Erospace
Member
Hello everyone, this is my first attempt at scratch building/designing my own R/C airplane. I've been designing and building hand launch gliders since I was a kid. I got back into R/C airplanes about a year ago after a 15+ year hiatus. After getting back in the air with a Whip-it, then FT Storch, I decided I wanted to build something a little more sporty. I've always loved flying wings and the Ho 229 so when I started looking at kits the FT Arrow struck me as a good design to convert.
For reference.
I scaled the print to a wingspan of 29".
After some stretching I came up with this.
I didn't change the overall thickness of the airfoil for the first version so the cord of the wing has been stretched from the original proportions.
The "final" product.
This is just version 1. I kept the original Arrow nose and didn't add any of the "Horten" features like cockpit canopy or engine covers since I wasn't sure how well it was going to fly. The vertical fins will be made out of some kind of clear ridged polymer so in flight it will appear at a glance to be a true flying wing. Maybe in the future I'll figure out how to do away with them entirely by adding air brakes on the wings.
Post maiden:
Since I significantly decreased the size of the control surfaces from the original Arrow, I left the controls at 100%. The first "flight" proved that the surfaces were plenty big as it was quite a handful. I managed to make a landing that only slightly looked like a crash. After dialing the controls back to 55% I was finally able to get some quality flights in. At half throttle it's very easy to fly. For landings simply chopping the throttle, pull back all the way on the stick and it basically lands itself.
Flight characteristics:
Power stalls are pretty uneventful. It noses up, turns 180 degrees and immediately starts flying again. I added under-chamber to the tips partly for ease of construction and because many of FT's warbird designs utilize it to avoid tip stalls that can make them hard to fly. As such, it basically won't tip stall. Its roll is controllable until it falls flat out of the sky. The addition of the flat section behind the prop seems to make it not pitch sensitive. The faster it goes the straighter it wants to fly. It's likely less aerobatic than the FT Arrow. With the current airfoil it slows down fast without power. Version 2 will have a slightly thinner, less faceted, more round airfoil which I hope will help it glide better and look less "F-117" and more "Ho 229".
Version 2 is already under construction and will be my "combat Horten" that I'll be flying in combat at FF East in July. Version 3 will be going for the true Luftwaffe look with all the aesthetic changes and proper camouflage scheme.
Let me know if you have any comments or questions. This is still a work in progress.
Thanks,
Erospace
For reference.
I scaled the print to a wingspan of 29".
After some stretching I came up with this.
I didn't change the overall thickness of the airfoil for the first version so the cord of the wing has been stretched from the original proportions.
The "final" product.
This is just version 1. I kept the original Arrow nose and didn't add any of the "Horten" features like cockpit canopy or engine covers since I wasn't sure how well it was going to fly. The vertical fins will be made out of some kind of clear ridged polymer so in flight it will appear at a glance to be a true flying wing. Maybe in the future I'll figure out how to do away with them entirely by adding air brakes on the wings.
Post maiden:
Since I significantly decreased the size of the control surfaces from the original Arrow, I left the controls at 100%. The first "flight" proved that the surfaces were plenty big as it was quite a handful. I managed to make a landing that only slightly looked like a crash. After dialing the controls back to 55% I was finally able to get some quality flights in. At half throttle it's very easy to fly. For landings simply chopping the throttle, pull back all the way on the stick and it basically lands itself.
Flight characteristics:
Power stalls are pretty uneventful. It noses up, turns 180 degrees and immediately starts flying again. I added under-chamber to the tips partly for ease of construction and because many of FT's warbird designs utilize it to avoid tip stalls that can make them hard to fly. As such, it basically won't tip stall. Its roll is controllable until it falls flat out of the sky. The addition of the flat section behind the prop seems to make it not pitch sensitive. The faster it goes the straighter it wants to fly. It's likely less aerobatic than the FT Arrow. With the current airfoil it slows down fast without power. Version 2 will have a slightly thinner, less faceted, more round airfoil which I hope will help it glide better and look less "F-117" and more "Ho 229".
Version 2 is already under construction and will be my "combat Horten" that I'll be flying in combat at FF East in July. Version 3 will be going for the true Luftwaffe look with all the aesthetic changes and proper camouflage scheme.
Let me know if you have any comments or questions. This is still a work in progress.
Thanks,
Erospace
