How hard is it to balance mass and lift centers on an A-10? (Off-Topic)

by Mid7night , Rocket BSCHSHCSHSHCCHGGH!!!!!!, Thursday, September 10, 2015, 01:31 (3173 days ago) @ ZackDark

I've always wondered how the hell they do it on the real one, but maybe a RC one could shed some light. Yours isn't powered, though, is it?

Mine is not powered, correct, it is a pure glider. Even though the acronym "PSS" - Power Scale Sloper - is misleading; the "power" comes from the fact that they weigh 4 to 6 pounds. ;)

Are you referring to the fact that the engines are fairly far back? It's not any harder than other designs, not that I know of anyway. You always have quite a bit of hardware to fit in the airframe, there's usually enough weight to throw around. It's actually more of a challenge to balance gliders, usually, because they don't have a big flight-battery or a motor which are usually quite heavy, and gliders tend to have much slimmer airframes which means less space for ballast weight. I had to pour 14 ounces of lead shot with epoxy into the nose to get the CG in the right spot. But that was because my tails came out a bit heavy, not because of the nacelles.

On the real thing though, it has a gi-frickin-normous gun in the nose to balance out the two turbofans. :D

Fun Fact: The recoil force of the gun once it's spun up is more "thrust" than one of the A-10's engines, i.e. if you fired the gun on the ground you could use it as a 'reverse gear' (not advisable)