Model Airplane Center of Gravity for Newbies

In this video I will cover all aspects of Center of Gravity (CG) concerning model aircraft for newbies

Initial discussions will cover the crucial importance of having the correct center of gravity for your RC/free flight model airplane. In short, if the CG is not correctly located, the airplane will likely crash.

Next will be a definition of what the Center of Gravity is, the concept of a range of CG locations and how one can determine if a model is level, nose heavy or tail heavy when balanced at the CG point.

A further discussion of RC model airplane CG ranges follows to include the flight effects of a forward and aft CG, followed by a discussion of how the supersonic Concorde uses CG control via fuel transfer to safely fly supersonic.

The symbol for the center of gravity, or sometimes called a balance point, on RC airplane plans is shown next.

Following is a detailed discussion of how to compute a CG for a straight wing and swept wing. An important point in determining the center of gravity is just the chord of the wings is considered, and the CG has nothing to do with tail/nose moments (distances) or the plane's wingspan.

The importance of locating the CG for ARFs is covered next. Finally, some design considerations for locating the correct CG without the need to add additional weight.

Here is a link to my YouTube Channel:
   / timmckay56  

Many thanks in advance for a post of this video on Facebook, it truly helps the channel a lot!
Regards,
Tim

Videos featured:

Foam board F22:
   • F22 Foam Board RC Airplane  

Guillows Aeronca:
   • Dumas Aeronca C3 Electric RC Airplane  

Eflite Pitts:
   • Eflite Pitts S1S RTF  

Foam board square flyer:
   • Square Foam RC Plane  Free Plans!  

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:40 Center of gravity overview
01:29 CG definition
03:01 CG range
08:19 CG and commercial airliners
10:53 Computing CG location
15:26 CG and ARFs
18:34 Real world airliner CG fails