Flying Pancake Mk. I
I went ahead and formatted the plans, printed them out and started prototyping. It definitely looks like a pancake, but the question is will it fly!
Overall I am pleased with the progress so far. Most of it looks scale (with some exceptions I'll get to in a minute), and it was surprisingly easy to build. It was much larger than I expected but that was quite alright! The main issue I had was the size difference between the wing/body pieces. Since I am using the my.SketchUp web app so I can access the design on the cloud, I can't export the plans as a 2D vector image, I have to take a screenshot and scale it in a program like DoubleCAD or MS Publisher. I don't have DoubleCAD on my PC, so that left me with MS Publisher. Obviously, vector graphics and DoubleCAD are better suited to the job, but MS Publisher also gets the job done. Unfortunately, you can not scale an image by a set value, so when I went to scale the two wing/body pieces, a small difference in scaling created a substantial issue when putting the plane together. Thankfully, I know how to fix that issue and I will get it repaired.
Second major issue was the cockpit size. I reverted to the simpler cockpit design instead of the geodesic one due to time sake (had a wedding I had to attend to
), so it is not final either.
Finally, I need to make the "taileron" control surfaces on the winglets larger and find spaces to install servos. More on that later on!
Once I get a working, flying model I will release the plans for feedback to see what I can improve/add before the design deadline!