Good now I don't need to sell my wire braced Wizard wing :) Very nice experiment. Manta Wings, don't they have round strutted tubes instead of streamlined?
Streamlined objects have less drag than similar sized (or slightly larger) round tubes at higher speeds.
Wires are typically not nearly as thick as the cross section of a strut, and trikes aren't typically considered high-speed aircraft (210 MPH in this video). Per this movie, a thin wire at 210 MPH might be about equal to the strut in terms of drag (so no advantage there per se). That's only part the story though-- Induced drag, the extra drag caused by carrying more weight, is not shown effectively in this demonstration. A wing carrying more weight, requires more lift, which means more drag, which requires more power.
In the end the performance numbers are the performance numbers no matter how they arrived at their design.
I prefer my king-posted wings, they're light and tough and have well rounded capabilities. For me the BioniX stretches out the breadth of capabilities- since I do a lot of things (high, low, fast, slow, loaded down, etc) it works well for me. Each design has strengths and weaknesses.
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I agree. Hence the move to strutted wing design.
Good now I don't need to sell my wire braced Wizard wing :) Very nice experiment. Manta Wings, don't they have round strutted tubes instead of streamlined?
Rizzy, I thought what the video was saying at the end was that even very thin wire has slightly more drag than an aerodynamic strut, 1.1 vs 1.0.
And, on a strutted wing, there are no cables or kingpost on top of the wing to add to the parasitic drag. So you might still want to start saving!
Round sectional items like tubes, rods and wire cable will have much greater drag coefficient than an equivalent thickness aerodynamic strut.
Streamlined objects have less drag than similar sized (or slightly larger) round tubes at higher speeds.
Wires are typically not nearly as thick as the cross section of a strut, and trikes aren't typically considered high-speed aircraft (210 MPH in this video). Per this movie, a thin wire at 210 MPH might be about equal to the strut in terms of drag (so no advantage there per se). That's only part the story though-- Induced drag, the extra drag caused by carrying more weight, is not shown effectively in this demonstration. A wing carrying more weight, requires more lift, which means more drag, which requires more power.
In the end the performance numbers are the performance numbers no matter how they arrived at their design.
I prefer my king-posted wings, they're light and tough and have well rounded capabilities. For me the BioniX stretches out the breadth of capabilities- since I do a lot of things (high, low, fast, slow, loaded down, etc) it works well for me. Each design has strengths and weaknesses.