XJet Outlaw250

[DutchTerror]

The weather outside is still frightful, so I'll keep on cutting foam. This is a smashup of Bruce's design, some other variation parts I've found online, and my own modifications to his Outlaw250 plane. Trying to stick to the premise of a sub-250g plane that can carry a simple FPV setup, I pulled out the Dollar Tree foam board and sharp pointy things and got to cutting and gluing. I mostly used Gorilla Clear, but there were some pieces that were Gorilla hot glued.

Wingspan is 600mm with a KFm-2 foil added to about the 50% of chord mark. I cut this from a single sheet, then folded it back on itself. Mocked up the battery tray, seemed fine, so final glued that together and into place on the bottom of the wing. Fuselage was also mocked up and glued together.

After a night of glue drying, I set to attaching the vertical stabilizers and horizontal stab/elevator. Glued in a 3D printed motor mount, and attached a 2205-2300Kv motor and a 20A ESC. Tacked in a cheap FS-iA6 receiver as well. The line on the wing is one of the embedded antennas.

More time to cure, and a preliminary weight check. With a 1000Mah 3S battery in the nose, and the other gear piled on for a weigh in. I'm still missing pushrods, but the weight is getting up there.

Add in the little FPV camera, and we're overweight already. Think I'll swap out for an 1806 motor and a 15A ESC. That should save me over 25g and give a little more wiggle room. Anyway, more progress to come...

 

[Michael9865]

Looks good.

 

[mayan]

That looks sweet . Did you maiden?

 

[FoamyDM]

That's coming along!
65% of the weight of Foam Board is the paper. A way to lightening this plane is to remove some paper where you don't need the strength.
Maybe the inner pod isn't all needed.

 

[DutchTerror]

That looks sweet . Did you maiden?

No, and not yet done with construction. Weather has been crud, and the long range doesn't look much better.

 

[mayan]

No, and not yet done with construction. Weather has been crud, and the long range doesn't look much better.

That's sad to hear. Hope it clears up fast. We too are going to get some rain over the weekend .

 

[DutchTerror]

That's coming along!
65% of the weight of Foam Board is the paper. A way to lightening this plane is to remove some paper where you don't need the strength.
Maybe the inner pod isn't all needed.

I had considered that too. Want to see where an 1806 and the lighter ESC gets me, but that's definitely an option inside of the surface between the KF foil and the wing as well. I could probably remove a bunch more and just cover it with light packing tape. That still comes out lighter than the paper too, right?

 

[FoamyDM]

D

I had considered that too. Want to see where an 1806 and the lighter ESC gets me, but that's definitely an option inside of the surface between the KF foil and the wing as well. I could probably remove a bunch more and just cover it with light packing tape. That still comes out lighter than the paper too, right?

Dunno, never checked... I imagine so.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

I had considered that too. Want to see where an 1806 and the lighter ESC gets me, but that's definitely an option inside of the surface between the KF foil and the wing as well. I could probably remove a bunch more and just cover it with light packing tape. That still comes out lighter than the paper too, right?

You could also lighten it up by doing one servo for the ailerons instead of two, if those are 5g servos then that is 5 less grams, plus the FPV geat is a single unit which makes it easy to remove for weight savings, if you get stopped for any reason

 

[DutchTerror]

You could also lighten it up by doing one servo for the ailerons instead of two, if those are 5g servos then that is 5 less grams

Thought about that too, trying to figure out how to make a linkage to properly feed to both while still clearing the prop.

 

[DutchTerror]

Pretty much wrapped up the build, but it could still use some waterproofing or belly tape at least. Unfortunately, I still don't have a bunch of weight to work with, but with a 3S 1000 battery and the FPV camera, it's at 249g. This camera isn't the lightest at 9g. There are other AIO cameras that are half that weight, but no case body for protection.

Another build and I could shave since more weight. I have a simpler motor mount, could tweak a bit to use one aileron servo, and could strip a bunch of paper off as well.