mighy mini LOOPING LOUIE!

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Do you remember Looping Looie from your childhood? Is a game with a crazy pilot who is out of control ( That really souns like Flite Test) and you have to save your farm. So why not rebuild it as a FT mighty mini?
Game ad:

This box image looks just awesome!:

It looks like a mashup of the bloody baron and the scout on the first pictures, but it is build without plans. The posterboard and engine cowling are just prototypes and not attached to the plane, but will be very similar. If you look at the picture, you can see that the fuselage is very fat and the prop very small, so I try to let much air pass through the fuse. I also want to include Louies head, but it will not be as big as on the box.

The whole plane is build using only a half sheet of foam! And those exhaust tubes look amazing.
Hope to finish it soon!

Btw. Tomorrow is my 16th birthday, then my game turns 10, because I got if with 6!

 

[cranialrectosis]

Happy Birthday Looie!

 

[RMDC]

Looks awesome! I hope you'll put those Cub-style squatty wheel fairings on as well. I remember this commercial from my childhood - this was the commercial that made me think that motorized board games had truly jumped the shark.

 

[SP0NZ]

I love this!

 

[JGplanes]

Very cool! I want to build one too!

 

[Jetcrafter_2000]

This really looks cool and stable!
Now onely the farm is missing .

Looking forward to the maiden!
Jetcrafter2000

 

[Ricci]

Looks awesome! Great idea!

 

[AircPirateNinsei]

My family loves this game and your foamie looks awesome! :applause:
My son has already asked me to build one. We're hoping for a build plan.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Wow, so many awesome people teplied to this!
Now, teres no progress because Im waiting for some servos and had not much time. But here are a few more pics so you can see how its build and what size it is.

Heres the plane with upper fuse taken off, its just a piece of foam where I removed the paper from with two exhausts and a piece of posterboard with haed in there. These parts will be reshaped, because they were just parts I had laying around and I used them to check how it looks.

On the engine cowling I made a bevel cut and bend the foam to the inside to get this roundet up look. I also applied some glue and scraped it off to hold it in place.

Here is the underside of the plane, which is still opened because I have to insall some servos. Im also not sure if I should give the plane a roundet up belly, because on the one hand, Louies plane is completely round, but on the other hand this fat fuse would add a lot of drag and is easy to destroy.
You can see the plane laying on the leftover foam from the build because I build the wing using the full width of the short side for maximum foam efficiency. I also added 1.5 cm of undercamber airflow to prevent tipstalls and placed one layer of foam as a spar into the wing. You can also see some doublers in the nose where a mighty mini powerpod fits in perfectly. The motor, leadind edge of the wing and tail are lining up perfectly, just like on Louies plane.


Here you can see the tail with the elevator placed in the fuse and hold in place by the rudder using some extentions. The elevator is much smaller, I hope it doesnt effect the flight caracteristics too much. There is a cutout to allow the elevator move.

And heres a size comparison of the game and the plane. I installed a two cell battery to make it move faster, which is great fun

And luckily my grandparents have a farm and my brother just got three chickens, just like in the game

 

[RMDC]

That cowling bevel is a slick trick. The whole thing looks great. As for the body, I think you can get away with just the top being rounded. The ad, box art, and actual game piece all look very different, so there's plenty of room for interpretation.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Update!
After a long time, I finished the plane.
I installed all electronics. I put two servos in the wing for flaperons, they could have a nice effect on a plane like this.
Maiden will be tomorrow!

 

[DamoRC]

Good luck with the maiden!

DamoRC

 

[Morgan]

Looks good! Is there any plans?

 

[Redflier]

This is going well. Looking forward to the maiden!

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Maidened it today, because of the good weather. No wind and sun, perfectly. Plane flew perfectly, too, but the velcro on my battery decidet to pop off the plane, the cg shiftet in a bad position and down went the nice flyer. Not too many problems with the airframe, just crushed wingtips from the first flying attempt, a broken prop and an F-pack motor full of dirt. Sometimes, some sh"" happens... Do you know, if I can clean it up and reuse it? But the flight went pretty well, It was a super gentle cruiser on low rates. Not too slow, but a decent speed ad middle-throttle and fast, but not too fast on full throttle. Sadly, I didnt came to test out some aerobatics or high rates or even flaps, but I have a spare F-pack motor and the next flight will come pretty soon. Also, can someone show me how to create plans, so everxone can get the experience, which is not Bloody-like, but great for a calm evening. You can expect new information and pictures very soon...

 

[rockyboy]

Great to hear it flew well! :applause: Bummer about the crash. :black_eyed:

You can rinse out a brushless motor with tap water and let it dry and they will be fine. They are totally waterproof.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Thank you, rockyboy. I hope it survived the impact, then we could see it in the air again tomorrow.
Seems that I cant upload pictures right now, but if the site is updated and internernet works, Ill show you a nice trick how I prevent my battery from getting dirty. But whats not what caused the crash, its just the velcro that didnt want to stick.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

As you can see, a piece of posterboard is used so that the plane doesnt have to land directly on the battery. I placed the battery very far back, because this thing is surprisingly noseheavy.

 

[flitetest]

Heyo!! It flew well, it crashed hard and it lives again!! What a great journey my man! Keep up the awesome work!


Blessings,
Stefan

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Thank you Stefan! Its so awesome that Flite Test likes my projekt!
Todays a lot of wind, but in the morning, before scool, I was able to bring it in the air again, but it felt a little whacky, espacially on take-off. I think thats because of the small elevator that starts to stabelize the plane only after it speeded up enough. The CG seems to be very important with this one. On the first flight, yesterday, it was noseheavy and went sraight into the ground. I was too lazy to shift the battery back and gave it more up-elevator, which worked pretty nice, as you can see in the video. Today, I shifted the cg back and it was uncontrollable after take-off and did a few more hard crashes and broke my second prop. luckyly, I ordered a lot of three bladed with my f-packs, so I used them, shifted the cg more forword and launched it in the air. This time, it flew, but kinda whacky and unstable. I didnt want to test aerobatics and stall caracteristics with bad cg, so I went for a landing after a few rounds. After I reduced throttle, It went down like a rock, there was no lift in the wings, just like the FT Mailbox plane.
I hope the weather gets better, so that I can find the perfect CG and trim it out to see what it really can do and how the flaps effect it.

I really like the shape and proportions of this thing, on the pictures it looks nice, but in reality, it becomes super awesome! I will defenitly create plans, but I dont know how to do it or which programm I should use. Please help me with that question.