200% Duster build

[EraJomppa]

Okay, more progress every day but I'v been too lazy to actually update the thread

I now have the tail section glued and tail servos attached. Also I attached a tail wheel.
The motor is now attached as well and I made a little test run to make sure it runs ok. Apparently not. I got this motor for free last year at a flying event and I didn't come with the C-ring on the shaft. So now it is held in place solely by it's magnets and when I turned it on and gave a little throttle the bell wanted to take off by itself.
Fortunately my friend has extra 5 mm shafts with their C-rings attached so he sent me couple and they will arrive next week.

Also I checked and my servos are already here in Finland so I will probably get them monday or tuesday. After that it's pretty much just waiting for a good weather and it's maiden flight time!

But here are some of the things I'v done so far:


The tail servos test fitted.




The linkages. I didn't want to cut the rods or servohorns down just yet. Maybe after I'v flown it once and made sure they work nice and no adjustments are needed.



Here's how the servos are attached. I found this to be the best way.

Tailwheel is attached to the rudder with a plastic straw. This way if it takes a big hit etc. the straw will probably break and wont burn out the rudder servo. The straw is only glued from the very tail and the metal rod guiding the wheel goes only about half way the straw.


Standing on it's own 3 wheels!


This is what I'm concerned. The landing gear is too sloppy. This is only under it's own weight (batteries included).



I'm hoping criss-crossing the rubber bands will give more strength. It still is quite sloppy. I'm afraid it might affect the take offs and landing especially when flying it FPV.



I also found more problems... This is not because the slot is crooked, it's because I allowed the tail form it's own shape and only glued down the bottom and hoped that it would form equally on both sides. It didn't. Also I glued in the formers and that made a little bit worse.



But with this top piece I forced the tail into alignment. There is slight strain inside the structures, but I don't think that will cause any issues.



I used too small piece... D'oh! Oh well I will redecorate the top of the plane anyway so I will fix this part as well.



Motor fitted for the first time. I used 3 mm Plywood piece in the front to strengthen the fuselage and act as a firewall.





Here's how it looks. I used another 3 mm ply piece where the screws will go. This should be plenty enough for the size of motor I'm using.
BTW These are probably not the screws that I will use in the end. For one, I found only 3 of them...



I put the ESC to the bottom, I forgot to take a picture before I sealed it inside. It is there with the 5A BEC that will power the plane (no BEC on the 70A ESC).



I made small exhaust looking exits for the cooling air.



Here is the current front with the ESC cooling hole. I will probably make it more nice looking and perhaps add a ducting.


Here are the insides so far. I have the power wires coming from the front and BEC and ESC wires coming from the side. I will next make some supports to hold the sides together. The structure is really flimsy without a permanent top piece.

 

[Foam Addict]

Very impressive!

 

[EraJomppa]

A little taxi test I made on the front yard. Especially in the end you can see how much the landing gear stretches sideways during taxing. I will need to put a rubber band there to strengthen in like David did with his 200% spitfire landing gear.

PS. no ailerons yet.

 

[EraJomppa]

Tested different kinds on landing gears.

I found that rubber bands were not the solution to everything I found that simple steel wire was the best thing to add to prevent the sideways bending. I used regular steel wire, the stuff that is easy to bend, not the hard piano wire you make the landing gears out of.


I used some easily bending steel wire and wrapped that around the landing gear with copper wire strands. Then with the assist of a blowtorch and soldering iron I made these hooks that the stiffener hooks to.


Looks decent and is strong. I didn't put a lot of force into it but I tried to bend and break the solder but it wouldn't. I guess it will hold.



First I tried the rubber band.


More "aerodynamic" version. It ended up just squeezing the landing gears together and made it so unstable that the plane just tipped over when I taxied it. Not viable.


And this is what works. Simple and effective.

 

[EraJomppa]

Okay, the plane is ready apart from the aileron and flap servos. I added the battery holder and reinforced the battery attachment area since it was too weak. The glue joints gave away when I pressed the velcro tape in place.

