RBARPDIYC2018: flying Red Bull Formula 1 race car!

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Im really excited for the Red Bull air race competition, and so Im trying something very creative and unusual: Im trying to make a Red Bull Formula 1 race car fly!

Heres the concept:
I want to power it by the F-pack and place the motor right in the top air scoop.
control surfaces would be elevons on the rear wing, the front spoiler and steerable front wheels. I want to use the front spoiler as a canard and programm two or three flight modes: Flight mode 1: airplane mode, rear wing straight, front spoiler slightly down; Flight mode 2: car mode, front spoiler and rear wing up for maximum downforce, so that I can drive fast without taking off; Flight mode 3: take-off, front spoiler all the way down to get the nose off the ground.
The hardest parts would be the the steering, which I want to build out of common materials, and to get the CG right.

There are no similar models out there, and I have no idea if it flies at all, but theres only one way to find out...

 

[robobob]

It's a cool concept, and I'd love to see it work, but perhaps I could make a couple of suggestions: Maybe you ought to look into EDF power for the build? That way you could create intakes for the EDF from the two side pods, and route the thrust out of the back. Granted it would make the thing a little more pricey, but it would keep the looks much more clean, and avoid having to make space for a prop.
My other question is simply, how do you intend on getting enough lifting surface out of the car? Maybe take a look at some lifting body concepts, or consider extending wings?
Best of luck for the project though, it's a really unique idea.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

For the first question: about 3 years ago, I thought about a flying F1 car with an EDF and also designed a very cool thrust vectoring, but the design was just on paper. I have a 50mm EDF laying around, but it would be simply too heavy, because it needs a 3s 2200, and it would need to sit all the way in the back, and cg calculations have shown that the cg is very much forward, so Ill probably even have to put the motor very ugly and exposed in the front. For your secont question: F1 cars have so many aerodynamical surfaces to create downforce, that when you invert them, you would get lots of lift. Also, the part of the body with the air intakes will produce much lift, just like on prop-in-slot-jets, and I also want to make the entire car a little wider for more lift.
I hope I could answer your questions.
Ill start building tomorrow.

 

[DamoRC]

Its a really cool idea - and I agree with robobob, if you can do it as an EDF, that would be more cool.

Looking forward to seeing progress!

DamoRC

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Here are CG calculations from cg calc: one with the nose boom and one without.

as you can see, the CG is very much forward, and I would have to place the battery all the way in the front to get it balanced. The cg calculator calculates the nose section as a piece of the wing. Thats why I made two calculations. But we can say that the cg is right on the intakes. I think that we could get the cg right without adding weight.

 

[robobob]

Well, if you reckon you can make the downforce surfaces work for lift generation in reverse... go for it! can't wait to see this car fly.

 

[Ketchup]

This is a very interesting idea and I can’t wait to see it fly!

 

[foamtest]

This is a really cool project and I hope it gets off the ground! (Ya like what I did there)

About the steering issue, you could go about it in one of three ways.

#1
Design a steering mech for the front wheels. This would be the best for aesthetics and for cool factor but won’t work well at high speeds. It will work amazingly well at low speeds however.

#2 make a rudder. Depending on the specific design of your car this could be an option. It will only work well at higher speeds or when there is a lot of throttle applied to it.

#3
Differential thrust. This would give you the best performance overall but it would throw aesthetics out the window for the most part.


My recommendation is to either go with differential thrust or a combination of #1&2, I would choose differential myself but that choice is up to you.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Im defenetly going with #1, this was planned right from the beginning, but it wont be that hard to just put a pushrod to the fin there the rudder would be placed best. I cant do differential because theres only one motor, but for those who have the money, the best option would be two small EDFs in the side air intakes, but thats no option for me. But I can tell you that I designed a simple steering mecanism that is build entirely out of common materials!

 

[rockyboy]

Love it

There are some links and discussion in this thread on doing a front wheel steering on a flying car that might help too

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?393053-General-Lee-flying-car

And just for inspiration and giggles, a humble flying Trabant

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

I choose the RB6 as the design I wanted to base my model of. It has a huge fin for stability and it was the only one where good plans were available. So I printed out a 3-view and tried to find a scale. Im multiplying every lenth on the paper by five, which equals in a massive model: It has a"wingspan" of 50cm and a crazy length of 132.5cm! Thats huge, so big that the front and rear spoilers alone have a wing area greater than many mighty minis. Together with other lifting surfaces and the body, it should produce more than enouth lift. The entire design is finished in my head and Im currently cutting out the ground plate.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

The bottom plate is done:

The plate is made out of two parts, one would not fit on one sheet of foam. Its 90cm long and 40cm wide. The front is on the right. The shape is a little weired, but its absolutetly scale exept for the diffusor, because this cteates downforce. The nose will make a banana-shaped curve above the front section. The cutouts on the rear are for the wheels.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Frontspoiler cut out:

Transmitter for scale. There are also the sideplates and thers a single bevel in the spoiler part. Tomorrow Ill start with the body.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

I just glued together the front spoiler and cut out the side parts for the nose:

When placed on the ground plate, you can see how its going to look like in the end. UMX Aero Commander for scale, you can see how gigantic its going to be.

 

[foamtest]

This is going to be huge, I can’t wait to see how you do the steering.

 

[Grifflyer]

That is going to be a big car/plane thing, So far it looks really good!

 

[mrjdstewart]

nice. love the flying car stuff!

 

[DamoRC]

Shape looks really good so far!

DamoRC

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Update!
I have not much time to build this because Im going into full scale soaring. But I made the top and bottom plate for the nose section , and it looks very good so far.

And I made a flying F1 Car in Simple Planes. If you dont know what Simple Planes is, its a game where you can create you own airplanes in a designer and Thema try them out in a flight simulation and fly around and do missions. After some trying, I was able to bring it in the air. The simulation doesnt calculate lifting body, but it was very helpful to get an Idea of how the thing would look like in the air and where to place the control surfaces. Im going to use the front spoiler/canard as the main elevator and the rear wing as flaperons. That way I can invert it to swap between lift and downforce.
Here are some screenshots:

Tomorrow, I can work in the plane, but the next two Werks im on full scale glider camp, so no progress for the time.

 

[Dr. Looping Looie]

Simple Planes also tells ist that the CG is right in the intaktes:

I also made some rear wing parts and some for the body.