How do you guys design round foamboard planes?

[AeroTechPlanes]

Hey guys! I was just wondering while I'm trying to design an F-35, how do you guys design rounded planes, and make them into plans? I'm trying a new idea in blender where I just have a ton of vertices and I'll make formers by cutting a plane to the inside shape. Also, a question I had about edf planes, is it fully necessary to have cylindrical tubes that lead to the edf? Or if it's form fitting enough, can I just put the edf in there? Does it matter?

 

[Flying Monkey fab]

Hey guys! I was just wondering while I'm trying to design an F-35, how do you guys design rounded planes, and make them into plans? I'm trying a new idea in blender where I just have a ton of vertices and I'll make formers by cutting a plane to the inside shape. Also, a question I had about edf planes, is it fully necessary to have cylindrical tubes that lead to the edf? Or if it's form fitting enough, can I just put the edf in there? Does it matter?

Well crap, you had the same idea as me. Somewhere between box and master there must be polygon madness!
I've ask several times for the team to share but got nothing so I'm working it out myself.
Blender makes my brain itch but if that works for you press fwd and when you get it worked out, publish!

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

Well crap, you had the same idea as me. Somewhere between box and master there must be polygon madness!
I've ask several times for the team to share but got nothing so I'm working it out myself.
Blender makes my brain itch but if that works for you press fwd and when you get it worked out, publish!

Yeah. It's really really tedious. I've worked on it for like an hour and a half and this is all I've got.

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

Yeah. It's really really tedious. I've worked on it for like an hour and a half and this is all I've got. View attachment 229341

Do you know how to turn them into plans? At least the lower poly count ones? Because I figured out how to get part of the way there from blender, and all you need after that is some cleaning up with adobe illustrator, or what I use(gravit designer) It's just a free online version. I can tell you if you'd like.

 

[Flying Monkey fab]

Do you know how to turn them into plans? At least the lower poly count ones? Because I figured out how to get part of the way there from blender, and all you need after that is some cleaning up with adobe illustrator, or what I use(gravit designer) It's just a free online version. I can tell you if you'd like.

There are sooo many ways to go about this but I can share some ideas later after work if you like.

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

There are sooo many ways to go about this but I can share some ideas later after work if you like.

I already know how to do it one way that I use, but I'd like to hear your ideas. I was just wondering if you needed any help with that part.

 

[Flying Monkey fab]

Okay, here is my process at the moment, and I should say that 1) I have never designed a complete plane from concept, and 2) I'm probably the last person who should be advising on this.

So, most of the time, I modify existing art, but when I have done something original, it goes like this:

• Create a solid, I do this in Fusion 360, but any 3d modeling program, including Blender, should work.
• hand this solid off to Pepakura Designer, and it does all the heavy lifting of turning the solid into something that can b folded
  • note: Pepakura is written with paper and card stock in mind, so often, some changes will have to be made
• hand the SVG file Pepakura made back off to fusion 360 for any tweaks that are needed
  • this might include turning any 90d folds into A or B-style folds
  • any changes to tabs
• now hand what you finished in Fusion over to an art program; I usually use Inkscape
  • color code the lines and make any final adjustments
• hand this off to my lasers web interface and cut/score
• fold and glue

Other things I have considered but not done:

• use the sheet metal tool in Fusion 360
• use the shell command in Fusion 360 and then virtually cut up the part and "glue" back together still in F360
• I think one of these would work well if you are using both polygons and curved parts.

That's mine; now, let's hear yours.

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

Okay, here is my process at the moment, and I should say that 1) I have never designed a complete plane from concept, and 2) I'm probably the last person who should be advising on this.

So, most of the time, I modify existing art, but when I have done something original, it goes like this:

• Create a solid, I do this in Fusion 360, but any 3d modeling program, including Blender, should work.
• hand this solid off to Pepakura Designer, and it does all the heavy lifting of turning the solid into something that can b folded
  • note: Pepakura is written with paper and card stock in mind, so often, some changes will have to be made
• hand the SVG file Pepakura made back off to fusion 360 for any tweaks that are needed
  • this might include turning any 90d folds into A or B-style folds
  • any changes to tabs
• now hand what you finished in Fusion over to an art program; I usually use Inkscape
  • color code the lines and make any final adjustments
• hand this off to my lasers web interface and cut/score
• fold and glue

Other things I have considered but not done:

• use the sheet metal tool in Fusion 360
• use the shell command in Fusion 360 and then virtually cut up the part and "glue" back together still in F360
• I think one of these would work well if you are using both polygons and curved parts.

That's mine; now, let's hear yours.

