Norden Cub

We began with the creation of a brand new, spacious and capacious fuselage (for the first time one of our aircrafts exceeds 7 meters in length) and with a new metallic wing, specifically designed to accommodate our technical needs. We intervened on the fuselage’s lateral belt line, now much more tapered and streamlined, on the vertical tail design, on the main windshield inclination, now much more defined and on the landing gear’s design, to finally proceed to built a completely new Engine Cowl.
We mixed, as best we could, the new wing taut lines and squared geometry, to the fuselage soft curves.

The new cowling is, no doubt, one of the essential parts of the new Norden exterior Design.

With its lateral gills (which can be opened in specific configurations to improve the engine cooling), placed along elegant longitudinal bulges and tapered front air intakes, it was designed to limit the aerodynamic drag, considering the relatively high cruising speed planned for this project.

A sense of lightness is achieved thanks to sinuous concavities, completing the vision that we planned to obtain.

The modern and sporty final result, undoubtedly comes to contrast with the aircraft classic nature, without failing to instill in the observer a strong impression of “high level performance potential”.

From every point of view, the Norden gives the observer a natural visual satisfaction, also thanks to specifically designed liveries which highlight the aircraft exterior shape, in addition to the noticeable height achieved through a standard reinforced and extended landing gear.

All of these elements, thoroughly combined, where considered by our Team as a fundamental focal point in our new “Fun to Fly” concept, that as previously mentioned, in our opinion, must begin by simply opening one’s hangar door.

Also, the new, snug, glossy carbon seats, covered in perforated leather of the highest quality, will grab the attention of the observer with a sense of prestige, lightness and quality. More than 20 different colors of refined leather, dozens of different kinds of possible threads for the seams, added to 10 different options in color for the seatbelts, will contribute to satisfy any possible combination the client desires.

The cockpit ergonomics has received a complete revision.

The minimalistic design in the instrument panel, as already described, thanks to shapes that strongly favor forward visibility and thanks also to the intentionally reduced amount of instrumentation installed, increases the aircraft confidence in all flight phases.

This allows the pilot to mostly focus on external vision, avoiding needless distractions that could be detrimental in the most delicate phases of bushflying and in ground proximity.

the main advantage of the Norden’s wing, is to be capable of changing to a large extent its camber, with the intent of dramatically increasing the lift coefficient, when necessary, while still being able to manage a drag reduction at higher speeds, benefitting so from the new and modern airfoil we have decided to adopt. This characteristic is of course particularly welcome, when you are using smallest wing size, with the intent to reduce the aerodinamic drag and increase the top speed and pilot’s confort at higher cruise speeds.

these slats are designed to offer a serious extension of the wing’s leading edge, that will change its geometry. This kind of modification produces not only a change in lift but also increases the drag. At lower speeds this extra drag is acceptable because the increase of the stall angle and lift is beneficial. But at higher speeds the increase of drag will, of course, reduce the cruise speed and affect the fuel consumption and climb performances. This is the reason why we designed a retractable slat system (operated by the pilot) to eliminate all the extra drag at higher speeds, with the slats fully interconnected between them, to avoid any kind of problems due to the potential asymmetry, always present in the automatic extraction systems. But to get the best aerodynamic performances from slats, it’s important to take care not only of the right position relatively to the leading edge, but also of the shape and the size. Slat chord, cut-off, maximum thickness and angle of cut have been carefully designed. Slat gap, slat width and slat depth must follow precise geometric rules that impose to have an electric actuated circular movement to get the right position, when fully extracted. The final result is that the slatted wing will prevent the flow separation over the wing surface allowing to fly at higher angles of attack and lower flying speeds and providing important safety benefits at stall. In other words, this wing set up, will help the plane to land and take off at lower speeds, reducing the dependency on flaps for lift augmentation while maintaining a good lift over drag ratio (aerodynamic efficiency).

we introduced a large double slotted flap system, very efficient in increasing the lift at a defined angle of attack. The reason why double slotted flaps have been chosen was because we wanted to reduce as much as possible the flow separation on the top of their surface, using a double gap allowing more air to leak through the two slots on the top surface, increasing so the lift, allowing more efficiency and a stall speed reduction. With these flaps the pilot can fly at low speed with a reduced deck angle too, with the extra benefit of increasing the forward visibility during the final approach, for example landing in the bush. At their max extension, they can also be used as air brakes, incrementing the drag and creating a steeper glide path during the final approach. They are manually actuated because, as every bush pilot well knows, this allows a special technique during the take-off, applying them (full), all at the same time to reduce the take-off distance, boosting the coefficient of lift of the wing (dynamic lift coefficient).
Our slats work perfectly in combination with these large flaps, obtaining the benefit in the increase of lift, while at the same time, delaying the stall by increasing the range of angle of attack.

 Vortex generators:

in combination with the slats and flaps, the vortex generators at low speed and high angle of attack, help the airflow to remain attached to the upper surface of the wing. As the name suggests, they create a vortex that will energize the boundary layer keeping the airflow attached to the wing and reducing the possibilities of aircraft stalling. They also increase the aileron efficiency and, placed in the bottom of the stabilizer, they enhance the elevator control. The vortex will also help when the slats are not extended.

we introduced an inverted wing tip design that helps to increase the pressure on the bottom surface of the ailerons at high angle of attack and low speed, increasing the aileron efficiency and improving pilot control. Also, the s-shape of the bottom of the airfoil contributes to increase this pressure on the ailerons delivering a very nice control based on the stick input. These wing tips also help to reduce the drag at higher speeds. In combination with all the above other functionalities, of this new wing design, they definitively allow to get the best, from an aerodinamic point of view, both at low and high speeds.