Scratch build TailSpin Sea Duck

[nevenelestate]

Last night I managed to get the belly of the nose done and also made larger vert tail surfaces and linked the rudders together. I need to "find" 2 more servos for the elevator and rudders.

Debating tearing apart the Versa wing built but haven't flown yet. I built is as a blunt nose but only used 5g servos, so I would like to swap them out for 9g and then use those 5g servos for the SD. Just not sure if I can do it without destroying the wings.

 

[nevenelestate]

Rudder and Elevator servos/pushrods

Finally got around to rigging the elevator and rudders. I guess the next step is some test flights before I do the wing pylons for water, plan on some belly landing flights before I even try to waterproof it. I will likely rebuild the fuselage to tweak it a little too.

I originally planned to put the elevator servo in the fuselage and run the push rod straight back to the surface. Well when I went to do that tonight I realized that would be the only servo that I would need to unplug to disconnect the wing. Instead I decided to mount the servo in the right boom so that the only electronics not attached to the wing is the battery.

Due to the fuselage needing to be water tight, I decided to make a slightly large hole in the top to install the battery. I cut a door hinged on the forward end that goes to the access hole in the top. Because of the position it is both held down by the wing, and held up by the stick for the rubber bands. This allows me to get access a little further forward to distribute the weight for CG. I also installed a small tray with velcro to hold the battery.

Battery access door closed, wing on.

Access door open, showing stick and battery tray.

The rudder servo was installed into the left boom and then I also added some structures along the pushrod to prevent bowing. I wanted to get the servos as far forward as possible for CG, so the push rod is rather long. a few pieces of coffee stirrer on small pieces of foam board made good supports.

I did a similar setup for the elevator servo and push rod, with the supports.

I am rather pleased with how this project is turning out.

 

[nevenelestate]

She flies!

Need to clip some other video I took, but here a quick flight from my cell phone camera.

 

[BridgeInspector]

She flies!

That is Awesome! Great Job!

 

[nevenelestate]

Better videos.

I did the first test flight with the 3 blade props, however whether due to the pitch or more likely the cheap props from Banggood.com it wasn't flying great.

Fortunately I planned ahead and brought some 6x4.5 props along, this was the first flight with them.

 

[AdamBomb42x]

Awesome!

 

[nevenelestate]

Today it was more like...



It was 16F outside, luckily that kept the snow so cold that the foam board didn't get wet at all.

 

[AkimboGlueGuns]

Well dang. That's one mighty fine looking sea bird! Now my Drake II has a buddy.

 

[BanditJacksRC]

haha! nice build man it looks great!

 

[Balu]

Now this get's my official approval Well done.

 

[nevenelestate]

Thanks again everyone, all the positive feedback definitely helps motivate me to keep working on this project.

Next step will be building the wing pylon/floats. As you can see in the videos it definitely needs the the leveling on the ground,and eventually water.

I also plan to rebuild the fuselage with some minor tweaks, I do plan to put the plans on here once I get everything tweaked and am satisfied with them. Hopefully early spring, might release them before I actually do any water flights. I won't do water flights until I can put the kayak in the water...just in case.

 

[nevenelestate]

Wing pylons w/ skis

Since there is snow on the ground I made some skiis while waiting for spring....

I made them so that the ski pivots on the pylon.

 

[Lorenzo]

The Mini Guinea has leveled up to its max.

 

[nevenelestate]

Here are a few pictures of the ski mounting system I came up with.

The snow was just soft enough that the skis were catching a bit and inducing a fair bit of twisting. This caused the foam board to fold out on one side. To fix this I've fitted a rubber and around it to help hold it together.

 

[nevenelestate]

Tuesday night I cut and glued a MG inspired fuselage, with the tail cut short, and attached it to the Sea Duck wing. Used a Spruce Goose inspired nose too. It flew pretty well, it was a little windy, but it actually rode the wind rather well.

Video from "belly" mounted camera, also made one other modification to the fuselage....

 

[ClearSkiesCalmWinds]

Will you be doing plans for Spruce Goose fus mod. I'd like to try it.

 

[nevenelestate]

We are getting snow today so I'm working from home, which means extra time to play with the Sea Duck. After gluing together the first fuselage I saw some areas of improvement, mainly along the bottom for the V-haul. Started work on second revision of the fuselage.

Most of the pieces cut out and ready to glue. The aft wall will need to be cut down once I get it on there and they I still need to cut the two pieces for the underside of the nose.

Bow all taped up

This shows the step, paid more attention on this one to the bottom and got a cleaner fit.

When the wing is off, there is a flap that opens up to allow the battery to be installed (like the first version) and then when the flap is lowered it sits flush and the wing holds it down.

 

[Lorenzo]

It just gets better and better.

 

[nevenelestate]

TapeBrothers.com box arrived today, coloring has begun!

 

[ClearSkiesCalmWinds]

What type of tape do you buy from Tape Brothers? There's so many.