First I had to reinforce the front of the fuselage box, which meant that I had to open up the ESC compartment that I had already glue in place...


I applied a lot of hot glue to the joints that got torn apart, but I didn't trust them. I used these, they are the extra pieces that you get when you cut bevels to the control surfaces. I had stored them for strengthening purposes like this. They are really handy when strengthening corners.



Here you can probably see that I glued them into the corners so that they overlap the joint from below (above in this picture since it's upside down). I glued the ceiling back on.


Here is the battery holder in place.


It's a 3 mm ply piece that I taped some velcro straps on the other side and velcro tape on the other to keep it in place inside the fuselage.



The foam piece I found from a LiPo box (I bought a fancy lipo). I use it in between the lipos and the ply piece to give super snug fit and no chance of lipos sliding from the grip of the velcro.




The velcro tapes that hold the holder inside the fuselage.


I also cut out the flaps. The total length of the ailerons were 64 cm. I cut the flaps 25 cm long so that leaves 39 cm long ailerons. I wanted to keep the ailerons a little bit bigger. Maybe I should have done it 50-50 to make it look better, more symmetric. But what it done is done.
Tomorrow I hope I will get the servos for the wing and I can take this bad boy out for a maiden! Hopefully! Fingers crossed!

 

[EraJomppa]

Today I test flew the Dusty, but unfortunately I forgot to install the C-ring to the motor shaft and the motor pulled itself out of the stator if I went over half throttle.
Despite the unfortunate mishap I chose to try anyway, see if half throttle was enough. We had driven 20 km to the flying field and I was not about to leave empty handed. Well it did fly about 5 meters, but I didn't have power to make a proper climb and someone was driving a motorcycle right next to the flying field so I just cut the throttle and brought the plane down. Here is the video.

The plane suffered no damage. Tomorrow I will install the C-ring to the motor and hopefully I can manage another attempt.

PS: I got the servos today and installed them. Kind of obvious but I though I should mention I'll post a picture of the servo layout soon.

 

[Foam Addict]

Very cool! I'm glad it flew (if only at half throttle).

 

[EraJomppa]

Okay, today I got to do the proper maiden All my friends with cars had no time to drive me so I had to use a more traditional method



I don't have an action camera anymore so I had no way to put shoot a video with my cellphone and had no-one to be my cameraman so unfortunately I have no video for now :/

But I can tell you it flew fantastic! Probably the best flying plane I'v had so far.



The site I flew at wasn't really good for the job. Too small area and the path (picture above) was very narrow and I actually missed it in the landing due to crosswind and landed into tall grass. No real damage, just a scratch to the wingtip.

I also had only one battery pack with me so I had very little time to experiment with the flight characteristics. I mainly focused to admire that it flew I did bring it 4 mistakes high I stalled it but that's about it. I also didn't get to try how tailheavy or noseheavy it was. I did have to put some up trim from the start and that might imply noseheavyness, but can't say for sure right now.

I have to do some tinkering with it before next flight, like program the ESC and stiffen the landing gear a bit. Next time I hope I can fly in a proper area. Try some proper landings

But I will be leaving to Kuopio to visit my parents for a week at least and I won't be getting anything done with Dusty. Good thing that I got the maiden done before that though! I just hope I would have some video to show off how awesome this thing flies!

 

[nerdnic]

Looking good man! Are you going to add the canopy?

 

[EraJomppa]

My Dusty is a part of a project and I will indeed add a canopy, it will include FPV gear and realistic cockpit view for the camera. That will all be added later after our project really kicks into gear.

 

[EraJomppa]

Here is the unofficially official maiden flight, finally! My father paid a visit when he brought us home and we went (me, dad and my fiancee) to the flying field since we had the car and I flew it They both took some video and I put them both on the following youtube video. They are speaking finnish unfortunately

 

[nerdnic]

Nice work, looks like she handles well!