Crazy idea? X-ufo to Osprey-style conversion

[Unyon]

Hi all,
I follow your builds in this forum with interest. In fact, VTOLs is why I bought the x-ufo (knockoff) in the first place.

After posting a question about turning a broken x-ufo into a plane in an x-ufo forum (its still flying right now, but who knows for how long!) I thought I'd throw this out to you guys...

Remove the gyro (which will prolly be the first part to break), and the front and rear motors. Add a tail, get her balanced, and see if its controllable in a hover.

Then I'd think about wether to go the osprey route and add worm drives to tilt the props and make a suitable fuselage... or go for the simpler method of vectored thrust with vanes under the rotors, or even a vertial tail prop to tilt it forward and back.

Do you guys use gyros to keep your engines in sync, or are you just very good at correcting roll? :p
I can imagine its going to be a learning experience without gyro help.

I might be a crazy idea, but judging from what I've seen other people make from browsing RcGroups, it seems the crazy ideas bear some very interesting and flyable fruit!

Any input appreciated :)

[v22chap]

I don't see why it can't work .. like you say ,,stranger things have been seen flying :D
I can fly mine without gyro's ,,but it sure helps to have them to keep the engines in syn . ;)

I would think that with the airplane prop setup of the ufo you could do what Vtolman did with his unit and he all but gives you the plans for it on his article in this forum.

Good luck and keep us posted with pix and welcome to the VTOL world ;) :D :cool:
Larry

[Osprey WannaB]

I agree With Larry,
I don't see why it can't work... if I've seen other crazy stuff flying in these forums then why not ur Converted X-ufo :D
Gud Luck,
Jamie

[Tuner]

This can be done!

[Unyon]

I'm currently sourcing a good priced silverlit x-ufo for gyro modding... soon as i get one, vtol conversion of my knockoff will commence... :D
I might even start a build thread on it.

[Tuner]

Think H or I shape for the carbon rods instead of the x shape. This is probably something I dont have to mention and you can still use the EPP body of the XUFO.
What I would do however is cut out a circle of foam and mount it paralell to the thrust line that way when you rotate the motors 90 degress the hole from the props gets covered up and increases your wing area.

Or you could do it like my project where it is a tilt wing.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=436841&page=2

I will give you a teaser of my desing no one has seen this before and posting this basicly locks me out of International patatents but I hate not being able to share my ideas so againts my attoreny's advice check this out. Its called the mandala3D

I wont be posting this anywhere else nor explaining it or answering questions. I just though a fellow VTOL frankenstien people would love it.

[Unyon]

Very neat idea Tuner! The Mandala3D will look awsome flying with those colorful 'wings'! (dont worry, I wont copy it, its your baby... but thanks for sharing the idea!)

I have been pondering the setup and number of the props I'll use, and one idea I had was to have fixed wings with a fixed motor mounted 'in' the end of each wing about an inch from the wingtips. I'm currently working on a small test 'foamie' to see if the props will interfere with the lift of the wings. In fact, my x-twin clone motors are TOO powerful for the weight of my testbed right now... gonna have to add some resistors to stop it shooting off my desk!

Maybe a third motor for forward motion (as in my testbed), or vectored thrust vanes under the wing motors. So many design ideas to play with!

Ultimately stability and budget will direct my efforts (failures?). Its all fun though.

I picked up some huge sheets of 3 and 6mm depron yesterday... plenty of material to waste with tests :D

I'll post pics as things look more promising.

[v22chap]

Tuner ,,,very unique design ... I too love the colorful wings of the design .. good luck on building this ,,,who ever does ;) :D
Larry

[Tuner]

hear is a quick and dirty Photoshop of how I would modify an X-UFO it takes some imagination. Just think of a butterfly valve of a carberator. the same thing can be used to create a large wing surface when the engines rotate 90 degrees.

Scott