Wait, I'm building ANOTHER Red Swan?? How much abuse can one guy take? Turns out, a LOT! I've built it stock and also as a lightweight version (well, as light as I could make it), but there is more room for creativity in the HK Red Swan.
A while back I was looking at the EDF planes on the HK website and noticed the German HE-162 Salamander. Overall a pretty damn ugly plane, but still a technological marvel for the era. The more I looked at it the more interested I got in the plane. Not the one HK sells, as buying something that crazy without extra parts availability is really rolling the dice - I'm sure most of us have run into that problem in the past. But while looking at the 162 one day I noticed that the basic outline of the fuselage isn't far from that of the Red Swan. Yeah, you need to squint your eyes really hard to see it, but there's a Salamander hiding inside the Red Swan!
So I decided to buy yet another Red Swan, and this time modify the hell out of it and make my version of the Salamander, from here to be known as the "Red Salamander".
I've never done an EDF plane so that will be new to me, and I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions as I get going on this project. How big should the EDF be? 3S or 4S? 3ch or 4ch? I'm hoping for help on those questions.
A list has been made of some of the changes the stock kit will need:
Fuselage: landing gear with steerable nose wheel, rounded nosecone, possibly a different canopy design, airflow for the ESC and 4S (?) battery, modified tail to accept new tail configuration, tail skid, modification of fuselage servo tray, and better ability to place battery where needed for CoG.
Wing: slight dihedral in wing, drooping wing-tips, CF leading edge and possibly at spar, shortened wing, possibly tapered wing over entire length, no taper to LE of wing, stronger bolt-on method, easily removable at field, possibly no rudder control, dihedral in horizontal stab, dual vertical stab/rudder layout.
So this isn't going to be a scale build by any stretch of the imagination. Instead it's simply me taking a basic balsa kit, sprinkling pixie dust on it, and hoping it ends up looking like something else.
The kit has been ordered and should be here in a few days. I looked at my calendar for December and just noticed I only work 11 days with 20 days off (creative scheduling and saving my days off all year!) so hopefully a lot of the construction can be done before the end of the year. The plan is to start with the fuselage and work out from there.
This should be interesting...!
A while back I was looking at the EDF planes on the HK website and noticed the German HE-162 Salamander. Overall a pretty damn ugly plane, but still a technological marvel for the era. The more I looked at it the more interested I got in the plane. Not the one HK sells, as buying something that crazy without extra parts availability is really rolling the dice - I'm sure most of us have run into that problem in the past. But while looking at the 162 one day I noticed that the basic outline of the fuselage isn't far from that of the Red Swan. Yeah, you need to squint your eyes really hard to see it, but there's a Salamander hiding inside the Red Swan!
So I decided to buy yet another Red Swan, and this time modify the hell out of it and make my version of the Salamander, from here to be known as the "Red Salamander".
I've never done an EDF plane so that will be new to me, and I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions as I get going on this project. How big should the EDF be? 3S or 4S? 3ch or 4ch? I'm hoping for help on those questions.
A list has been made of some of the changes the stock kit will need:
Fuselage: landing gear with steerable nose wheel, rounded nosecone, possibly a different canopy design, airflow for the ESC and 4S (?) battery, modified tail to accept new tail configuration, tail skid, modification of fuselage servo tray, and better ability to place battery where needed for CoG.
Wing: slight dihedral in wing, drooping wing-tips, CF leading edge and possibly at spar, shortened wing, possibly tapered wing over entire length, no taper to LE of wing, stronger bolt-on method, easily removable at field, possibly no rudder control, dihedral in horizontal stab, dual vertical stab/rudder layout.
So this isn't going to be a scale build by any stretch of the imagination. Instead it's simply me taking a basic balsa kit, sprinkling pixie dust on it, and hoping it ends up looking like something else.
The kit has been ordered and should be here in a few days. I looked at my calendar for December and just noticed I only work 11 days with 20 days off (creative scheduling and saving my days off all year!) so hopefully a lot of the construction can be done before the end of the year. The plan is to start with the fuselage and work out from there.
This should be interesting...!