He 162 edf prototype

Killowatt

New member
Hello everyone!
I'm a long time lurker who wants to give a bit back to the amazing community so follow along as I prototype up my first edf airplane.

Stuck in a hotel for a few weeks down in Iowa so its the perfect time to work on an idea I have been kicking around for a long time, the foamboard He162!

From wikipedia.
"The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (German, "People's Fighter"), the name of a project of the Emergency Fighter Program design competition, was a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe in World War II. Designed and built quickly, and made primarily of wood as metals were in very short supply and prioritized for other aircraft, the He 162 was nevertheless the fastest of the first generation of Axis and Allied jets."

Heinkel,_He_162.jpg

The ideas/thoughts:
-huge nacelle for edf
-simple wing shape
-3 channel?
-based on existing designs if possible
-uses low cost 64mm edf
-moderate wcl
-around 2 sheets of dtfb
-few other designs of the 162 (might be a reason?!?!)
-easy to build
-removable wing


He-162.svg.png


Start:
Being a huge fan of the dtfb Bugatti I stretched and stretched and scaled the wing out to 32in to get a rough resemblance of the 162 profile. I was hoping to do a bit larger of a wingspan but the 32in span is about the max that will fit on a standard sheet of foam. hopefully this keeps the wcl around 9-10 and makes it a bit more friendly for a noob pilot like myself. for the wing tips i just eyeballed the downturn, will have to make up a template for rev 2. As a side not I'm unsure if its just the batch of dtfb but the stuff with the black paper seems to delaminate much easier than the regular stuff, this will need to be redone at some point but will do for a proof of concept and hopefully initial flights.

Wing pre fold
20180820_195344.jpg

Just for kicks i overlaid the bugatti fuselage over the 162 blueprints and its fairly close!! couple of minor mods and some stretching and we seem to have something workable. The final design will have a few 3d printed parts to help with the styling but those will have to wait until I'm home again.

20180820_200507.jpg

Trying to get the feel for how it will look assembled

20180820_210956.jpg

Since I dont have time to reinvent the wheel I scaled the edf section from the AP Eazy ducted fan from 50mm to 64mm and stuck it to the top of the wing. Added in a rough tail section and a couple of servos to the bottom of the wing and Here is how it sits as of this evening.

20180823_211148.jpg

To do:
-pushrods
-attach wing
-radio setup
-battery tray
-nosecone
-first flight

Cheers!
 
Last edited:

b-29er

Well-known member
...
-few other designs of the 162 (might be a reason?!?!)
...!
he162crash.jpg

The HE-162 had a few flaws, inherently the materials. The whole point of the Volksjager program was to make the fighter out of the dwindling materials they had left. So they strapped a jet engine to a plane made from plywood, which may have been survivable on its own. The plane itself was a product of forced labor, you know, brought to you by the kind of people that want to disrupt the war machine because their lives depend on it, so sabotage, like diluting the glue with urine, was not unheard of. Combine with a glue that was somewhat acidic and you get an airplane not designed for long durations of high-stress flight. Also of note, the exceedingly high takeoff/landing speed which made the plane a bear to get back down. It makes a great and interesting RC model, full sized...not so much.

Design looks very good already, hope you took advantage of that sale and stocked up on 70mm edfs for prototypes!
 
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Kilo Kilo

Junior Member
How are you going to attach the EDF to the wing and fuselage? I'm about to start working on the same plane and was thinking of using a plywood bulkhead passing down through the fuselage. Keeping this first version very boxy, h-stab will probably be flat to keep it simple. Excuse the oddball measurements, these are more or less scaled from the 3-view, haven't adjusted them to get some nice even numbers.
 

Attachments

  • bulkhead design.pdf
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  • he 162 side and plan view.pdf
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