foamboard Dornier Libelle simple seaplane

synjin

Elite member
Came back to the Libelle a couple weeks ago and promptly crashed it. I mean it was a slow crash, but the wings came off. So, it sat there staring at me until I messed with it last night. I redid the nacelle so the thrust angle was in line with the bottom of the airfoil, if there was one. And, I fixed the wing, which broke at the dihedral bend.

It flew better with more speed, and it will actually climb now, though it doesn’t climb very fast. It’s still a really slow flyer. Being brave, I took it to the lake near the house to see if it would float. I wasn’t sure my motor had enough power to get it off the water. But, when I throttled it up it got up on step and took off before I could ease off the power. It seemed to do just fine, but I felt I needed to bring it back to shore because the geese and ducks objected to my flying so late in the evening. What can I say, it’s Alaska, land of the midnight sun.

At this point I’m thinking that perhaps I need to try a different motor. Something with a higher KV. I’ve got one that I can swap in and give a try tomorrow. Here’s my not great video clip of the flight tonight before I went to the lake. I shot the video with my phone in one hand and the transmitter in the other.

 
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Fujimo

Active member
hi all,
as we live right on the water, i have been wanting to help my 13 year old lad with his next step up from his trainer.
this Dornier build has really grabbed my attention.
Chatting with Yawnsky24, he has convinced me of its great flying attributes.
This would be a Team build!

so we have a brand new power pack C, with esc and 10x4.5 props etc.
Yawnsky, said that was a bit on the big side, and a B would be better.
so i thought of doing a slightly scaled up build.
Bigger is always better with these things, to a point i guess :)

i was wondering by how much i should scale the plans up by, to better suit the larger motor.
i would imagine i will have to build the under camber on the wing much like the scout, to afford greater rigidity and strength of the bigger wing.
Any help with how to actually scale up the plans would also be greatly appreciated!

I appreciate all input and advice
cheers
wayne
 
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synjin

Elite member
hi all,
as we live right on the water, i have been wanting to help my 13 year old lad with his next step up from his trainer.
this Dornier build has really grabbed my attention.
Chatting with Yawnsky24, he has convinced me of its great flying attributes.
This would be a Team build!

so we have a brand new power pack C, with esc etc.
Yawnsky, said that was a bit on the big side, and a B would be better.
so i thought of doing a slightly scaled up build.
Bigger is always better with these things, to a point i guess :)

i was wondering by how much i should scale the plans up by, to better suit the larger motor.
i would imagine i will have to build the under camber on the wing much like the scout, to afford greater rigidity and strength of the bigger wing.
Any help with how to actually scale up the plans would also be greatly appreciated!

I appreciate all input and advice
cheers
wayne

I used a 2205, 1500kV motor in mine with an 8” prop. I’d consider a 2212, but thought that would be too large.
 

Fujimo

Active member
I used a 2205, 1500kV motor in mine with an 8” prop. I’d consider a 2212, but thought that would be too large.
thanks mate
yup, the flite test C pack motor is a 2218- which i am sure you know,
was just wondering if i should expand the Dornier to a Storch type size with the 1460 mm wing,( so, approx 150%) as the storch apparently does well with the Cpack.
thanks
 
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synjin

Elite member
thanks mate
yup, the flite test C pack motor is a 2218- which i am sure you know,
was just wondering if i should expand the Dornier to a Storch type size with the 1460 mm wing,( so, approx 150%) as the storch apparently does well with the Cpack.
thanks

If you do make it larger look at what Dr. Looping Looie did with making his larger. It’s on the page before this.
 

