Air-headed Aviator
Member
Greetings Flite Test community! To encourage more building and more use of the forums by me, I'm gonna start posting on here daily of my next build, logging the steps and development.
What I am dreaming up this time is a vicious approach to the favorite question - SPEED
What is planned is a twin engine park flyer sized sport plane with a semi-conventional tail. Most twins that are popular are slow, or cruisers, or cargo planes, or, just plain tiny!
I want a BIG ("big") twin engine where extra motors are for the sake of POWER (tho I understand that the advantage of multiple motors for electric aircraft aren't the same as on full scale types with petrol, I just think they're cool!)
Current planned plane dimensions are that of a 48" wing span, 38" inches in length. Two motors, as swappables, to encourage testing on like C-pack equivalents, then pushing it on mightier motors, like the NTM Propdrive 35-36
(if you recall this is the famous HUUUUUGE motor from Viewer Requested Speed Challenge. Obviously I would need two but recently the motor has been updated, so I might need to own 3?? this one pictured I had for a whiiiiiiile)
As far as speed goals I'm shooting for sustainable 90+ on 4 cell. If I hit it easy, great! If I exceed it even better, but if I'm short than it doesn't seem to inescapable to attain.
My progress so far has me planning out the layout and working on the wings. You can see two things here, one is that I intend for the motors to be ahead of the nose of the fuse and preeeetttty close to each other; about an inch clearance for 10 inch props. The design would probably push balancing for a 2200 battery, but wanted to do it like this to really squeeze together the weight in close. Just cause its a twin doesn't mean it can't roll like a top
nothing particularly crazy about the wings, in fact I'm trying to keep it very simple with their construction. The most crazy thing about it is the monster chord of 12 inches at the root, and the raked wingtips, where the wing sweeps back. This should work like a winglet in giving me more effective aspect ratio but I keep the wing relatively short (about the size of a cruizer while the plane is the weight of a guinea )
The true fancy thing I'm doing is setting up the wing to hold the motors on pylons. You may know of him, but Ramy RC did something with a build a while ago that gave the idea. using some large paint sticks, the pods for the motors will exist relatively far away from the wing, leaving much of it free past the pod. Aerodynamically I suspect that will simply improve the efficiency of the wing, less drag with the corners of the pod touching the flat of the wing.
the sticks will, uh stick 8 inches ahead of the wing LE, allowing for my 6 inch long pods to be nicely held away. I have little concern that twist will be an issue, but we'll see. Other than that I'm cheating with using the sturdy yard sticks from Lowe's as a ready cut spar, and the two parts of the a wing half will be married to each other through glue, tape, and paper.
I'm excited for this build! I've been wanting to do a twin for a long time, and if I'm diligent, I should be able to get it done before school starts in August. Lets see where this will take us!
DAY 2
Okay so second day of work, and not much done admittedly. I did do something! I intend to work on this bird daily, between the gaps of time! but for now its really just more brain storming. Today's efforts explored what I'd like to do for the ailerons. I looked at some of my favorite fast twins for some inspiration, like the Me-410, while keeping in mind the kind of things i wanted the aircraft to do different.
the Ailerons I wanted to begin within the prop arc, taking advantage of some of that propwash, but I avoided drawing them to the tips of the wing. Since the planform tapers sharply to the tips a stall begin aggressively there. Although I loose some authority with the ailerons closer in, They will at least maintain control longer in stalls, plus any wing flex will likely be resisted more with them at this position.
the other thing I'm considering is adding a barbecue stick within the aileron to keep it super stiff, since it is being built to approach 90.
Other than that I drew in the prospective positions for the wing servos.
with that, thats all my progress today! Nothing really exciting but, what cha gonna do?
DAY 3
The days progress! Despite having all day to do things, I was a bit sick so couldn't do much.... but regardless progress progress trudges on!
Today, more progress on the wing is done - I decided to mate the wing halves and then the half halves together.
The halves are halves because the large chords wouldn't fit on one board as a single connected sheet (though ironically both can be cut on one board as separate). To Fuse them together a bit of paper was set to be glued to the section that was the top fold. It was first attached with tape, then of course glued afterwards.
the two true halves had a bit of separation, but that was easily fixed. and thus, they were glued.
After that I dug out the reliefs for the servos, whom I planned to have embedded in the wings. Here I shall talk about a peculiar thing that I'm trying with this build. On the inside, I'm lining the bottom of the wing with poster board. The wing is being built to sustain 90+; on other builds that would involve carbon fiber or metal spars; I, I'm using just wood.... so any other basic strengthening, like this heavy card stock, should help loads.
