Jack wrote about wings and how they might apply to paddles. I would suggest care in treating them alike. In the design of wings one usually tries to achieve the lowest drag for a given amount of lift (all depending upon speed and objectives). With paddles the objective differs. We want to maximise thrust for a given amount of input and we have to deal with some important complications that airplanes do not face such as the interface between two fluids of differing densities, unsteady motion and the biomechanics of people. We also use our paddles as control surfaces and even rescue devices. Not many pilots use their wings with paddle floats although they do roll :-) Unfortunately testing paddles and paddle types in real life paddling poses a lot of problems. Have we compared paddles of equal area? Equal weight? Paddles designed for similar objectives? etc. etc. Too often people try a low aspect ratio paddle designed for competition or white-water and conclude that all low aspect ratio paddles are the same. Ditto for high aspect ratio paddles. Before drawing any absolute conclusions about types one should have a fairly wide range of experience. I regularly use a paddle with an aspect ratio of 3:1 and an area of 93 square inches and 182 cm long and 640 grams. When I try other paddles I have to excursive caution since few paddles have the same characteristics. Cheers, John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> Not many pilots use their wings with paddle floats although > they do roll :-) Now that's a good idea! Our EP-3 should have have those. Then Shane could have landed on the water instead of on Hainan, and upon touchdown deploy the paddle floats, I mean wing floats, at the end of the wings and at the end of the tail's horizontal stabilizers (and sp*ns*ns on the sides of the fuselage), and saved us much trouble. :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: John Winters <jwinters_at_onlink.net> To: <paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 9:04 AM Subject: [Paddlewise] wings and paddles <snip> > we have to deal with > some important complications that airplanes do not face such as the interface > between two fluids of differing densities, unsteady motion and the > biomechanics of people. We also use our paddles as control surfaces and even > rescue devices. Not many pilots use their wings with paddle floats although > they do roll :-) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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