The Engineer
New member
Hi,
I've just completer an FT Explorer which I plan to use as a test bed for a Matek 411 Flight Controller that I'm experimenting with. Having conducted some initial test flights (in manual mode - this thread is not about the flight controller it's about the basic design of the aircraft) I have concluded that I only marginally have enought power.
I looked at the basic FT spec for the aircraft and particularly at the span, chord, weight and derived wing loading. Here are the comparison figured for my aircraft as built to the plan
First let me say that I believe the weight difference is down to the foamboard as I've had this problem with other designs.
The key point is that my wing is smaller so the plans don't reflect the spec. (I've checked the printer scaling and the black and white reference bar is 10 cm in length on the printed paper copy.
Does anyone have any idea what the story is here? Is this a late design change, for example or just a mistake somehow?
In the end I'm probably just going to up the power as this is not an excessive wing loading for a model - better penetration etc.
Cheers
I've just completer an FT Explorer which I plan to use as a test bed for a Matek 411 Flight Controller that I'm experimenting with. Having conducted some initial test flights (in manual mode - this thread is not about the flight controller it's about the basic design of the aircraft) I have concluded that I only marginally have enought power.
I looked at the basic FT spec for the aircraft and particularly at the span, chord, weight and derived wing loading. Here are the comparison figured for my aircraft as built to the plan
FT spec | My aircraft built to plans | |
Span | 57 inch | 53 inches |
Chord | 8 inches | 7.3 inches |
Weight (AUW) | 34 oz | 24 oz |
Wing Loading | 7.54 oz/ft2 | 12.6 oz/ft2 |
First let me say that I believe the weight difference is down to the foamboard as I've had this problem with other designs.
The key point is that my wing is smaller so the plans don't reflect the spec. (I've checked the printer scaling and the black and white reference bar is 10 cm in length on the printed paper copy.
Does anyone have any idea what the story is here? Is this a late design change, for example or just a mistake somehow?
In the end I'm probably just going to up the power as this is not an excessive wing loading for a model - better penetration etc.
Cheers