Greetings again all, I had a question regarding Drag Disks. All of the ships I have previous experience with have 2 unpowered shafts outboard of the powered shaft(s). This allowed me to place drag disks on these unpowered shafts increasing the turning rate of my ship. However, I'm looking over options for my next build and some of the ships (both cruisers and battleships) have only two shafts, both of which would be powered. According to MWC rules, I CAN put drag disks on these shafts. My initial question is "how effective are drag disks on powered shafts?" My initial thought is that it would matter much less on a cruiser and much more on a battleship. Please weigh in with your experiences. Many thanks. Jeff
I have no direct experience w/ this, but I can give you some guesstimates: Putting a drag disk directly in front of a prop disrupts water flow thru the blades at speed. So from a stop, they have little/no effect. But as speed goes up, the disruption makes the prop less & less efficient, meaning your motor/drive combo will give you a lower top speed (just like drag disks on non-powered). So from the standpoint of beefing up accel while keeping to required speed, it's all good. However.... The less-efficient flow across your prop also means disrupted flow across your rudder(s). Very bad. Also, if you're at speed and suddenly need to slow down / stop (very common in battles), your prop is going to be cavitating in a near bubble, meaning you'll stop about as well as a 65 Impala on a wet road. Overall, I'd say go with geared drive &/or ESC to do your speed control & don't use drag disks in that situation.
Jeff, Use an ESC for the cruiser. My own preference on a cruiser is stopping and starting, much less emphasis on turning (a major reason for drag disks). Cruisers should be able to back down quickly for stern guns, then speed up to get out of a bad situation.