After these additions I glued in the Yard Stick, which is my spar, and called it a night. It's gonna be piece mail work the next coming days, but I'm determined to do a little something every time!
What I am dreaming up this time is a vicious approach to the favorite question - SPEED
What is planned is a twin engine park flyer sized sport plane with a semi-conventional tail. Most twins that are popular are slow, or cruisers, or cargo planes, or, just plain tiny!
I want a BIG ("big") twin engine where extra motors are for the sake of POWER (tho I understand that the advantage of multiple motors for electric aircraft aren't the same as on full scale types with petrol, I just think they're cool!)
Current planned plane dimensions are that of a 48" wing span, 38" inches in length. Two motors, as swappables, to encourage testing on like C-pack equivalents, then pushing it on mightier motors, like the NTM Propdrive 35-36
(if you recall this is the famous HUUUUUGE motor from Viewer Requested Speed Challenge. Obviously I would need two but recently the motor has been updated, so I might need to own 3?? this one pictured I had for a whiiiiiiile)
As far as speed goals I'm shooting for sustainable 90+ on 4 cell. If I hit it easy, great! If I exceed it even better, but if I'm short than it doesn't seem to inescapable to attain.
My progress so far has me planning out the layout and working on the wings. You can see two things here, one is that I intend for the motors to be ahead of the nose of the fuse and preeeetttty close to each other; about an inch clearance for 10 inch props. The design would probably push balancing for a 2200 battery, but wanted to do it like this to really squeeze together the weight in close. Just cause its a twin doesn't mean it can't roll like a top
nothing particularly crazy about the wings, in fact I'm trying to keep it very simple with their construction. The most crazy thing about it is the monster chord of 12 inches at the root, and the raked wingtips, where the wing sweeps back. This should work like a winglet in giving me more effective aspect ratio but I keep the wing relatively short (about the size of a cruizer while the plane is the weight of a guinea )
The true fancy thing I'm doing is setting up the wing to hold the motors on pylons. You may know of him, but Ramy RC did something with a build a while ago that gave the idea. using some large paint sticks, the pods for the motors will exist relatively far away from the wing, leaving much of it free past the pod. Aerodynamically I suspect that will simply improve the efficiency of the wing, less drag with the corners of the pod touching the flat of the wing.
the sticks will, uh stick 8 inches ahead of the wing LE, allowing for my 6 inch long pods to be nicely held away. I have little concern that twist will be an issue, but we'll see. Other than that I'm cheating with using the sturdy yard sticks from Lowe's as a ready cut spar, and the two parts of the a wing half will be married to each other through glue, tape, and paper.
I'm excited for this build! I've been wanting to do a twin for a long time, and if I'm diligent, I should be able to get it done before school starts in August. Lets see where this will take us!
DAY 2
Okay so second day of work, and not much done admittedly. I did do something! I intend to work on this bird daily, between the gaps of time! but for now its really just more brain storming. Today's efforts explored what I'd like to do for the ailerons. I looked at some of my favorite fast twins for some inspiration, like the Me-410, while keeping in mind the kind of things i wanted the aircraft to do different.
the Ailerons I wanted to begin within the prop arc, taking advantage of some of that propwash, but I avoided drawing them to the tips of the wing. Since the planform tapers sharply to the tips a stall begin aggressively there. Although I loose some authority with the ailerons closer in, They will at least maintain control longer in stalls, plus any wing flex will likely be resisted more with them at this position.
the other thing I'm considering is adding a barbecue stick within the aileron to keep it super stiff, since it is being built to approach 90.
Other than that I drew in the prospective positions for the wing servos.
with that, thats all my progress today! Nothing really exciting but, what cha gonna do?
DAY 3
The days progress! Despite having all day to do things, I was a bit sick so couldn't do much.... but regardless progress progress trudges on!
Today, more progress on the wing is done - I decided to mate the wing halves and then the half halves together.
The halves are halves because the large chords wouldn't fit on one board as a single connected sheet (though ironically both can be cut on one board as separate). To Fuse them together a bit of paper was set to be glued to the section that was the top fold. It was first attached with tape, then of course glued afterwards.
the two true halves had a bit of separation, but that was easily fixed. and thus, they were glued.
After that I dug out the reliefs for the servos, whom I planned to have embedded in the wings. Here I shall talk about a peculiar thing that I'm trying with this build. On the inside, I'm lining the bottom of the wing with poster board. The wing is being built to sustain 90+; on other builds that would involve carbon fiber or metal spars; I, I'm using just wood.... so any other basic strengthening, like this heavy card stock, should help loads.
After these additions I glued in the Yard Stick, which is my spar, and called it a night. It's gonna be piece mail work the next coming days, but I'm determined to do a little something every time!
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