to short pieces of polypropylene which we then spiced to the bridle. The result of using a 1/8th inch line was spectacular with an amazing increase in the climb rate. We could easily conceive of a 2000 foot altitude gain within a short distance with the 1/8th inch rope but unfortunately the rope broke only after a few tows.

The first tows with the nylon stretched considerably..... but this was not a factor to us.

The result of this session is that the thinner the rope the better the climb rate and the higher ultimate height to be reached. Unfortunately neither rope was able to withstand the use in our towing.

We need a rope less than 1/8 inch in diameter and with a breaking strength of about 1000 lbs, abrasion resistance and UV resistant. We have been avoiding spectra line because of the cost... but it looks like there is no other alternative at this time.

May 16th, 2001

The rain outside made working in the shop the option of the day. We did our usually complaining about women then got down to modifying the release system on the Monarch G. We have discovered that as we move the CG rearward the tow release point also must move down...... but ours is fixed so we decided to add fairleads (spelling) from the sailboat world. We have yet to try this experiment in practice..... hopefully it will mean that we will be able to adjust the tow position for differing weights and rope thicknesses and whether an autotow or aerotow.

note the ceramic drawer knob just below the tow release. and an extra hole located below it for another adjustment.

May 09, 2001

The butterfly works last night worked on the question of aileron response with the Monarch F.

I had for a long time I felt that the aileron response could be better so we put our heads together and headed for the airport. We first removed the gap seals on the underside, then when that result proved poorer response we started by adding back the lower gap seal and then putting a 1/4 " sticky sided sandpaper on the trailing edge of the Dtube. That worked well! The glider now has excellent aileron response well down to about 25 mph.

The problem I am really chasing is the inability of some gliders to respond well to aileron control input when in strong lift.. it seems to take a lot more input than it should. Pulling abruptly up on the control stick usually breaks it free... but I wanted a better response just with the ailerons.

The Monarch G with a higher aspect ratio does not exhibit this tendency to resist turning.

I have discovered that gliders that use microlift and at the 2-3 lb. wing loading may require modified controls and wings.

Below see the position of the trip tape!