Twin engined Bixler 2

SanderHG

Member
I had some spare parts left over, so I decided to make my Bixler 2 into a twin engined plane. It's a quick and dirty build, but I just wanted to see how it would fly and maybe I'll do it again a bit nicer but with a new bixler. To stop the wings from flapping about at high speed or breaking off all together I reinforced the wing with 2 extra 6mm carbon spars, 1 about 4 cm in front of the original spar at the bottom of the wing, and 1 in the middle of those two at the top of the wing and glued the wings in place. This makes a triangle shape (when looking at a cross section of the wing) which gives it its strength. Now you can pick up the whole plane by grabbing one wing at the end of the spars (about 2/3 along the span of the wing) without it bending at all. Afterwards I wrapped the wing in thin packing tape to give them a smooth surface.

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I also strengthened the tail by adding two 4mm carbon rods along the length of it, at either side. Together with the original spar running along the bottom of the tail, this eliminates all bending without adding much weight. I also put a 5mm (I think it was 5mm, don't remember really :p) spar in the horizontal stabilizer and 2 3mm ones in either side of the vertical stabilizer. I also used some foam to strenghten the area where the horizontal stabilizer is glued to the tail.

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I then made 2 simple motor mounts out of a strip of 1mm thick aluminum, which is glued to the wing at the top and bottom and also bolted with 2 m3 bolts, going through the wing. The speedcontroller is glued to it as well. The wires go through the wing into the fuselage. I also removed the old engine mount and made it look nice where it used to be.

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The setup I used:
2x Turnigy D2826-6 2200kv motors with 6x4 prop
2x Turnigy plush 40A speedcontrollers
1 or 2 2200mah 3s batteries (it can run on either a single battery or 2 in parallel)

The end result is an extremely tough bixler (without any wing flexing etc) with more thrust than weight. With 1 battery it is 1.1 kgs, and with 2 it's 1.3. It can now climb unlimited vertical with about 3/4 throttle (with 2 batteries, haven't flown it with just 1 yet).

Here's a video of the first flight. Next time I'll bring a friend with a camera :p. Don't mind the AA battery taped to the plane, that's a last minute CG adjustment :p. After flying 20 minutes, it still had 3.6v per cell left.

(it's supposed to be 1 video, but youtube takes forever to put them together with the editor, so here are the 2 separate ones)


 
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SanderHG

Member
Thanks :) It is, although I have not set the mixes yet. Just the one that slaves an aux channel to the throttle channel. I'm giong to play with that next flight.
 

SanderHG

Member
What is where the original motor was? Just space for receiver and stuff?
Yes, nothing there when you remove the original mount. Just empty space underneath. You end up with a hole in the top when you cut off the engine mount, so I used some depron foam to close it again and rounded everything off in a decent shape.
 

marc60

New member
I see location; Germany, but I hear you saying "camera loopt" :)
Nederlander in Duitsland?
Groet Marc