Truss-Braced Model Airplanes: Are They Worth Building?
A model airplane enthusiast has experimented with a truss-braced wing design, inspired by NASA's recent research on full-sized airplanes. The truss-braced wing design offers a high aspect ratio, which could lead to significant fuel savings for commercial jetliners. However, the benefits of this design are not as pronounced on a model scale due to the Reynolds number and scaling issues. Nonetheless, the trusses may offer some benefit in structural rigidity and payload capacity for model airplanes.