Big INDELA DEADCALM uav drone

[Nexus21214]

Hi Guys,

I thought you may like to see my near 1 to 1 scale replica of a russian UAV by the company Indela.

Made completely from foam with carbon reinforments here and there. The fuz was contructed from a white foam backbone monocoque and then planked with 3mm yellow insulation foam. After much rubbing down and then painting with matt black household emusion and yet more rubbing down it was sprayed with car aerosol satin black acrylic. Length is 5ft 6inch and wingspan is 8.5 feet. I have fitted two 90mm fans powered by 2700 het 750watt motors and dual 60amp ESC I had lying around the workshop.

My initial test glides off a big hill indicated that at 30% of MAC it was severly nose heavy. The CofG is now at about 85% from the leading edge at the root.

It seems like the massive lifting tailplane and blended/wing/nose area were messing with my projected estimates for where the c of G should be. Wings are e205 section and sanded to shape with a power sander and finished by rubbing block and sandpaper..

IT has eight 2kg metal geared servos for primary controls and Flaps which are all massive.

I have calculated that the wing loading should be about 9oz per square foot so it should be a gentle flyer and not requiring the full 3lbs of thrust from each Ducted Fan. Lipos are 2 x 2700 3S All up weight ready to fly is just under 5lbs

Wings are covered in good old brown paper and PVA Total cost of the project has been about $250.00 (5000ma lipo and old tx for scale) 'wing tips not attached in pictures' I will probably fit some gyros although they may not be required. Flight videos coming soon.



All comments welcome

Best Regards
Nexus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH7_KspeXUQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ercgroups%2Ecom%2Fforums%2F showthread%2Ephp%3Ft%3D1062842&feature=player_embedded

[Rengine]

Nexus - that is WAY cool man! Please post some more build pics and details about your UAV when you get a chance...some of us might want to try something like that sometime. I can't tell from the photos - are you making it VTOL like the original?

Love the looks of that one - good luck on the flight testing - I'm subscribed :) :)

-- Mark

[Nexus21214]

Nexus - that is WAY cool man! Please post some more build pics and details about your UAV when you get a chance...some of us might want to try something like that sometime. I can't tell from the photos - are you making it VTOL like the original?

Love the looks of that one - good luck on the flight testing - I'm subscribed :) :)

-- Mark


Hi Mark

I have several Tricopter and a Hex copter and hope that I can get it to do the VTOL thing eventually More at the "yet another tricopter" forum.

lots of vids Tricopters and Hex copters on vimeo just search nexus21214

Best Regards
Nex

[Airboatflyingshp]

Nexus that s a brilliant piece of Russian inspired British make do and make it work modelling congratulations, it even looks like it would make an Amphibious version for flying over water. .... it also reminds me of .............. :o Thunderbird 2 ;) :cool: and these any connection? :D

[dag214]

Nexus that s a brilliant piece of Russian inspired British make do and make it work modelling congratulations, it even looks like it would make an Amphibious version for flying over water. .... it also reminds me of .............. :o Thunderbird 2 ;) :cool: and these any connection? :D
Holy crap, I have the entire Thunderbirds on DVD, my boy when he was 8 would say " thunderbirds are GO!" just before I would take off a plane.
Very cool.
And this UAV is very cool.

DAG

[Airboatflyingshp]

Hi Dag ......... if you like I can send you a tiny bit of info on the TB2 model as it appeared near to me on ~bay a few years back and a build link for the PSS. email me.

Financially and technically at the other end of the scale from you beasty but as you so well put it Nexus has produced something, very cool.

Hope it all continues well, how is the tail boom constructed Nexus? Are those Rudder horns I can see in the carpet shot?

[Nexus21214]

HI Air...

Yes they are rudders. Unfortunatly, a couple of weeks ago I had a very big crash with the indela and totalled the whole fron section to the wings. The problem was almost zero elevator response when the speed built up and the fans were screaming. I had been testing on a slope soaring hill but as it went down and down it finally would not pull out of the continuous shallow dive and impacted a road surface. If it had been another 1ft further I would have got away with it, I did look fantastic in the air and very mean. I will probably rebuild it shortly. In the meantime I have been testing another weird stealthy craft called a killer bee by northrup and almost have this sorted now. The crazy thing is that the c of g is only four inches in front of the prop. way further back that I would have imagined. This may have been true of the indela too with too much nose weight, but the c of g on that was at the rear of the wing root and it still would not pull up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7btkdrDNVWc

The KB is 10ft span and has a root section of 48 inches and KF aerofoil
big electric motor on the back that produces about the same thrust as the weight of the plane which is about 4.5 lbs. will pix and video soon. I now think I have got the cof g right as it appear to pull up far better now, but still a bit of twiddling to do.

regards nex

[Rengine]

Dang!
Sorry to hear of the Indela's untimely demise - that was stunningly beautiful and radically cool - hope you can get it flying. The Killer Bee looks awesome too - I like how the wing tips are part of the landing gear too....

best regards,
Mark

[Airboatflyingshp]

From your description you may have also experienced some aerodynamic effects as speed built up in the dive, killer bee is neat but it doesnt have the character of this beasty ..stick with it if you can face it. If you still get Cof G probs how about adding nose whisker/canards.