I've heard and tried to use Pepakura but couldn't figure it out(It was for something else), but I can see how that works out for you. That's pretty much what I'm doing, but in blender. So what I usually do to make a design in the first place, is get a 3 view or 3d model(3d models usually end up being more accurate because there's something "physical" to line it up with, and get a cube or cylinder(whatever is easier for the chosen fuselage), and then just take the vertices, and line them up to where they should go to get the correct shape. I usually only design the fuselage and ducts(if it's a jet) in 3d and do the rest in 2d, and that usually works out pretty well for me. But to get the 3d into 2d, I figured out that there's this addon inside blender that allows you to export it as a paper model(pretty much just pepakura, but I don't get to choose how it unfolds. I think pepakura is actually a really good idea. I don't know why I haven't connected that before, because I make a lot of helmets and stuff(star wars mostly). But after I export them as paper models, they don't come out the way that I want them to be(just so the end product looks nicer and is easier to make), so I take them into 2d, and take the first attachment, rearrange the different sections, and turn it into the second attachment(red and blue ones. Not black. those are original blender files). Then I just design the other components, and bam. I've got plans for a plane. I have been trying to do more in 3d though, to get everything to fit right, and before, I was jut making chuck gliders(because I'm 15 and don't have money), but now I need to be more precise, and actually have some sort of core in the plane, to connect everything well. And now that I'm doing an EDF(BDF) jet, I'm diving into a bunch of things I don't really know about, so I'm just going to go through trial and error to see what works. Any tips for designing EDF Jets(If you've done any) Also, I tried using Fusion 360 once, but I couldn't figure it out enough to make a plane. Any tips or videos I can follow on that? Because I'd love to learn something other than blender, because some times it's really annoying for my purposes. Here's some pictures of some of the planes I've designed though if you're curious.

(Bottom one is unfinished) I mean these look pretty good, but I want to do some better, smoother, and more accurate looking planes in the future.

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

So right now I'm designing an RC starkjet, and this is a video of my version 3. Does anybody have an idea as to why it crashed at the end like that? I didn't do any of that.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lSlfWNy_ZGcDvG4iTnTAuVyLZdjzgVnz/view?usp=drivesdk

 

[Ligbaer]

So right now I'm designing an RC starkjet, and this is a video of my version 3. Does anybody have an idea as to why it crashed at the end like that? I didn't do any of that.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lSlfWNy_ZGcDvG4iTnTAuVyLZdjzgVnz/view?usp=drivesdk
View attachment 229673

From what i can see it seems like you lost orientation. Now that being said i couldn't see very much so take what i said with a grain of salt

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

From what i can see it seems like you lost orientation. Now that being said i couldn't see very much so take what i said with a grain of salt

No I didn't lose orientation, the plane just started rolling to the right, and I couldn't do anything about it, so it crashed and cartwheeled. I have had problems surrounding the roll axis with other versions, so could it have something to do with the winglets?

 

[Ligbaer]

No I didn't lose orientation, the plane just started rolling to the right, and I couldn't do anything about it, so it crashed and cartwheeled. I have had problems surrounding the roll axis with other versions, so could it have something to do with the winglets?

your motors might of been out of sync i have had that issue a few times with my twins

 

[quorneng]

So right now I'm designing an RC starkjet, and this is a video of my version 3. Does anybody have an idea as to why it crashed at the end like that? I didn't do any of that.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lSlfWNy_ZGcDvG4iTnTAuVyLZdjzgVnz/view?usp=drivesdk
View attachment 229673

I may be wrong but it looks to me in the picture that the props are on backwards. If so it would severely reduce the thrust generated.
In the video it certainly looked like the plane was short on thrust so you were flying rather slow. A tight turn low down would cause it to slow down more, a wing stalls and the ground arrives rather quickly!
Don't be shy at gaining some height. In a plane altitude is your friend simply because it gives you a bit more time to try to sort things out before the plane meets the ground.

 

[Tench745]

Going from what I saw in the video, you were in a dive, or at least at 0 angle of attack. On a flat-plate airfoil the wing is producing very little lift here. Then you pulled up rather abruptly, this likely stalled the wing. From there it just did whatever it wanted.

I second the idea that your props may have been on the wrong way round. It's hard for me to tell from the picture.

A last thing to bring up is a suggestion I made after doing a bunch of glide tests with V2. Swept wings have a similar stabilizing effect as adding dihedral. The wings on the Starkjet are very swept-back. I found that adding some anhedral helped improve a stable glide. My theory is that the extreme sweep actually causes the plane to over-correct from a turn and it ends up trying to turn itself upside down instead.

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

First off, they're just weird propellers. They're not on backwards I can assure you. I was flying with like half throttle because that's all I found I needed, but that might have been a mistake. Also, I don't know why but I didn't think about stalling at all, and that's very likely what happened. I'm going to repair it, and take it out for another flight, and this time, try to use some more throttle and get more speed. If that doesn't work, I'll try the anhedral idea. I just haven't wanted to do it yet because it'll make it look less like the movie, but if it comes to it, I'll do it. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[AeroTechPlanes]

One more question. My friend is trying to design a plane as well, and it has a fairly short wingspan, is pretty long, and kinda looks like a triangle. When we tried to test fly it, we had a ton of throws on the elevons in the back, and yet when we tried to roll, the plane just kinda rolled a little, then went back to level, without me doing anything. I tried holding it at full left, and when I did so, it just kind of rolled a bit, then self corrected, and repeated many times. Any ideas as to what is happening? Could having the control wires too long create this kind of problem, because when it's at lower speeds the elevons deflect fine, and then when it dips down when it rolls and speeds up, the wire bends and it corrects for itself? I don't know what happened and it was really weird. I don't have video though.