Hello!

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
I just found out about FliteTest a few days ago. Seems that radio equipment (at least the lower cost items) seems hard to get a hold of at the moment and with the 'stay at home' rules, I can't go out and get foam. So I started off with improvising with what I had in my house (some materials I was using to make miniature terrain - pink foam insulation, and some hard board stuff).

Watching some of the intro videos/etc got me enough pickup to get a hand thrown glider up and flying ok:

I used the wing and stabilizer designs from the FT Mini Mustang to outline my wing/stabilizers, but moved the wing above the CG. To get an airfoil shape I just carved angled cuts into my foam. With ~ 100grams of weight (trying to simulate an approximation weight of electronics) and some messing around with my CG and some slight bending on the tail controls to trim it, I got it flying on tosses fairly well. My current total mass is about ~155g.

I am curious, is there any easy way that I can figure out what the stall speed is on my frame from the air tosses. Trying to figure out how big on an area would be needed to fly once I can get a radio and electronics. (also will need rebuild/redesign it some, the fuselage is on the fragile side given that it is just foam).

GliderTop.jpg GliderBottom.jpg
 

Ranger_107

Elite member
Where do you live?
I know that the US is able to be shipped to, but I don't think UK or other countries.
but about your plane- WOW. that is great. are you new to RC flying or have you flown planes before?
Can you also give me the wingspan and the fuselage length of the plane?
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
I am in the US - but most of the websites are out of stock on the sub $100 radios (this is what I meant).
I am brand new to RC flying. I remember reading some books when I was young, but never flown anything before. I do have an engineering degree and the videos from Flite test refreshed my memory on CG/etc.

Measurements as follows:
nose to tail: 20.5"
Wing tip to wing tip: slightly over 25" (wings would be slighly longer as there is some ?dihedral? to the wing)
I have it balanced 2 1/16" behind the wing edge
Wing edge starts 5 3/8" from the nose
wing foam was 1/2" thick, I drew lines 1 in from the leading edge and 2 in from the tail edge and cut to the edge to make the angles for the airfoil shape.

the 2 blue "clumps" are 2 AA batteries each that I was using as weight. the front one was me finding a good balance point to get it gliding, then the middle one was me adding more weight to get it up to ~100g extra mass (which looks like about what a Lipo, ESC, Motor, Receiver, and 2? 5 gram servos would add up to).

I defiantly want to try out the Flite test method of making wings and fuselage as the wings chip really bad on any impact (you can see a few shrub hits in the leading edges in the pictures) and I have snapped the fuselage in 2 at least 5-6 times. the foam seems to have very low tensile strength. I had even 2 snaps from nose dives (I believe the wing lifed, stalled, and dived). the rest were from the wing hitting something and causing a sharp turn the fuselage couldn't handle the strain. (I have a nice small tree in my front yard, which is the only place in my yard I could throw into the wind last night/today).

The paint on the wings was me seeing how much weight I should expect from painting... was ~2-3 grams added weight from doing the paint job.

I am thinking Flite Test Power Pack A + a radio/receiver pair + battery is what I need to get this flying.
 

Ranger_107

Elite member
Thats probably right with the power pack A.
Did you do any prototyping before this or did you just whip it up?
It looks AWESOME for a first build. do you already have control surfaces? also, I think you should put a dihedral in the wing or stabilization if you haven't already because then you can use the rudder to steer.( with the dihedral in the wing the rudder gives a banking action
Could you also give me some close-up photos of the plane?

You're going to need a power pack A, Pushrods, control Horns, A battery, A receiver, and a transmitter.
here's the links -https://store.flitetest.com/flite-test-power-pack-a-radial-edition-flt-3057/p983483
https://store.flitetest.com/tattu-3s-lipo-battery-75c-11.1v-850mah-tat-75c-850-3s1p-xt30/p635612
https://store.flitetest.com/flite-test-16.5-push-rods-8-flt-2070/p791695
https://store.flitetest.com/flite-test-control-horn-20-pieces-flt-2005/p674276
this receiver is good for a beginner, and a programming cable will be helpful later.-https://store.flitetest.com/spektru...receiver-bundle-spmr1000-bdl/p1011055?b=17922 it also comes with a receiver.

I can tell you a more detailed description of where the servos go, ailerons rudder etc and how to install them :)
 

Ranger_107

Elite member
for a flying site I would say get a place with no power lines above, and probably 300x300ft of space. bigger is better
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
> Did you do any prototyping before this or did you just whip it up?
Just whipped it up... I did watch more then a few of the 'build guides' from Flite test before I did so, this was my prototype. I did trace the wing and stabilizers from the plans to get some rough dimensions.

I do plan on rebuilding my plane because I have already found a few issues with this design (mostly in the 'strong enough to land slightly roughly' category).

it doesn't have control surfaces yet, since I don't have the servos/etc, I didn't want them loose. Given that I used the print out plans for the FT Mini Mustang, I figure I could just cut them the same as that and put the servos on the body were they would allow the correct movements.


Do you know if that radio hard to configure - IE throws/etc without the programming cable? (i was looking at it, but concerned about the programming... I only have Linux machines in my house and the software is windows only or an app on the cell phone).

for the control horns - how is the weight on those compare to something 3d printed (I have a 3d printer and can do CAD stuff in blender just fine).

Do you think I need a 3 Cell battery to fly something like this? or would a 2 cell be sufficient? not really looking for a 'fast' plane out of the box.

more pictures attached, let me know if there is a specific shot your interested in seeing.

GliderTail.jpg GliderWingProfile.jpg GliderFront.jpg
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
just did a test of 10 test throws from shoulder height, have some slight down slope where I tested. Got an average velocity of 16ft/second and an average flight time just over 2 seconds, putting the drop at about 3 ft per second at that. I am guessing I need to plan on about ~20ft/second flight speed for level flight, so 300ft gives me ~15 seconds edge to edge.
 

Ryan O.

Out of Foam Board!
That looks good, it took me building about a dozen SBK's and scratch builds to make my own design hybrid.
 

Ranger_107

Elite member
yep you would need a firewall, but if you have any scrap plywood that isnot super tick but is strong, you can use that.
 

Ranger_107

Elite member
I would reccomend landing gear t save the prop too.
you might have to build a few models before you learn to fly.
 

MistaJay

New member
> Did you do any prototyping before this or did you just whip it up?
Just whipped it up... I did watch more then a few of the 'build guides' from Flite test before I did so, this was my prototype. I did trace the wing and stabilizers from the plans to get some rough dimensions.

I do plan on rebuilding my plane because I have already found a few issues with this design (mostly in the 'strong enough to land slightly roughly' category).

it doesn't have control surfaces yet, since I don't have the servos/etc, I didn't want them loose. Given that I used the print out plans for the FT Mini Mustang, I figure I could just cut them the same as that and put the servos on the body were they would allow the correct movements.


Do you know if that radio hard to configure - IE throws/etc without the programming cable? (i was looking at it, but concerned about the programming... I only have Linux machines in my house and the software is windows only or an app on the cell phone).

for the control horns - how is the weight on those compare to something 3d printed (I have a 3d printer and can do CAD stuff in blender just fine).

Do you think I need a 3 Cell battery to fly something like this? or would a 2 cell be sufficient? not really looking for a 'fast' plane out of the box.

more pictures attached, let me know if there is a specific shot your interested in seeing.

View attachment 166313 View attachment 166314 View attachment 166315
I used to have the dxe radio it is easy
To program. You can use your computer or with the adapter use your cellphone