Thorp Air Command - T18.net

I am only aware from the forum that Lyle Trusty developed a wing that was supposed to help the Thorp fly faster. Can anybody enlighten me as to:
1) History of this wing and whether any flight testing was performed, and the result?
2) Were the coordinates of the Lyle Trusty airfoil every been shared?
3) Has this airfoil every been merged with the Sunderland convertible wing variation?
4) Any idea how many builders have adopted the Lyle Trusty airfoil?
Thank you,
Chris

Chris,
The Trusty wing was designed by a fellow LM engineer back in the 80s. It was further laid out by Lyle. There are no plans for it. It was never built until mine. My wings are done. I am working on other parts of the plan at the moment. Since it was never built, the only "testing" that I know of was all theoretical.
For those reading this..I HAVE NO PLANS to offer this wing. It was extremely difficult to build. The law of unintended consequences really bit me. I have no idea if it will be faster or not. If you want more details, or want to see it, let me know.
Cubes

I thought Tom in Tacoma, WA had the Ltrusty wing. I had a pic here In my album, of your frame. I'll look, but I think they have disappeared.

Tom Worth? No, it was not this wing. Tom Hunter built an airplane with the LT airfoil. He had the leading edge strake. But as I recall, he did not invert the inboard ribs. He will have to chime in on that. Bill Cordoza also has the LT airfoil with a strake but not inverted ribs.
This wing has a different D section, leading edge strake, inverted inboard ribs, straight outboard ribs, and is bolted on at zero angle of incidence as opposed to 1.5 degrees. The change in incidence changes other things that we didn't anticipate. The inverted to straight ribs transition took many weeks to figure out. Once I complete the change over from cable to hydraulics on the retraction mechanism, I'll have the entire center section done.

I believe it was Bill Cordoza that flew into PTV one year with some sort of new wing ? Also go to the search section and type in Lyle Trusty wing and you will see a write up by Lee Walton for Tom Hunter .

RB

Tom Hunter definitely had a Trusty wing on his plane. It's a completely different airfoil and even altered the flap profile. Probably the biggest selling point of the Thorp is its simplicity of design, Tom expressed the same thoughts as Cubes very difficult to make and questionable performance improvement. Standard Thorps have no problem hitting the redline. Personally I don't think there's a good ROI or argument for deviating from the standard Thorp design be it a "c" wing or standard 4 ft sectioned wing.

_________________
Lee Walton
Houston, TX
N51863,N118LW
KEFD

In about 1995 I drove to Mojave and met Lyle Trusty at his hangar. I took my little hand held recorder as he talked about how he made his new wing. Lyle gave me the master profile wing template and some other tooling that he had developed to build the wing. With his verbal instructions and the tooling he shared with me, I began to build the wing.

The only part that is the same between his design and the original Thorp design is the main spar. No other major wing parts are the same. For Example the rear spar is about a half inch thinner. and the ailerons and flaps are different since the trailing edge "kicks up" almost and inch compared to the original airfoil.

At the time I was fortunate to have the assistance of Jim Logan a skilled ex Lockheed experimental sheet metal guru who guided my work over the next 5 years. All the ribs in the wing were made of dead soft 2024 which was mil spec heat treated to T3. All features of the Trusty design including the inverted and larger rib next to the fuselage and strike were maintained. And the leading edge was wet resulting in a total fuel load of 52 gal.

I even went to far as to design and build new wing tips that matched the new wing profile. I added a half and inch per side so that the tips were straight were the mounted to the wings and then began their curve. This eliminated any wrinkles between the mounting hardware. Roll trim per Lyle's design was added in the left aileron and some slight modification to the internal structure of the flaps was made to improve their stiffness.

Flying qualities: benign stall characteristics in all attitudes. Could easily hold wing's level. Slightly lower stall speed. Lyle was a flight test engineer so his wing was thoroughly tested. My Thorp was initially powered by a fixed pitch equipped IO-320, It was maybe 5 mph faster than Chuck Borden's standard wing 0-320 powered fixed pitch (and lighter by 50 lbs) Thorp. The full out level speed at 5K feet no wind was 192 mph. However it did not climb as well as the original airfoil as evidenced by repeated radio calls to Chuck when we flew out for lunch..." slow down your climb....so I can catch up".

Where the wing did excel was in the ability to carry all that fuel. Didn't matter where I flew in California, I never had to refuel to return home. And if I were coming back from say, Phoenix to Paso Robles, if the coast were still fogged in, I had plenty of options do to the fuel on board. So, I have to say, the fuel capability was quite a luxury to have, especially on long cross countries.

Baggage load. Since the wing fuel did not affect the CG markedly, the Baggage compartment could still carry a good load. However I did develop in testing an expanded weight and balance spreed sheet that took into account various weights of passengers, fuel and baggage to make sure that the CG was within a safe range.

Around 2005 I upgraded to a more powerful engine and enhanced the induction system. Ly-Con built a 200 hp (on the dyno) motor (They are under contract to Red Bull Racers) IO-320. I added a 200 hp Hartzel blended airfoil prop. With this power up front the little Thorp's climb was more satisfying and the cruise was easily over 200 mph. Normally I throttled back and flew it at a more conservative power setting which resulted in good economy and still a good cruise speed. Just for the heck of it, I did some testing to see what fuel burn I could get at 160 mph and the typical result was 5.5 gph.

Aside from the benign stall, the slightly higher cruise and the extra fuel load with no penalty on baggage capability, the new wing was just as good as the original wing. But let's go back to "why did Lyle even build this wing?" ...To fly from California to Alaska.

My Thorp is now flying in Australia. The new owner often flies long distances between fuel stops so the extra fuel load is a big benefit.

Tom Hunter

Looks like JT had a pretty good idea..........other than fuel

Tom Hunter Ya ornery Cuss!!!! Hope all is well with you and yours good to hear from you. That rig of yours was wicked fast, and, good lookin. I know the man that has it appreciates it just the way you built it, Guess it could be said that the Tommycat now prowls the land down under, Stay safe and say hi to all for us........Dan & Gloria

Good to hear Tom is still removing oxygen from the atmosphere ! We haven't heard from you in a while . Getting tired of noodles and baluts ?

RB