On Jun 13, 1:08*pm, "Paul Remde" wrote:
Hi,

I was thinking the same thing. *I believe that a ground plane would be
useless inside a carbon fiber glider. *However, the same is true for any
other type of transponder antenna. *They all should have a good ground
plane.

Paul Remde

"brianDG303" wrote in message

...

Is there a downside to mounting on a ground plane inside the fuselage
of a non-carbon glass glider?

Antenna vendors or glider manufactuers will often want you to back the
carbon fiber fuselage where the antenna is mounted with an adhesive
aluminum foil or thin plate - mostly for purposes of good contact with
the outer (ground) parts of the antenna. Follow the glider
manufacturer and antenna vendors instructions. Schleicher certainly
show such a plate used on the ASH-26E. They also specify a rod
transponder antenna. No idea why. Maybe easier to physically mount (no
concerns about surface curvature, etc.). Personally I'll eat my hat if
anybody could ever measure the drag difference between a rod and
streamlined antenna.

Darryl

Darryl


Darryl