VTOL X-Wing Project

Tristanjprowse

Junior Member
G'day, I'm Tristan and I'm from Australia.

I'll begin by firstly stating that I've had basically no experience with multirotors or RC planes. But I've been watching FliteTest religiously for a couple of years now, and I've learned a hell of a lot. I'll also apologise for the crude, scrap-booky way I've set some of these images out; my house was burgled recently and without a computer, this was the easiest way to do it.

So I built this cardboard X-Wing model just for fun. But then I thought "why not try and make it fly?". Well, maybe because I've never even built a regular multirotor...

xvpw60H.jpg

So I figured ultimately it would great if the X-Wing could take off, fly around and land like a tricocpter, but also convert, mid-air, to forward flight. This was inspired by Peter's VTOL Chimera. However I was quite keen to maintain the shape of the X-Wing, avoid having booms sticking out at the front of the body and so I wondered if I could stick one prop on the nose and two trailing props on the wings.

QtbEwjw.jpg

A quick look on some forums and it didn't seem like a back-to-front tricocpter wouldn't work, just that it's uncommon and not ideal for photography. However I still wasn't confident about having yaw function performed by a tilt mechanism on the leading prop; especially if that leading prop was going to have to pivot in forward flight-conversion as well. So the solution became to enable both of the rear props to pivot both up-and-down and side-to-side. But that would obviously be quite overcomplicated.

So currently my theory for making this VTOL X-Wing RC Plane is to have a single leading prop attached to the nose of the plane, which pivots to thrust either downward or backward. To achieve this i'm thinking a very similar type of mount used for the Chimera.

CSGGlMO.jpg

UqN2XHL.jpg

Then I would attach a trailing prop to each of the wings which would also pivot to thrust either downward or backward. But I also theorise that this pivoting motion of the rear props, between downward and backward might be able to be coordinated into giving the tricocpter some yaw function.

UzEKh8U.jpg

So a couple of issues even I can see are that firstly, the thing weighs 1.8lbs already and it's just a cardboard model. So once I add electronics, motors and a battery it'll really be starting to pack it on. The second issue is probably the most obvious; an X-Wing is just un-aerodynamic. Probably not such an issue for tricocptering, but to be able to fly forward in any sort of stable way, I suspect I'll have to do something to fix that. I mean the wings themselves almost have an aerofoil shape but they pretty much cancel each other out being mirror images of each other. But p'haps if I could make them more aerofoily then they might work. Additionally, they angle downward slightly, so if I could make them generate lift, they might help to angle the nose of the thing upward.

Another possible solution to the un-aerodynamic problem I thought of would be instead of rotating the front motor completely 90 degrees down, to face backward, what if I only rotated it say 60 degrees down; so that it would face mostly backward but still a little downward, so as to thrust the nose of the plane both forward and upward.

Finally, if any of this actually works and I can at least make this thing fly like a tricocpter, I'd be remiss not to try and pop some FPV into that cockpit, but that'll be a cherry on top once I get the thing in the air.

So do you guys see any other issues? Maybe some glaringly obvious ones I wouldn't've seen? Do you have any recommendations on what kind of power I'll need to lift an eventually over 2lbs X-Wing into the air?
Do you think it'll even work?

Any advice is greatly appreciated, cheers guys :)
 

Crash and Burn RC

Geeterduuun
Hey man,
Firstly I'me sorry to hear that your house was burgled. Bad stuff happens.
Second, that X-wing looks great! What is the wingspan? The reverse tricopter idea is a good one, but I would keep it at that. At 1.8lbs, an x-wing would not have enough lift, a too much weight to sustain forward flight. This is all unless your wingspan or motor(s) is large enough to compensate for it. The downward 60degree motor turn is a very good idea, that will definetly work.
Colin
 

Tristanjprowse

Junior Member
Cheers for your thoughts dude!

The wingspan's about 76cm, which I only discovered was about 20cm longer than the ship itself when I got round to measuring it all. Oh well, that shouldn't be a problem.

But yeah, I think I'll go with ur advice and ditch the forward-flight element; it'd be cool but too much needs to be done to even make it possible.

Still, do you think a reverse tricocpter would work with a rigid prop at the front, and two sideways-tilting ones at the back? I don't even know for instance if a normal tricocpter's rear prop, when it tilts, has to compensate with thrust so that the rear of the vehicle doesn't fall out of the sky... So I don't know if having two tilting rear props would fall out of the sky any easier... but maybe compensation's not even needed.

What du reckon? :p
 

Crash and Burn RC

Geeterduuun
Cheers for your thoughts dude!

The wingspan's about 76cm, which I only discovered was about 20cm longer than the ship itself when I got round to measuring it all. Oh well, that shouldn't be a problem.

But yeah, I think I'll go with ur advice and ditch the forward-flight element; it'd be cool but too much needs to be done to even make it possible.

Still, do you think a reverse tricocpter would work with a rigid prop at the front, and two sideways-tilting ones at the back? I don't even know for instance if a normal tricocpter's rear prop, when it tilts, has to compensate with thrust so that the rear of the vehicle doesn't fall out of the sky... So I don't know if having two tilting rear props would fall out of the sky any easier... but maybe compensation's not even needed.

What du reckon? :p

Hey,
I think the reverse tricopter idea would work awesome! Programing a Flight control board for it would not be easy, but it could be done. I belive I saw a tricopter like you descrbe on time in a youtube video. If I find it then I will share it.

On another note, you might need some large motors to lift that thing. Hopefully someone else will comment with motor reccomend ations. I honestly have no idea what would be correct.


Edit:
Here is the video I was mentioning. It is awesome!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhdiYrAltRM




Colin
 
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ErikR

Junior Member
Hi All,

The reversed tricopter will work for sure!
If you have enough thrust, you can fly it like a tricopter without rotating your motors!

I've made a X-wing from foamboard.
Total weight with electronics prox 1.5 kg
3 motors 1000 KV on 3S lipo, props 9 x 5. max thrust prox. 2.5 kg
The control board is an old KK-board I used on my first tricopter (in a galaxy far away and years ago ..:) )
The tricopter is both reversed and inverted.
To hide the rear motors I've enlarged te guns on the wings a bit.

It flies verry well!
For video I stayed close and hovered, but it flies like a tricopter.

video:


Good luck building your X-wing.
You might consider the strength of the wings. Motors on the wing tip will challenge "the force"
Erik
 
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