Throwing An Idea Out There
- Thread starter still_frosty
- Start date
BubbleHead
New member
Was hoping you were out closer to the Mesa Chandler area. We fly out that way.
Rick
Rick
still_frosty
Randy
Hi Guys.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the well wishes and offers to talk about things. I had to work out things in my head, in my own way. Anyway, I decided to get back to the hummingbird plane to get my mind off things and to stay busy. The original design didn't fare too well.
After numerous glide tests and attempts at fine tuning the balance/Cog, it pretty much gave up the ghost. The "profile" concept was just too flimsy. I added so many toothpicks, popsicle sticks and bbq skewers to try and strengthen things and straighten things out that it was more of a disaster looking thing than a hummingbird looking thing.
I decided to rethink the whole thing. I re-watched a bunch of Flitetest videos of builds and flights and decided to try coming up with something that actually has a body, so it could have internal/structural support and have keys and slots to line things up.
After studying the different builds and looks of the Flitetest designs, I decided that the Spitfire wing looked a lot like the original design submitted by RC, and it has an actual airfoil and is much sturdier! I printed out plans for a 75% Spitfire wing and the size looked about right, so I went ahead and built it.
Next, I went back to RC's original body plan and scaled it up to 110%. Once again the size looked about right so I printed it out and proceeded to start cutting foam board. I did away with the slots for the wing section and just carried the lines over to come up with a general body shape. I cut out 2 body sections that I could use to build a "hollow" body. Then I figured out where I could add some internal bracing and support and figured out where to cut slots for the bracing/supports/spacers to key into and keep both halves of the body aligned.
Now came the tough part. Trying to figure out where the wing should be located in the body. I dry fitted the body and all together and balanced the wing on top and backed up and looked, studied and moved the wing around until it "looked" Right.
Then I did something that may be totally wrong, but I decided where I wanted the "tail feathers" positioned. cut slots in the body halves to insert it and then carried the line for the tail forward so the bottom of the wing would be in line with the tail.
I'm not sure if that's the right way to go, but I kind of figured that in the original design the wing and tail were in line with each other, so I kept with that idea.
This time around I'm going to change from a prop and slot idea to a front mounted motor. I have 2 reasons for this. First, I won't have to worry about routing wiring under the prop slot to get to the rear servo/s, and second, I can have a motor mount and bracing in the nose to add strength.
I'm going to have a detachable "beak" that I will attach with magnets or Velcro for show, but can remove it when flying.
The beak was one of the weakest parts of the original design and even after running bbq skewers along its length to strengthen it, it just caused the head to bend and crease instead of the beak bending and breaking.
Heres where I ask for some advice. Being that there will be no vertical stabilizer/rudder, is it reasonable thinking to assume that the belly section being extended so far below the wing will have some sort of "balance" and "stabilization" to keep the plane upright? Would ailerons and elevator be enough to give reasonable control? Would elevons be a more practical? Should I give up on the whole idea and stick to standard, proven designs?
Whatever becomes of this idea, I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of meeting some great people, learning some new building techniques and exercising my brain.
Thanks Everyone,
Randy
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the well wishes and offers to talk about things. I had to work out things in my head, in my own way. Anyway, I decided to get back to the hummingbird plane to get my mind off things and to stay busy. The original design didn't fare too well.
After numerous glide tests and attempts at fine tuning the balance/Cog, it pretty much gave up the ghost. The "profile" concept was just too flimsy. I added so many toothpicks, popsicle sticks and bbq skewers to try and strengthen things and straighten things out that it was more of a disaster looking thing than a hummingbird looking thing.
I decided to rethink the whole thing. I re-watched a bunch of Flitetest videos of builds and flights and decided to try coming up with something that actually has a body, so it could have internal/structural support and have keys and slots to line things up.
After studying the different builds and looks of the Flitetest designs, I decided that the Spitfire wing looked a lot like the original design submitted by RC, and it has an actual airfoil and is much sturdier! I printed out plans for a 75% Spitfire wing and the size looked about right, so I went ahead and built it.
Next, I went back to RC's original body plan and scaled it up to 110%. Once again the size looked about right so I printed it out and proceeded to start cutting foam board. I did away with the slots for the wing section and just carried the lines over to come up with a general body shape. I cut out 2 body sections that I could use to build a "hollow" body. Then I figured out where I could add some internal bracing and support and figured out where to cut slots for the bracing/supports/spacers to key into and keep both halves of the body aligned.
Now came the tough part. Trying to figure out where the wing should be located in the body. I dry fitted the body and all together and balanced the wing on top and backed up and looked, studied and moved the wing around until it "looked" Right.
Then I did something that may be totally wrong, but I decided where I wanted the "tail feathers" positioned. cut slots in the body halves to insert it and then carried the line for the tail forward so the bottom of the wing would be in line with the tail.
