Plane sailing?
A comparison of the swooshability of 3451 Sopwith Camel (“Camel”) and 10024 Red Baron (“Baron”)
Aim
To test the two planes in a variety of maneouvers in order to establish the relative and absolute swooshability of each.
Method
Each plane will be subjected to a variety of standard maneouvers five times (Sequence Camel, Baron, Baron, Camel, Camel, Baron, Baron, Camel, Camel, Baron).
Arising damage (if any) will be calculated as minor or major. (Damage degree assessment is subjective, minor damage is recorded where it is thought that flight could continue if the equivalent real plane could continue flying, major damage is where similar damage on the equivalent real plane would be catastrophic.
For assessment purposes, 10 incidences of minor damage is equivalent to one incidence of major damage. (If a wing falls off bit by bit, the wing has still fallen off.)
The manouvers to be carried out are:
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The Tests:
| | Standard Swooshing
| | The plane is grasped at arms length by an adult male human of approximately 1.83m height, and swung through a horizontal arc of 135° at a speed of approximately 1metre/sec (m/s)
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| | Ground Strafing
| | The plane is grasped at arms length by an adult male human of approximately 1.83m height, held at 45° to the ground and swung downwards through an arc of 90° at a speed of not less the .75m/s. The adult male human will make “ch-ch-ch-ch-Ch” sounds to simulate machine gun fire.
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| | Loop the Loop
| | The plane is grasped as above. It is swung slowly through a vertical circle of approx .75m diameter upwards from a horizontal start, in fairly slow motion (subjective judgement).
Sound effects of “Nyyyyyeeewwww” should be added at the bottom of the loop.
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| | Turbulance
| | The plane is grasped at arms length and rapidly oscillated (240 shakes per minute) for a period of 5 seconds.
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| | Bumpy landing
| | The plane is dropped onto a hard flat surface (eg a floor) from a height of 25mm.
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| | Barrel Roll
| | The plane is rapidly turned about its rolling axis, in four quick turns of 90°, returning to the horizontal in 3 seconds.
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Results
Neither plane survived the tests without damage. The test by test results are as follows:
The Results
| | Standard Swooshing
| | The Baron did well in this test, the only damage recorded being the loss of the step (3 times) which could hardly be considered even minor damage (but was).
The Camel did less well, but was not too bad. The outer wing struts tended to seperate from the lower wing (4 incidences) and the upper wing (2 incidences). It did have two untroubled swooshes, and it was noted that the outer wing suffered more than the inner.
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| | Ground Strafing
| | Neither plane displayed damage, although it was noted the Camel creaked a bit (but the creaking could hardly be heard above the simulated machine gun fire).
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| | Loop the Loop
| | The Baron excelled itself here, however it did suffer some minor damage (brick seperation in the fuselage) on two loops, and a detached wingtip one one of those.
By comparison, the Camel exhibited some damage on each loop. The top wing became seriously detached on two occassions, and some strut seperation was noted on the other three runs.
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| | Turbulance
| | This was not a bright idea for a test, and is the closest the Baron came to major damage. Both planes experienced brick seperation in the first run, and the test was discontinued when the tester decided he didn’t want to spend a lot of time reassembling both planes.
It was observed that the Baron suffered less damage than the Camel in the discontinued test.
Damage that was noted included brick seperation in the fuselage of both planes, detaching wingtips on the Baron, the loss of the step on the baron and the near complete detachment of the Camel’s top wing.
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| | Bumpy landing
| | While both planes were undamaged after the first landing, the tester decided not to continue out of fear for the strength of the Baron’s tailskid (his sole LEGO brown minifig shovel). It may well have survived four more landings, but he wasn’t going to risk it.
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| | Barrel Roll
| | The Baron came into its own here. Surviving five barrel rolls with only some minor damage (fuselage brick seperation and the loss of a wingtip).
The Camel, on the other hand took major wing damage, with the top wing detaching, and some plate seperation occuring in the wings, as well as fuselage brick seperation.
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Summary of results
Test
Tyoe
| | Plane
Name
| | No of
Repeats
| | Minor
Damage
| | Major
Damage
|
| | Swoosh
| | Camel
Baron
| | 5
5
| | 6
3
| | -
-
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| | Strafe
| | Camel
Baron
| | 5
5
| | -
-
| | -
-
|
| | Loop
| | Camel
Baron
| | 5
5
| | 3
3
| | 2
-
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| | Turbulance
| | Camel
Baron
| | 1
2
| | -
-
| | 1
2
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| | Landing
| | Camel
Baron
| | 1
1
| | -
-
| | -
-
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| | Roll
| | Camel
Baron
| | 5
5
| | 4
3
| | 2
-
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| | Total
| | Camel
Baron
| | 22
23
| | 13
9
| | 5
2
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Overall Failure Rating:
| | Camel
Baron
| | 63/220
19/220 (see note)
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Note
| | The raw numbers indicate a failure rating of 29/230 for the Baron, due to an extra turbulence test.
While a good argument could be made for increasing the failure rating of the Baron due to the possible weakness of the tailskid, the numbers have not been so adjusted, as tailskid failure would not affect the ‘swooshability’ per se.
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Conclusion
The Baron is the more swooshable of the two. Neither is perfectly
swooshable, but one could (and has) had a lot of fun swooshing
the Baron about.
The tester’s theory is that more modern construction techniques and
- more importantly - a shorter airframe and wingspan, lead to the
Baron’s superior swooshability.
It should be noted though, that the tester was 1.83m tall adult male
human, with the armspan - and more importantly the handspan - associated
with one of that particular height, gender and species.
A superior handspan is thought to be essential to properly grasp either
model for comfortable, non destructive swooshing (and preliminary
comparison against a .95m tall juvenile female human indicate this is the
case).
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