Scotto

Elite member
thanks mate
yup, the flite test C pack motor is a 2218- which i am sure you know,
was just wondering if i should expand the Dornier to a Storch type size with the 1460 mm wing,( so, approx 150%) as the storch apparently does well with the Cpack.
thanks
That will be cool. I use Inkscape to modify plans. Its free and theres lots of support for it. These plans are about the hardest thing Ive found on the processor just because of all the tiny speckles but it works. Anyway, you can use it to draw squares the size of foamboard and arrange the pieces there instead of paper. Save a copy as pdf and print with adobe. With this plane you can do alot with just a ruler instead of tiling pages. https://inkscape.org/
 

Fujimo

Active member
That will be cool. I use Inkscape to modify plans. Its free and theres lots of support for it. These plans are about the hardest thing Ive found on the processor just because of all the tiny speckles but it works. Anyway, you can use it to draw squares the size of foamboard and arrange the pieces there instead of paper. Save a copy as pdf and print with adobe. With this plane you can do alot with just a ruler instead of tiling pages. https://inkscape.org/
many thanks
i will attempt that!
 

Fujimo

Active member
If you do make it larger look at what Dr. Looping Looie did with making his larger. It’s on the page before this.
i did see that, and what an awesome , clean build.
although i think it needs to be somewhere in the middle for size, but am open to all advice
 

Fujimo

Active member
With Tons of help from Dr Looping Looie, and a few other awesome builders on here, we ( my son and I)have embarked on a Dornier libelle build.
Scaled it up 140%.hoping to fly it with the C pack motor that I have here.
i had to scarfe join the fuselage pieces together as they were too log for the board.
each wing half is a full sheet.
1.4m wingspan
 

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Fujimo

Active member
so heres a question
looking at the plans, it appeared as if the center section of the wing is flat, with the dihedral breaks happening just outboard of the fuselage.
so, two dihedral breaks on the wing as opposed to a single central one.
if it is two dihedral breaks, then is the dihedral gauge for that.
'cos thats how i built mine, now it really looks like a heck of a lot of dihedral, almost like one of those "old fogey" planes.
if the gauge is for a single break, then i will just halve the dihedral gauge i guess!
91D53878-BF05-435D-8192-8E3986F249CF.jpeg
 
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synjin

Elite member
That’s not as much dihedral as mine came out with.
8B41E421-10D5-468D-8BE0-7114776BEC7C.jpeg

I also redid so the thrust angle was in line with what would be the lower plane of the wing if there was one. I know that Dr. LL has it angled up, but I found it didn’t have a lot of great flying performance that way. With a thrust angle in line with the angle of incident it flies faster, and it pops up off the water just fine. (Though, I’ve only flown it from the water once.) On the other hand it’s great on snow.

I flew it yesterday and as you can see I have to fix the battery hatch. It popped up on landing and the propeller cut it in half. I wish I had gotten video because it was a beautiful evening as the sun was going down. Maybe someday I’ll actually paint this bird. Until then it will live in its original blue foam color with masking tape reinforcement.
 
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Fujimo

Active member
That’s not as much dihedral as mine came out with.
View attachment 219794
I also redid so the thrust angle was in line with what would be the lower plane of the wing if there was one. I know that Dr. LL has it angled up, but I found it didn’t have a lot of great flying performance that way. With a thrust angle in line with the angle of incident it flies faster, and it pops up off the water just fine. (Though, I’ve only flown it from the water once.) On the other hand it’s great on snow.

I flew it yesterday and as you can see I have to fix the battery hatch. It popped up on landing and the propeller cut it in half. I wish I had gotten video because it was a beautiful evening as the sun was going down. Maybe someday I’ll actually paint this bird. Until then it will live in its original blue foam color with masking tape reinforcement.
Did you do a double break dihedral?
And is so did you use the dihedral gauge with the plans for each wing tip?
I will also change my thrust angle, thanks for that.
I actually built my wing a bit like the simple scout, so it has a bottom side on the wing with exposed under camber outer 1/3
 

Fujimo

Active member
Here it is compared to my simple scout wing.
It has significantly more dihedral than the scout
21155424-8FF2-47B3-B0D5-CEB93FDEDFF3.jpeg
 
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