Mooney Trim System

[chrisk]

For any traditional plane, wings produce an up force.  The tail produces a down force.  With a canard based design, both produce up forces, making them more efficient.

 

And of course some planes have a tail and a canard.    But they do look odd.  I don't recall the name of this plane, but it is from Italy.

[N201MKTurbo]

A few years ago I did some experiments to find out if I could improve the speed by readjusting the spring bungees to get the elevator in trail during cruise.

 

I flew the plane and mis-trimmed it and used the elevator to get it back to level flight. I was able to fly it with the elevator horn one width above and below the horizontal stabilizer. I recorded the TAS at a number of positions through that range.

 

Guess what? It was fastest at the factory setting! Not at the in trail position. The geniuses at Mooney figured this out a long time ago...

[carusoam]

Piaggio...

-a-