Techno
Sunny Day Park Flyer
"Pontoon Plank" (Inspired by the Snowball)
Inspired by Flitetest's Snowball (Thanks)
As some of us know, earlier today, flitetest's snowball episode came out. Like many I have been aching to fly since last year. I had also seen some other people's ways of coping with the blizzards this year.
My way was to build a pontoon plank. Basically it was a spinoff of the snowball. My yard has a ridiculous amount of trees, making it impossible to fly. But I wanted to scratch build something like the snowball, it was clever. I have a bunch of parts lying around, so I threw together the pontoon plank in between meals.
It's a ground version of the snowball. It has a cardboard plank as the main bit, and uses the edges, not as dihedral, but as rudders. I mostly threw this together but I'll try to describe what I did:
First, I cut out all the parts, I had a piece of a tri-fold from a school project, but anyone could just use a box. I cut 3 inch sides and a 7 inch center portion because I'm using a 7.5 inch prop. I then scored hinges on the vertical panels, which I hot-glued into place, to create roughly squares. Then I installed the servo, glued to a stabilizing piece of pink foam, on a center line, also in line with the hinges. I cut out a "servo horn" out of a piece of basswood about 1 inch by 3 inch, and cut holes in that for the servo and control rods. I then bent some coat hangars and put them on some holes I cut on the sides of the square and a pair of servo horns (made out of a gift card) on the centers of the rudders. I then cut a center fin, glued it into a piece of foam which fit the improvised servo horn and glued that onto the servo horn, leaving room for the control rods. Then I made the motor mount by cutting a piece of pink foam and angling it so the propeller would be angled slightly up. I glued a piece of basswood onto that and glued it centered on the front edge of the plank. I improvised some pontoons/floats on the bottom, you could probably do a better job with what your gut tells you. I again, used scrap electronics which were available to me at the time, and I'll only post their specs after I know it works so I won't mess anyone up.
Either way, Here is the finished product:
Top Down View:
"Pontoons"
*Covered with plastic wrap
Version 2 Upgrades:
Servo "Horn"
Finished Assembly and Linkage Setup:
Inspired by Flitetest's Snowball (Thanks)
As some of us know, earlier today, flitetest's snowball episode came out. Like many I have been aching to fly since last year. I had also seen some other people's ways of coping with the blizzards this year.
My way was to build a pontoon plank. Basically it was a spinoff of the snowball. My yard has a ridiculous amount of trees, making it impossible to fly. But I wanted to scratch build something like the snowball, it was clever. I have a bunch of parts lying around, so I threw together the pontoon plank in between meals.
It's a ground version of the snowball. It has a cardboard plank as the main bit, and uses the edges, not as dihedral, but as rudders. I mostly threw this together but I'll try to describe what I did:
First, I cut out all the parts, I had a piece of a tri-fold from a school project, but anyone could just use a box. I cut 3 inch sides and a 7 inch center portion because I'm using a 7.5 inch prop. I then scored hinges on the vertical panels, which I hot-glued into place, to create roughly squares. Then I installed the servo, glued to a stabilizing piece of pink foam, on a center line, also in line with the hinges. I cut out a "servo horn" out of a piece of basswood about 1 inch by 3 inch, and cut holes in that for the servo and control rods. I then bent some coat hangars and put them on some holes I cut on the sides of the square and a pair of servo horns (made out of a gift card) on the centers of the rudders. I then cut a center fin, glued it into a piece of foam which fit the improvised servo horn and glued that onto the servo horn, leaving room for the control rods. Then I made the motor mount by cutting a piece of pink foam and angling it so the propeller would be angled slightly up. I glued a piece of basswood onto that and glued it centered on the front edge of the plank. I improvised some pontoons/floats on the bottom, you could probably do a better job with what your gut tells you. I again, used scrap electronics which were available to me at the time, and I'll only post their specs after I know it works so I won't mess anyone up.
Either way, Here is the finished product:
Top Down View:
"Pontoons"
*Covered with plastic wrap
Version 2 Upgrades:
Servo "Horn"
Finished Assembly and Linkage Setup:
Last edited:
