Hey!
Please excuse my writing, I am not a native english speaker/writer. I have to lookup a lot of words and hope, I got most of them correctly!
This is my first real post in here, so I want to introduce myself first: I found FliteTest many years ago on youtube, searching for interesting content to spend that rainy holiday day with. I have flown RC Helicopters exclusively back than and just got into multirotors. On my way I found FPV as one great part of the hobby, and built my first wing, a Trond FPV49. When I got more into plane-flying 3 years ago, I directly started with big airplanes, doing mostly glider towing with my 100ccm 3m-Wingspan Swiss Trainer and my electric powered 2.8m wingspan Flybaby.
So up to this point, I have never flown a model directly connected to FliteTest.
Fast Forward: This winter I built a MPCNC Machine, as my first cnc router. After building some boxes, and stuff, that I needed for the machine itself, I wanted to build a plane. I have built wooden planes before, so I just had to trade hand-cut wood to cnc cut wood.
To have a mostly simple design, and because I saw Joshs Pietenpol, I decided to build one. Because it has a flat top, if you remove the curved part, its perfect to be built upside down on a table, without having much supporting structure. As I wanted to learn Fusion 360, I started to design my own plan....
It took a long time, because I needed to learn, how to work with the program as well as find out, how I could build such a plane.
After I was "done" I started to cut the first part and built the main frame:
First thing I learned: You cannot draw straight lines in CAD and than bend a pine strip and hope, the ribs still fit. I had to replace one with pinestrips to match the bending.
To attach the wing, I cut 2 parts from GFK that will get balsa glued to it and than painted, so you don't see that modern material
Than we had a free week and decided to stay home, because the weather was really bad. I had full days in my shop in the basement \o/ Yay!
So I started with the wing. It contains of 4 5x5mm pine stips, 3mm balsa for the boxing, 4mm poplar plywood for the first rib, 4mm balsa for most others, and 4mm poplar again, where the servo attaches. The profile is not the original one, I am using Clark Y profile.
I than boarded it partly with 2mm balsa and was ready to attach it to the frame the first time.
The wingspan is 2.3m.
Next was some more 2mm balsa, the ailerons and, I forgot them and therefor had to reopen the wings at 2 positions: Add the connections for the support-struts.
As nose, I glued 2 layers of 4mm balsa to the wing and sanded it to its final form.
The wings took around 2 and a half day. They are now ready for filling and final sanding, before I can cover them. This will take some more hours
Next step is the tail. I decided to make the elevators detachable to make it easier for me to fit it together with the other planes into my trailer. I tried something new with the tail: I used 0.8mm plywood and glued 4mm Balsa pieces on top and bottom. This stiffens everything a lot, but it a little heavy. I will have to see, if I need to change parts of that back to normal balsa-custruction, because of CG. The Elevators have 6mm CFK Tubes glued in, that I can connect with 4mm CFK poles. The rudder is fixed.
The difference of angle between main wing and elevator is 1.7°.
I than cut the motormount, glued it together and attached the motor. Its a Hacker A60 6XXS V2. I should bring around 9kg trust with a 6 cell battery and a 21x10 prop.
I was able to get the CG to where I want it to by that way.
Now I am a little stuck. I had to order the landing gear and the tail wheel. The rudder will be attached with wires to the servo, that is located near the CG. I am not quite sure, how I control the elevator. Attaching servos directly into the tail will bring a a lot of weight, that I need to trim out with "dead" weight in the nose. Maybe I just use CFK Tubes and place the servos to the CG, Like I do with the rudder.
Currently I am designing the cowling in CAD. I won't use the first version, like Bixler has one, with the cooling system in front of the pilot. I will go with the UK version, that has a bigger cowling...
I will also not use the original landing gear, as the old Ford-Motor-Air Campers use, but a piper style landing gear, that will dampen a little more than those fixed landing gears. As a lot Air Campers also use those kind of landing gears, that shouldn't be an issue
As soon, as I progress, I will post pictures about it.
Maybe you have some cool ideas for my elevator control?!
Ah, This plane is "only a test". If everything works out, and I am happy with how it flies, I will build one with 3.2m wingspan over the next winter. I like big gas powered planed, because its easier to full up fuel, than refill batteries at the field, if you fly a lot. The big one will get a 62ccm or 80ccm motor.