I'm not sure if that's the right way to go, but I kind of figured that in the original design the wing and tail were in line with each other, so I kept with that idea.
This time around I'm going to change from a prop and slot idea to a front mounted motor. I have 2 reasons for this. First, I won't have to worry about routing wiring under the prop slot to get to the rear servo/s, and second, I can have a motor mount and bracing in the nose to add strength.
I'm going to have a detachable "beak" that I will attach with magnets or Velcro for show, but can remove it when flying.
The beak was one of the weakest parts of the original design and even after running bbq skewers along its length to strengthen it, it just caused the head to bend and crease instead of the beak bending and breaking.
Heres where I ask for some advice. Being that there will be no vertical stabilizer/rudder, is it reasonable thinking to assume that the belly section being extended so far below the wing will have some sort of "balance" and "stabilization" to keep the plane upright? Would ailerons and elevator be enough to give reasonable control? Would elevons be a more practical? Should I give up on the whole idea and stick to standard, proven designs?
Whatever becomes of this idea, I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of meeting some great people, learning some new building techniques and exercising my brain.
Thanks Everyone,
Randy
Attachments
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
These tend to fly nicely without a vertical stabilizer. I meant to link you these when you started but you said you needed a break so I will now toss another log onto your fire and let you mull over converting your humming bird to an ornithopter version. 
That link will have many more versions to check out on the sidebar. That should motivate you. At the very least it should keep you amused for a bit of a distraction as well as give an example of something without a vertical stabilizer.
Oh and there are these which I believe are still on the market if you click the link in the description.
That link will have many more versions to check out on the sidebar. That should motivate you. At the very least it should keep you amused for a bit of a distraction as well as give an example of something without a vertical stabilizer.
Oh and there are these which I believe are still on the market if you click the link in the description.
Last edited:
rcspaceflight
creator of virtual planes
Flying wings don't have rudder or any real vertical stabs. Just sayin'.
still_frosty
Randy
Progress Report: Hummingbird Plane V2
Hi Guys,
I got all the electronics mounted, wired and have it glued together. I must say, gluing the top and bottom sections in was no easy task. Getting the foam board to bend to all the curves of the head area was a challenge! I managed to figure out that peeling the paper off the inside surfaces, and then "rolling" the foam to help start it in the direction I wanted it to bend did the trick.
Applying glue, sliding the parts into place, and holding it where it would form to the curves as the glue cooled tested my resolve to no end! First, my glue gun appears to leave a lot to be desired as far as achieving delicate applications. Second, the tip opening is too large, and its difficult to get fine beads of glue. Lastly, even though its a dual temperature glue gun, the low temperature setting doesn't allow enough glue for longer glue runs, and it sets up way too quickly to try and slide pieces for proper alignment. I won't go into detail about how difficult the "trigger" is to pull and how that causes difficulty guiding the tip on the low temp setting.
The high temp setting seems to make the glue bubble/boil when applied, which causes the glue to squish out and requires a lot of scraping which causes a lot of glue "smears" in most of the joints.
In cases like this, I'm sure experience helps a lot in getting acceptable results, and that's something I've yet to gain.
I tried very hard to keep things lined up and square while gluing things together and I thought I did a fairly decent job, that is, until I decided to take some photos from various angles to share here. Upon viewing the photos I noticed that the tail seems to be a little off. The motor seems to be off center. The left and right body sections appear to be ever so slightly put of line.
Looking back on the mock up, the glide tests, and the adjustments I had to make, it would have very smart of me to put "reference marks" on all the "slots and "keys" to assure proper placement and alignment as I was gluing parts together. A very valuable lesson learned.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. Aside from the sloppy gluing and smear marks, I think the plane (I call it a plane) looks fairly decent.
It glides pretty well. The CoG is right about in line with the wing spar. The Hextronic 24 gram, 1700 kv motor seems to pull really well with 20 amp ESC, and a EP-7060 prop powered by a 800 mah 3 cell. When I say it seems to pull pretty well, I mean when I'm holding it. It feels like it wants to jump out of my hand at around 1/2 to 3/4 throttle. I can feel it wanting to nose up and nose down when I move the elevator, so I believe the prop wash is giving plenty of air flow over the elevator. (Is that an acceptable description?)
Now I'm torn between going ahead and adding some color and detail to make it look something like a hummingbird, or waiting until I can find an experienced pilot to try and maiden it for me first. I personally haven't flown since early spring and I have VERY limited time on my AXN flying with ailerons. I was just getting the hang of flying RET, and I know I wouldn't stand a chance of any success with this bird.
I know its just a concept and that it may never actually fly, but then again it may fly well enough to give promise to the concept. If it fails miserably as a flier I'll have a bunch of parts for simpler builds. If it flies with enough promise to inspire further development, then I will have learned a lot along the journey, and will have gained some valuable building/gluing experience.
