Popular Mechanics, September 1964
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As I mentioned, we covered only 250 feet on my first take-off. The rest of the flight was a little frustrating. (I made two flights, but the two aircrafts' performances were so similar--the improved production model is a shade better--that it's more practical here to speak of the two flights as one.) We had a list of performance specifications, worked out on paper by Custer and his crew, but they are based on an ideal CCW-5. The two planes he has are compromises, built with what material they could get with what money they had. Only one, for instance, has counter-rotating props. They couldn't get the counter-rotating engine for the other, giving it a "heavy" right wing. The point is that the present CCW-5s did not live up to the specification forecasts. But, if someone had a spec sheet at Kitty Hawk, perhaps the Wright brothers would have been embarrassed. Just as the Wrights had a sound idea, with perhaps not the best possible hardware for it, so the channel wing still seems short of its ideal development. After take-off we climbed at full power, at about 28 inches of manifold pressure and 2600 revolutions per minute, averaging between 85 and 90 m.p.h., and a rate of climb of about 500 feet per minute. Occassionally, we could raise it to 1100 f.p.m. but it didn't hold. The specs call for 2200 f.p.m. |
Poor Cruising Speed |
We leveled off at about 4000 feet and practiced the usual simple maneuvers, turns and stalls, and through it all the CCW performed amiably, if not nimbly. It never did indicate more than 115 m.p.h. air speed at cruising, at about 23 inches and 2300 r.p.m., although the specs rate it at 180 m.p.h. cruising and 200 m.p.h. maximum. The prototype, in fact, is redlined at 150 m.p.h. It was somewhat sluggish on the controls, especially in turns, although I'd blame most of this on the inboard ailerons, right next to the channels. Custer took them off the ends of the wings because he eventually wants to take the ends of the wings off. In fact, he wants to take the wings all the way off, and control roll with the engines. Well . . . The CCW stalls at about 63 m.p.h. smoothly enough, nothing at all violent about it for a relatively large aircraft, and it characteristically drops off to the right, but recovers easily. In fact, power off, the CCW is a conventional aircraft, and the engineering studies bear it out. The channels react as if they were straight wing sections, and the CCW has a glide ratio almost identical to any other aircraft of the same weight and configuration. So, to answer the obvious question, if it loses power the CCW will glide down the same as any other airplane. continue... |
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