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However, the more you taper the more susceptible to tip stall which requires either wash out wing twist or lE devices to decrease safe landing speeds.
What I know about aerodynamics could be written on the back of a stamp with a Sharpie pen. Is it possible the Soviet Air Ministry or even Stalin just liked wings with that plan and coming up with something different could mean a knock on the door at midnight.
You're pretty close with that.Is it possible the Soviet Air Ministry or even Stalin just liked wings with that plan and coming up with something different could mean a knock on the door at midnight.
I like the play on words. A burro is a small donkey.One thing to note about Soviet aircraft production is that the organisations that designed the aircraft did not also produce it. There were design burro and there were factories that were quite independent.
One thing wrong with your theory, the Trabant was a TWO CYLINDER 2 stroke, not 3 cylinder, the very late production models, 89 and up, had 4 cylinder VW Polo engines.That is quite possible. The totalitarian ideology present at the time interfered directly with scientific ideas (For instance, Darwinism represented a potential threat to Communist ideas in that it might mediate that human nature was somewhat a matter of nature rather than a pure product of socialisation so the Lamarckian ideas of Lysenko were promoted and Darwinists who didn't believe that 1+1=4 knew they would end up in the Gulag). I know of one incidence of communist interference in engineering and manufacturing: in Eastern Germany one reason they kept producing 3 cylinder 2 stroke cars known as Trabants is because any radical improvements (such as 4 cylinder 4 strokes) would suggest that the original planners had made bad choices and such revolutionary improvements might be, well, counter revolutionary. It sounds absurd but these people had kindergarden teachers pass on notes to the Stassi about what TV shows had been watched by the children and thus in the household. It's worth noting we still have this problem with Darwinism in western polities as well.
More likely the proponents of these tapered plan form had more political clout and those with alternative ideas simply backed away. One can imagine a well connected proponent in the TsAGI as even bombers were effected by this fashion.
The highly tapered wing planforms used by the Soviet fighters would have had the following characteristics:
1 Highly tapered planforms stall at the tips first and so need a high degree of twist to avoid premature tip stall near the ailerons and the resultant poor spin stall.
It's worth noting that the Soviet fighters such as the MiG 1 and MiG 3 had problems in this area. The La and LaGG series seem to have overcome it only with the use of automatic slats.
For the record the stall characteristic of basic planforms are
a/ rectangular, excellent: stall develops at the roots and progresses out to the tips. Wing twist may not be needed.
b/ tapered, stalls first at the tips, wing twist or slats definitely needed
c/ elliptical, stalls simultaneously at all points of the wing, moderate wing twist needed.
2 These highly tapered wing planforms might have been easier to produce given the thickness of the spar at the roots and the space for fuel and undercarriage it might provide.
The Spitfire's elliptical plan form had less need of aerodynamic twist than the tapered plan form of most other fighters yet it in fact had as much if not more (Approx 2.25-2.5 degrees compared to the 2 degrees common in other aircraft)
One thing wrong with your theory, the Trabant was a TWO CYLINDER 2 stroke, not 3 cylinder, the very late production models, 89 and up, had 4 cylinder VW Polo engines.
Several car companies made 3 cylinder 2 strokes, Saab, DKW, just to name two, and many motorcycle makers come out with 3 cylinder 2 strokes.
Yeah, particularly when you think that original spitfire wings would have required an English wheel to manufacture. Having tried an English wheel - I've got a real appreciation of the skills involved with the manufacture of the aircraft. There isn't a straight line on a spitfire wing.
The Spitfire's elliptical plan form had less need of aerodynamic twist than the tapered plan form of most other fighters yet it in fact had as much if not more (Approx 2.25-2.5 degrees compared to the 2 degrees common in other aircraft)
The "Berlin Wall" fell just after August 1989 and production of Polo engine versions started well after this in 1990 making it German rather than East German production.
Admittedly it was the result of trade agreements developed in 1989; it was late in the piece as Eastern European communism was a rotting carcass clutching at straws. I've ridden in a Trabant, picked up from a train station, when Eastern Germany was still under communist domination. I recall the machine gun toting guards confiscating packets of coffee people were carrying to relatives. No, I don't think the cylinder count is substantive to the story. Ideological and political interference hamstrung any progress on the basic design.
The factory where they were produced once belonged to the "Auto Union" which became Audi. One of the directors and founding partners of Auto-Union, Horche, stayed on in communist East Germany out of parochial loyalty but the regime just kept restricting him in many ways, for instance in the number of employees he could have etc. till it folded. West Germany ended up with a monster like Audi, East Germany with a sick little Trabant which showed little improvement in 30 years.