Thanks for reading,
Jens
Please excuse my writing, I am not a native english speaker/writer. I have to lookup a lot of words and hope, I got most of them correctly!
This is my first real post in here, so I want to introduce myself first: I found FliteTest many years ago on youtube, searching for interesting content to spend that rainy holiday day with. I have flown RC Helicopters exclusively back than and just got into multirotors. On my way I found FPV as one great part of the hobby, and built my first wing, a Trond FPV49. When I got more into plane-flying 3 years ago, I directly started with big airplanes, doing mostly glider towing with my 100ccm 3m-Wingspan Swiss Trainer and my electric powered 2.8m wingspan Flybaby.
So up to this point, I have never flown a model directly connected to FliteTest.
Fast Forward: This winter I built a MPCNC Machine, as my first cnc router. After building some boxes, and stuff, that I needed for the machine itself, I wanted to build a plane. I have built wooden planes before, so I just had to trade hand-cut wood to cnc cut wood.
To have a mostly simple design, and because I saw Joshs Pietenpol, I decided to build one. Because it has a flat top, if you remove the curved part, its perfect to be built upside down on a table, without having much supporting structure. As I wanted to learn Fusion 360, I started to design my own plan....
It took a long time, because I needed to learn, how to work with the program as well as find out, how I could build such a plane.
After I was "done" I started to cut the first part and built the main frame:
First thing I learned: You cannot draw straight lines in CAD and than bend a pine strip and hope, the ribs still fit. I had to replace one with pinestrips to match the bending.
To attach the wing, I cut 2 parts from GFK that will get balsa glued to it and than painted, so you don't see that modern material
Than we had a free week and decided to stay home, because the weather was really bad. I had full days in my shop in the basement \o/ Yay!
So I started with the wing. It contains of 4 5x5mm pine stips, 3mm balsa for the boxing, 4mm poplar plywood for the first rib, 4mm balsa for most others, and 4mm poplar again, where the servo attaches. The profile is not the original one, I am using Clark Y profile.
I than boarded it partly with 2mm balsa and was ready to attach it to the frame the first time.
The wingspan is 2.3m.
Next was some more 2mm balsa, the ailerons and, I forgot them and therefor had to reopen the wings at 2 positions: Add the connections for the support-struts.
As nose, I glued 2 layers of 4mm balsa to the wing and sanded it to its final form.
The wings took around 2 and a half day. They are now ready for filling and final sanding, before I can cover them. This will take some more hours
Next step is the tail. I decided to make the elevators detachable to make it easier for me to fit it together with the other planes into my trailer. I tried something new with the tail: I used 0.8mm plywood and glued 4mm Balsa pieces on top and bottom. This stiffens everything a lot, but it a little heavy. I will have to see, if I need to change parts of that back to normal balsa-custruction, because of CG. The Elevators have 6mm CFK Tubes glued in, that I can connect with 4mm CFK poles. The rudder is fixed.
The difference of angle between main wing and elevator is 1.7°.
I than cut the motormount, glued it together and attached the motor. Its a Hacker A60 6XXS V2. I should bring around 9kg trust with a 6 cell battery and a 21x10 prop.
I was able to get the CG to where I want it to by that way.
Now I am a little stuck. I had to order the landing gear and the tail wheel. The rudder will be attached with wires to the servo, that is located near the CG. I am not quite sure, how I control the elevator. Attaching servos directly into the tail will bring a a lot of weight, that I need to trim out with "dead" weight in the nose. Maybe I just use CFK Tubes and place the servos to the CG, Like I do with the rudder.
Currently I am designing the cowling in CAD. I won't use the first version, like Bixler has one, with the cooling system in front of the pilot. I will go with the UK version, that has a bigger cowling...
I will also not use the original landing gear, as the old Ford-Motor-Air Campers use, but a piper style landing gear, that will dampen a little more than those fixed landing gears. As a lot Air Campers also use those kind of landing gears, that shouldn't be an issue
As soon, as I progress, I will post pictures about it.
Maybe you have some cool ideas for my elevator control?!
Ah, This plane is "only a test". If everything works out, and I am happy with how it flies, I will build one with 3.2m wingspan over the next winter. I like big gas powered planed, because its easier to full up fuel, than refill batteries at the field, if you fly a lot. The big one will get a 62ccm or 80ccm motor.
Thanks for reading,
Jens
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