Speed 400
Cloudster Project
A couple of years before Dick
passed away, he had me get the "Airfoil 8" software program. Later, he gave
me a cassette containing all of his empirical airfoil data of various models
that he had developed and collected over the years. I loaded these data into
the Airfoil 8 Program in the "Coordinates" option shown below. I had
forgotten about this program because I had not used it for probably over ten
years.
As I was preparing to develop the rib
patterns for the Cloudster's wing, I noticed that the main rib R1 laid out
in the bottom right corner of the Jim Adams plans as shown below. Rib
stations in percent had been drawn on the R1 rib and I immediately
recognized that it was Dick Huang's work from the hand printing. He
obviously had measured and recorded the Coludster rib airfoil coordinates.
Could it be I already had the Cloudster's wing airfoil coordinates loaded
in the Airfoil 8 Program?
So I opened up the Coordinates
option and sure enough, there was the data file for the Cloudster wing
airfoil. It is called "CLOUDSTR.NOR" along with many of the other Old Timer
model airfoils as shown below.
I clicked on CLOUDSTR.NOR
and put in a chord length of 6.9". The Cloudster airfoil was displayed as
shown below. The display is a little grainy, but the print out is smooth.
The full size Cloudster's
airfoil was then printed out as shown below. I then made the R1 rib pattern
by drawing in the LE, TE, and all of the spars. I checked the Cleveland
Cloudster plans and the bottom of the 1/8" X 1/2" trailing edge lays flat on
the plans as shown below.
So from this point on, it will
be a simple matter to develop all of the Cloudster's wing rib
patterns.........................Tandy