Plane type

[Xavier Mouraux]

I am trying to decide which of my plane will be my primary this year. I have an Alliance/140L/15x12W/25% and a Hydeout/160FX/17x13/15%. Both are just under 10 lbs. 
After practicing a few weeks with the Hydeout to start the season, I took the Alliance out also to see which one feels better for me. I have now 30 flights with each one this year and I am still struggling with the Alliance. I can't get nice straight lines (horizontal or vertical), the rolls on 45 are not straight and the snaps aren't nice. When I fly the Hydeout, everything is a lot better. 
The CG of the Alliance is already moved aft of the instructions but I still need a lot of elevator for inverted flight. I tried more aft but it didn't fix it and I am now thinking about moving even more aft. The plane is very stable at low speed and the rudder as a lot of authority. It easily loop in knife edge. The elevator and ailerons also work very well. I tried a 15.5x13N and a 16x10 without improvement except for better vertical with the 16x10.
The Hydeout is more powerful and easily makes big maneuvers. The roll rate going up or down looks very similar so I am assuming that the speeds are similar too. The rolls on 45 are better.
I fly the P05 in approximately the same time (around 8 min) with both airplanes but with some maneuvers bigger with the Hydeout.
Could it be that I fly the Alliance too slow ?
Should I move the CG more aft and how far back could I move without trouble ?
Any other ideas to help me taking the better decision ?

Thanks

Xavier
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Andre Bouchard 
    To: discussion at nsrca.org 
    Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2004 2:07 AM
    Subject: Re: Another Temple Plane


    Some more thoughts......

    The Panacea is consistent with the current design trend: big fuselage and smaller wing area, both of which I think are very beneficial and make this type design superior to other designs having less fuselage side area and larger wing area.  My perspective on this comes from flying a Smaragd for the last 2-1/2 years.  I have not seen anyone fly these "newer" designs and not be improved by them.  The smaller wing area (i.e., generally higher wing loading than most designs) helps greatly with snaps, and the larger side area makes rolling maneuvers effortless.  Interestingly, the Smaragd has only 850 in2 projected wing area.  The side lift on the Smaragd is so much more than the previous generation designs that you tend to over do the rudder input at first; rudder needs to come in noticeably later.  Of course, it is not just side area that counts, it is the distribution of side area.

    Designs like the Smaragd may not appeal to everyone as the design has a fair amount of drag due to its frontal area, and one needs to be conscience of this in order to avoid slowing down too much in certain maneuvers.  However, I find the drag profile of Smaragd-like designs helpful in controlling airspeed as you tend to control airspeed more by applying power (4-stroke being used here) than by reducing power as was the case for designs of just a few years ago.  For me this results in a more consistent performance across a range of weather conditions.

    Regards,

    Andre'
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