Lightening an FT Tiny Trainer

[0__0]

Hello,

I've just finished building, painting and fine tweaking my FTTT last week, having equipped it with an equally tiny 1510 motor running on a 2S 500mAh LiPo. Thing is, even at 247g in total, this bird is a little lazy in climbs (no problem keeping it in the air though).
I was wondering if I could reduce its weight by cutting foam panels out from the fuselage, wings and tail and then replacing the hollow spaces with a balsa stick lattice covered with standard covering film.
Would this effectively reduce weight (or increase it ?) without compromising the airframe's structure ?

 

[JasonK]

Having have built quite a few TT, I have managed to get one under 250g AUW with the 3 channel wing and a 2s 650mA batter on an A pack.

It sounds like you under motored your TT.

cutting out panels and replacing them with the balsa stick/covering file - the impact on strength/weight/etc is going to depend on the specifics of what you do here, it could make all 3 worse. it could make some worse and some better.

To me, it seems like the easier solution would be to put a slightly bigger motor on it.

 

[quorneng]

0__0
The foam itself is about 8 times lighter than balsa so by the time you have built a frame and covered it with a plastic film I doubt there is any significant weight saving to be gained.
It would be possible to glue in lighter 3mm foam sheet in the cut out panels or if you really want to save weight just cover the cut outs with tissue, suitably shrunk and sealed with foam safe dope.
I have used tissue covering over foam, in this case to get a twin EDF to under 250g.

Successfully using cut outs does require a good understanding, along with experimentation and experience, to minimise the effect on the strength and stiffness of the resulting structure. It will be weaker and more flexible so you are relying on the weight saving to reduce the loads the structure has to handle.
I hope this helps.

 

[0__0]

On that topic, how light is your tiny trainer ?

 

[bisco]

here are some power rec's:

https://forum.flitetest.com/index.p...mendation-for-tiny-trainer.70598/#post-727725

 

[bisco]

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