Has anyone built a foam board space shuttle yet?

CrazyFastFlying

Elite member
Hi,

Last night I had this great idea about building a foam board space shuttle. It would have 2 or 3 EDF's instead on rocket engines. It wouldn't have the 2 rocket boosters or the big orange fuel tank because that would make it to heavy. It should have enough power to vertical launch and also have retractible landing gear.

If you wanted it to be really scale, You could add a LED after burner and a small smoke system.

Just wondering if anyone has tried building something like this. If nobody has tried it, who thinks it would work?
 

Zephyr1

Elite member
I did a glider version awhile ago, it got towed up by a quad and dropped lol. Always wanted to increase the size and put an edf in it though.
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JTarmstr

Elite member
Just a warning: The Shuttle flies horribly. Stalls are the worst and it needs a ton of speed with its tiny delta wings. The reason it is so poorly shaped for atmosphere flying is because it has to be able to ride a rocket up and then re-enter the atmosphere (which is like riding a brick from space). I would try to keep it light if possible.
 

jfaleo1

Junior Member
Just a warning: The Shuttle flies horribly. Stalls are the worst and it needs a ton of speed with its tiny delta wings. The reason it is so poorly shaped for atmosphere flying is because it has to be able to ride a rocket up and then re-enter the atmosphere (which is like riding a brick from space). I would try to keep it light if possible.

May years ago Model Aviation magazine published plans for a space shuttle. A friend of mine built it and we did 30 or 40 flights before he retired it. At 1/45 scale with a 13% larger wing area and less than 30 oz AUW if flew like (I will quote a bystander) "A dead Sparrow. Launches from a very high alt resulted in under 60 second flights. It looked really cool, and was a neat experience to fly, but everything above is true especially the stalls and airspeed. Good luck if you choose to try but be ready for a difficult to fly model, it was not designed to "fly" but rather to execute a very fast (final approach begins at over Mach 1) controlled fall to earth. FYI many landings on the real thing resulted in landing gear damage including the nose gear axel snapping half.
 

nerdnic

nerdnic.com
Mentor
That’s the plan! But like all things, I run out of time and then excited about a new project and move on. That photo is over 3 years old.
 

95726

New member
What if you did the fuel tank, booster rockets & all, but the boosters would be real rocket engines. Then the Shuttle would be a glider with FPV on the nose of the Shuttle. The tank & booster rockets wouldn't separate from each other & come down with a parachute. The Shuttle would separate with a bomb release or servo controlled. I would be cool to see the Challenger fly again.
 

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sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
The shuttle is by no means an airplane. Or a glider. NASA and "4 old farts" in a movie even realized that.

 

Stress Test

Well-known member
I got to fly a simulator for the Shuttle when I was 15. In Huntsville Alabama is the Space Museum. One of the things in there was a simulator for landing the Shuttle. I lived in that place during the summer.

I landed it.

I won't tell you how many times I died. Calling it a brick is being generous.

My dad was an engineer for NASA, so late in the day I would hop on the last tour of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, which went through his building, meet him and we would head home.

He did work on the shuttle, though I can't find any of his paperwork for that, I did find this one. The math is insane.

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