Timmy
Legendary member
After crashing my original Lutra, I realized that it wasn't a glider anymore, it had deviated from its original purpose: To be something I can just let float in the sky.
After taking inspiration from proven gliders I came up with this:
My goal for most of my own designs these days is to not have to print out plans. So I had the plans for a real glider on my laptop which I referenced while drawing up plans directly on the foam.
Wings:
The wings were surprisingly simple to design and build. In previous Lutra I had a high lift but also high drag, thick airfoil. I did some research and found out that most gliders have (relatively) low lift and low drag airfoils built for efficiency, basically just a thinner airfoil. I still wanted to keep the round leading edge and sharp trailing edge I had on Lutra 1.0. For a thinner airfoil ribs weren't required to keep the round shape like I had before.
Now that I have flown this wing I want to improve the wing tips as they were quite fragile. I did add ailerons but didn't put servos on them, next time ailerons would help to keep this stable in windy conditions. The wing is quite strong though especially with that wooden spar. Even after landing it vertically on the wing tip all I got was a crease where the wood spar connected with the foam one.
Fuselage:
From the beginning I knew I wanted a sleek sexy nose, not just some box. It was pretty hard to get the curves to fit and it took multiple versions of each skin to get it right.
This black foam isn't the best either.
I'm really happy with the face of this plane though. It doesn't look 'sexy' per say but its still pretty sleek.
The canopy was the hardest to get right. And as usual I did the very tip of the nose with sanded pink foam.
Here's also where the tail servos are:
There's actually a surprising amount of space on the inside of this thing.
To improve on the fuse, I'd like to make the nose wider so i can fit in a power pod and give her a motor. I can still improve on the fit of the skins as well. It needs overall polishing.
Flying:
This thing glides great! It does stall a bit weird and I dunno what to do about that but other than that I like it! I can't wait to get a motor in it!
After taking inspiration from proven gliders I came up with this:
My goal for most of my own designs these days is to not have to print out plans. So I had the plans for a real glider on my laptop which I referenced while drawing up plans directly on the foam.
Wings:
The wings were surprisingly simple to design and build. In previous Lutra I had a high lift but also high drag, thick airfoil. I did some research and found out that most gliders have (relatively) low lift and low drag airfoils built for efficiency, basically just a thinner airfoil. I still wanted to keep the round leading edge and sharp trailing edge I had on Lutra 1.0. For a thinner airfoil ribs weren't required to keep the round shape like I had before.
Now that I have flown this wing I want to improve the wing tips as they were quite fragile. I did add ailerons but didn't put servos on them, next time ailerons would help to keep this stable in windy conditions. The wing is quite strong though especially with that wooden spar. Even after landing it vertically on the wing tip all I got was a crease where the wood spar connected with the foam one.
Fuselage:
From the beginning I knew I wanted a sleek sexy nose, not just some box. It was pretty hard to get the curves to fit and it took multiple versions of each skin to get it right.
This black foam isn't the best either.
I'm really happy with the face of this plane though. It doesn't look 'sexy' per say but its still pretty sleek.
The canopy was the hardest to get right. And as usual I did the very tip of the nose with sanded pink foam.
Here's also where the tail servos are:
There's actually a surprising amount of space on the inside of this thing.
To improve on the fuse, I'd like to make the nose wider so i can fit in a power pod and give her a motor. I can still improve on the fit of the skins as well. It needs overall polishing.
Flying:
This thing glides great! It does stall a bit weird and I dunno what to do about that but other than that I like it! I can't wait to get a motor in it!
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