Airplane scratch build project - Evangel 4500

[The Hangar]

Hey friends! At Flitefest 2019 I worked on a project a friend had designed. He drew out some plans and gave them to me. I translated them to foam board and tried to make it fly. Well, it didn’t. There were a number of issues:
1) it was heavy. I am usin 1808 motors on 3s, so I have plenty of power but more weight means you need more airspeed to keep it in the air.
2) since the motor nacells in the design are so low, you need a bit of down thrust to compensate for that. I didn’t have any making it loop upon launch. Fixed it there.
3) I had accidentally made my nacells slightly crooked, so my plane always wanted to pitch right.

I plan to redo the wing and leave the fuselage since i spent a while painting it and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out😉. The tail got a little banged up in transportation and storage, tho that will need some work too. I have the plans I used and will try to post them just in case anyone else wants to join along! (Please do!) It is a pretty small plane - just a tad bit smaller than the mini guinea pig.

NOTE: progress may be slow as I’m working on several other airplanes right now😂

 

[Jackson T]

Looks like a cool pretty plane!

 

[The Hangar]

Looks like a cool pretty plane!

Thanks! I hope I can get it to fly...

 

[Jackson T]

Here are the plans. If you are wanting a project, please join me and help me get this thing to fly! These plans are to be printed on 11x17 paper

They look like balsa plans, are they?

 

[Corbarrad]

I really like the look and the design philosophy of the Evangel.
A rugged and minimalistic plane, purpose-built.
Interesting that the prototype was atricycle gear high wing while the production model turned up as a low wing tail dragger. Probably to make maintenance on the engines easier plus the increased angle of incidence will help with the STOL characteristics...

I think you captured the basic lines quite well. if I'd change anything off the top of my head I'd probably reduce the size of the aerodynamic balances on the tail plane and add to the stab surface instead, that will make it flex less and help with control. for the two-in one linkage neccessary for the twin elevator I would probaly invest in a linkage stopper to make setup easier.
Speaking of linkages, they look a bit long and floppy. you should probably secure them to the foam in a few places, or if CG allows move the servos farther back inside the fuselage.

 

[The Hangar]

They look like balsa plans, are they?

The guy who designed them hasn’t ever done a scratch build ft foam plane yet, so he had balsa in his mind I think... I just used the plans as templates and used the measurements of the formers, fuselage, tail, etc.

 

[The Hangar]

Well I built another wing as a typical ft fold-over wing as offside to the previous under-cambered wing and got the thrust angles right. It flew straight had an abundance of power. The pilot thought it stalled but looking back at the vid it looks like he lost orientation or something like that. He’s had over 40 years of experience in rc so I thought he might have more of a chance at success than me...

 

[The Hangar]

I am building a quarter scale Evangel, pictures to come sometime in a near future..

This is a serious project, not a toy... serious money has been invested in designing and the inicial building stages..

Awesome! Feel free to post your progress on this thread. Those are nitro motors, right? I’m really eager to see this project since from what I’ve seen, I’m the o ly one to have built an rc version. And mine had moderate success. Yes, it flew - but justa little. I plan on revisiting this project in the very near future for either a c pack twin or a monster radial twin! Good luck!

 

[buzzbomb]

I am building a quarter scale Evangel, pictures to come sometime in a near future..

This is a serious project, not a toy... serious money has been invested in designing and the inicial building stages..

That's beautiful! I'm looking forward to any progress pictures you want to post up. What an exciting project!

 

[The Hangar]

Ok, so back to the evangel finally! I printed the plans that I posted above to 270% and it’s looking great! We hot wired the wing and built most of the fuselage. Here is the new one compared to the old one.

 

[The Hangar]

@alllmetalplane how is your evangel coming along? Any progress?

 

[Fintail]

Ok, so back to the evangel finally! I printed the plans that I posted above to 270% and it’s looking great! We hot wired the wing and built most of the fuselage. Here is the new one compared to the old one. View attachment 152024 View attachment 152025

So how long till we fly this thing? And should we hotwire the tail as well?

 

[Fintail]

The wing bend seems more reasonable than the first attempt.

 

[The Hangar]

So how long till we fly this thing? And should we hotwire the tail as well?

I'm thinking a fold-over style wing on a mini scale for the tail. What do you think about that?

 

[Fintail]

I'm thinking a fold-over style wing on a mini scale for the tail. What do you think about that?

That would probably work pretty good on this.

 

[Fintail]

Made some good progress tonight. Here is the jig thingy I built to get the bend the same for both wings.

 

[Fintail]

Wing bendy thingy and the mostly completed wing. Still gotta make wing tips.

 

[Fintail]

Making the best out of these poor cuts.

 

[Fintail]

Made the vertical stab and rudder. Glued two pieces of foam board together and sanded to shape. Glued pieces of sand paper between the pieces to use as hinges and they work great. @The Hangar, you missed out on some fun building today!

 

[Fintail]

Happy New Year Everyone! Evangel 4500 V1 is getting close.