I'm attaching some photos to share with those of you that have been following along, and as always, comments, suggestions, advice and bits of wisdom are always greatly appreciated!!!!
Thank You Kindly,
Randy
Hi Guys,
I got all the electronics mounted, wired and have it glued together. I must say, gluing the top and bottom sections in was no easy task. Getting the foam board to bend to all the curves of the head area was a challenge! I managed to figure out that peeling the paper off the inside surfaces, and then "rolling" the foam to help start it in the direction I wanted it to bend did the trick.
Applying glue, sliding the parts into place, and holding it where it would form to the curves as the glue cooled tested my resolve to no end! First, my glue gun appears to leave a lot to be desired as far as achieving delicate applications. Second, the tip opening is too large, and its difficult to get fine beads of glue. Lastly, even though its a dual temperature glue gun, the low temperature setting doesn't allow enough glue for longer glue runs, and it sets up way too quickly to try and slide pieces for proper alignment. I won't go into detail about how difficult the "trigger" is to pull and how that causes difficulty guiding the tip on the low temp setting.
The high temp setting seems to make the glue bubble/boil when applied, which causes the glue to squish out and requires a lot of scraping which causes a lot of glue "smears" in most of the joints.
In cases like this, I'm sure experience helps a lot in getting acceptable results, and that's something I've yet to gain.
I tried very hard to keep things lined up and square while gluing things together and I thought I did a fairly decent job, that is, until I decided to take some photos from various angles to share here. Upon viewing the photos I noticed that the tail seems to be a little off. The motor seems to be off center. The left and right body sections appear to be ever so slightly put of line.
Looking back on the mock up, the glide tests, and the adjustments I had to make, it would have very smart of me to put "reference marks" on all the "slots and "keys" to assure proper placement and alignment as I was gluing parts together. A very valuable lesson learned.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. Aside from the sloppy gluing and smear marks, I think the plane (I call it a plane) looks fairly decent.
It glides pretty well. The CoG is right about in line with the wing spar. The Hextronic 24 gram, 1700 kv motor seems to pull really well with 20 amp ESC, and a EP-7060 prop powered by a 800 mah 3 cell. When I say it seems to pull pretty well, I mean when I'm holding it. It feels like it wants to jump out of my hand at around 1/2 to 3/4 throttle. I can feel it wanting to nose up and nose down when I move the elevator, so I believe the prop wash is giving plenty of air flow over the elevator. (Is that an acceptable description?)
Now I'm torn between going ahead and adding some color and detail to make it look something like a hummingbird, or waiting until I can find an experienced pilot to try and maiden it for me first. I personally haven't flown since early spring and I have VERY limited time on my AXN flying with ailerons. I was just getting the hang of flying RET, and I know I wouldn't stand a chance of any success with this bird.
I know its just a concept and that it may never actually fly, but then again it may fly well enough to give promise to the concept. If it fails miserably as a flier I'll have a bunch of parts for simpler builds. If it flies with enough promise to inspire further development, then I will have learned a lot along the journey, and will have gained some valuable building/gluing experience.
I'm attaching some photos to share with those of you that have been following along, and as always, comments, suggestions, advice and bits of wisdom are always greatly appreciated!!!!
Thank You Kindly,
Randy
Attachments
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
So far you have managed to do an excellent job. Design and prototyping is not an easy task to say the least. Your progress on the project as well as the knowledge gained and passed on in this thread is great. Build skill comes with practice just like anything else we do so I would not worry over perfect just yet.
As far as the maiden goes and needing a seasoned pilot that would be nice but it is not a necessity as having someone else do the maiden you lose on having that experience success or fail. If it comes down to you doing the maiden I would suggest setting higher then normal expos on all surfaces you can always bang the sticks to get movement but its hard to take back a massive input. Also maybe set up dual rates of 50-60% so you have a little more finesse on take offs and landings.
Any direction you take it there will be good that comes from it. Hopefully it has a successful flight and you can get that incredible feeling of accomplishment after all the work you have been thru.
As far as the maiden goes and needing a seasoned pilot that would be nice but it is not a necessity as having someone else do the maiden you lose on having that experience success or fail. If it comes down to you doing the maiden I would suggest setting higher then normal expos on all surfaces you can always bang the sticks to get movement but its hard to take back a massive input. Also maybe set up dual rates of 50-60% so you have a little more finesse on take offs and landings.
Any direction you take it there will be good that comes from it. Hopefully it has a successful flight and you can get that incredible feeling of accomplishment after all the work you have been thru.
rcspaceflight
creator of virtual planes
That looks way too good.
Keep up the excellent work!
Keep up the excellent work!
still_frosty
Randy
Thanks Guys,
Your support and encouragement have helped me stick with it. I couldn't have made it this far without you!
Randy
Your support and encouragement have helped me stick with it. I couldn't have made it this far without you!
Randy
