Now, we in Europe have a lovely little supermarket called Lidl, and once a year, they sell the holy grail...a decent sized foam glider that can be converted to RC.
There are quite a few videos on YouTube of conversions, ranging from mild to wild. Well, here's mine.
Start with this lovely glider, take 2 coffee's and a shot of bravado.
First, remove the canopy. It's hot glued on, so needs cutting or a fair bit of leverage.
Next, remove the giant bolt from inside, and then hollow that sucker out!
Now, this is where the bravado kicks in..because it was at this point I cut the top off...and the tail!!
Once this major surgery was completed, on with the next major change...a V-Tail.
I cut the HStab in line with the large notch to make 2 separate tails, these would make the V-Tail.
I then hollowed out the fuselage area and some of the 'Spine' to make some room for the electronics. I also cut reliefs for the servos and wires, and holes for the antennas to go through.
I had decided to future proof the design, so had left room for a 3s1100mah Lipo, FS-IA6 Rx and 30a ESC in the nose. At some point I will pod it, for both a standard prop in tractor and pusher configuration, and even an EDF (now where is that 64mm...)
I trimmed down the tail area from its square lug (that mates with the notch in the standard tail) to a 90 degree angle, to accept the new tail feathers.
For the ruddervators, I just measured 2.2cm from the trailing edge, and cut straight along. These were then bevelled, and attached with the supplied stickers to act as hinges! They were then reinforced with hot glue, as failure would be a bad thing!
For control horns, I just cut down a lolly (popsicle) stick and drilled holes for the quick links. I decided to put them this way round as the servo arms are quite thin.
Nice n cheap 5g servos control things, and these are set in line with the trailing edge of the wing, using flower wire pushrods.
I also decided that I wanted winglets, so had to either fix the wing in place, or come up with a clever solution.
My clever solution was to fix the wing to the Spine, glued and screwed, and glue a nice big dowel in place. That took care of the rear...
For the front, I went full-on FTand decided to use a cable tie, a lolly stick and a wood screw!!
I made a channel in the wing and glued in a cut piece of lolly stick. In front and behind this I made a small hole for the cable tie. I also cut a hole in the lower fuselage, and put a nice big wood screw from one side to the other, to catch the loop of the cable tie.
I have noticed that since removing the Spine, there is a gap at the front. So, foam board to the rescue to fill that gap. It's not structural, so no harm done!
With all the electronics installed, the CG seems bang on the factory measurement!
Hopefully the weather will be a little kinder this weekend, so glide tests can commence, and then I can get around to building the removable power pods and testing it as a powered plane.
Hope this little article helps, and inspires someone to hack the heck out of a Lidl Plane!!
There are quite a few videos on YouTube of conversions, ranging from mild to wild. Well, here's mine.
Start with this lovely glider, take 2 coffee's and a shot of bravado.
First, remove the canopy. It's hot glued on, so needs cutting or a fair bit of leverage.
Next, remove the giant bolt from inside, and then hollow that sucker out!
Now, this is where the bravado kicks in..because it was at this point I cut the top off...and the tail!!
Once this major surgery was completed, on with the next major change...a V-Tail.
I cut the HStab in line with the large notch to make 2 separate tails, these would make the V-Tail.
I then hollowed out the fuselage area and some of the 'Spine' to make some room for the electronics. I also cut reliefs for the servos and wires, and holes for the antennas to go through.
I had decided to future proof the design, so had left room for a 3s1100mah Lipo, FS-IA6 Rx and 30a ESC in the nose. At some point I will pod it, for both a standard prop in tractor and pusher configuration, and even an EDF (now where is that 64mm...)
I trimmed down the tail area from its square lug (that mates with the notch in the standard tail) to a 90 degree angle, to accept the new tail feathers.
For the ruddervators, I just measured 2.2cm from the trailing edge, and cut straight along. These were then bevelled, and attached with the supplied stickers to act as hinges! They were then reinforced with hot glue, as failure would be a bad thing!
For control horns, I just cut down a lolly (popsicle) stick and drilled holes for the quick links. I decided to put them this way round as the servo arms are quite thin.
Nice n cheap 5g servos control things, and these are set in line with the trailing edge of the wing, using flower wire pushrods.
I also decided that I wanted winglets, so had to either fix the wing in place, or come up with a clever solution.
My clever solution was to fix the wing to the Spine, glued and screwed, and glue a nice big dowel in place. That took care of the rear...
For the front, I went full-on FTand decided to use a cable tie, a lolly stick and a wood screw!!
I made a channel in the wing and glued in a cut piece of lolly stick. In front and behind this I made a small hole for the cable tie. I also cut a hole in the lower fuselage, and put a nice big wood screw from one side to the other, to catch the loop of the cable tie.
I have noticed that since removing the Spine, there is a gap at the front. So, foam board to the rescue to fill that gap. It's not structural, so no harm done!
With all the electronics installed, the CG seems bang on the factory measurement!
Hopefully the weather will be a little kinder this weekend, so glide tests can commence, and then I can get around to building the removable power pods and testing it as a powered plane.
Hope this little article helps, and inspires someone to hack the heck out of a Lidl Plane!!
