Thanks for the encouragement guys. I do have that book and 2 others on composites besides plus Dan Raymers simplified aircraft design for homebuilders and his college textbook on aircraft design. I also have a number of other book on aircraft construction. Unfortunately I think it will probably take another 10 years to finish the design and another 10 after that to build it.
For now I'm going to stick with the hotwire I've got but when I build a bigger version (after the design is more finalized) I will definately build a bigger temp controlled hot wire so thanks for the tips.
Yes Gil this will be electric.
Just a little more background on the design. I was inspired by Mike Arnolds
AR-5. He broke the world speed record for aircraft weighing less than 600 lbs (pilot included) by flying about 213 mph with a 65hp engine!
He wasn't an an engineer he just studied books and did everything he could to make his plane as aerodynamically clean as possible. His plane was only 20-22 inches wide at the cockpit and since I'm a little claustrophobic mine is going to be a little bigger. I am shooting for 300+ mph so I decided to put in a 250 hp engine. It's going to be a modified Subaru enigine built by
Crossflow Aero Corp. The engine normally has the radiator mounted on the bottom but my design is so small that I'm going to stick the radiator behind the pilot P-51 style. I'm hoping to get some thrust out of it like the P-51. I'm also using P-51h airfoils on it.