It does surprise me how much better the TM flies than the Lite Stick. I would have thought the Lite Stick should at least have a better rate of climb considering the weight difference (assumption, haven't weighed a Lite Stick)

From : Don Stackhouse

Using equal weight batteries, my TM and LS were nearly identical in weight for all practical purposes.

but the one I've seen fly made the owner go put his TM together after he saw my TM fly.

Low speed performance is all about induced drag, the drag that results as a by-product of making lift. At the airspeed for best L/D (i.e.: lift to drag ratio, approximately equal to the glide ratio as long as the L/D is more than about 5:1), exactly half the total drag of the aircraft is induced drag, and the induced drag gets grater as airspeed is reduced.

The biggest factors in induced drag are the weight of the airplane and the G force of whatever maneuver it's doing at the time (which together determine how much lift has to be made), and the size of the chunks of air the wing is grabbing to make that lift.

Imagine a cylinder of air with a length equal to the distance the plane flies in one second, and a diameter equal to the wingspan. The mass of the air inside that cylinder is a representation of the size of the chunks of air that wing is grabbing hold of to make lift. In the case of a biplane, we also need to split the cylinder in half lengthwise and insert an extra box of air the height of the space between the upper and lower wings.

In the case of the Tiger Moth, the span is 30" and the spacing between the wings is 5.5". At 10 feet per second flying speed (near stall, where induced drag is the worst), the Tiger Moth's wings are grabbing about 5 cubic feet of air per second to make lift.

Meanwhile, because of that big hole in the center, the LiteStik's wing actually behaves like two separate, independent 18" wings. At that same 10 feet per second airspeed, they only process a total of about 2.9 cubic feet of air per second. If the weight of the two planes are similar, then the LiteStik will have about 1.7 times the induced drag of the Tiger Moth.

If you tape over the gap in the middle of the Lite Stik's wing, its wing will now be consuming about 6.2 cubic feet of air per second at that same 10 fps airspeed. It should now have an advantage in climb rate over the Tiger Moth.

Don Stackhouse
DJ Aerotech