EDF Flerken

[Letato]

I am new to the forum and thought it might be of interest to have a thread on modding the Flerken with an EDF. My son an I were inspired to give it a go upon seeing Ben Harber's awesome "Bad Kitty" experiment. We kept it simple with a 64mm EDF off of Amazon running on 4S, same thrust angle as the prop version and using a short 3D-printed thrust tube ending where the propeller would have been. Lo and behold, it flies, and fast! Definitely needs a spar in the wings, we did not do that in the beginning and during our second flight the wings folded in a tight turn. The Flerken sort of fluttered to the ground with no other damage and was up and flying again in no time, wing reinforcement added. The EDF needs a lot of speed on take-off, about a third of our take-off attempts end in a belly landing. We do a running start so it takes two people to launch it. Might try a catapult or a discus launch. For the electronics, we used a Jeti system including a Jeti Assist gyro receiver with the gyro sensitivity on a rotary knob for adjustments on the fly. With the gyro set to about 2/3 it flies like on rails. The center of gravity is way farther aft (by about two inches) than it should be but somehow it still flies pretty well. Video: EDF Flerken

 

[newguy2012]

That is super cool!

 

[jfaleo1]

I am new to the forum and thought it might be of interest to have a thread on modding the Flerken with an EDF. My son an I were inspired to give it a go upon seeing Ben Harber's awesome "Bad Kitty" experiment. We kept it simple with a 64mm EDF off of Amazon running on 4S, same thrust angle as the prop version and using a short 3D-printed thrust tube ending where the propeller would have been. Lo and behold, it flies, and fast! Definitely needs a spar in the wings, we did not do that in the beginning and during our second flight the wings folded in a tight turn. The Flerken sort of fluttered to the ground with no other damage and was up and flying again in no time, wing reinforcement added. The EDF needs a lot of speed on take-off, about a third of our take-off attempts end in a belly landing. We do a running start so it takes two people to launch it. Might try a catapult or a discus launch. For the electronics, we used a Jeti system including a Jeti Assist gyro receiver with the gyro sensitivity on a rotary knob for adjustments on the fly. With the gyro set to about 2/3 it flies like on rails. The center of gravity is way farther aft (by about two inches) than it should be but somehow it still flies pretty well. Video: EDF Flerken

I've been flying mine on a 70mm EDF with a 4s. Actually flies better than the prop version in my opinion. I like the dolly but it hand launches fine for me. I am currently sticking a 50mm in a nanoFlerken.

 

[ShadowUAV]

How fast?! That is super proper conversion! I was thinking of doing the same, but diverting air from the bottom of the nose up and over the electronics like from the bottom camera area. Jbix said it needed the nose plate for lifting the nose. My fpv cam would go there but it gets hot so still working an idea for getting air around that.