I've been distracted from other projects by watching too many Terminator movies recently(AMC channel has been showing all of them lately).

This has now rekindled my desire to build an HK (hunter-killer). Plus I saw a video of some guy in Russia having done the two turbo fan design and I just had to do my own...except it'll be the 3 fan A8M Aerial HK heavy assault model version seen at the beginning of T3. The tiny HK-drone shares the same layout which was seen near the end of the movie which was designed and built by the US Airforce after having purchased Cyberdyne.

Here is link to the short thread with a couple vids of the Russian guy's version.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1739605

As a note...this thing will NOT be small. To get an idea of size...the turbo fan ductings will be made using Home Depot 5 gal buckets as a base and using motors spinning 11x7 3 blade props...basically a shrouded rotor design.
As a comparison, the largest ducted fan unit commercially available on the market is 127mm that Im aware of. A Homer bucket has an internal diameter of 280mm at the point where the 11x7 props will be situated.

A BVM edf system costs insane amounts of money for just 1 and is still only a 116mm diameter fan unit running 10-12s. Each fan system costs upwards of $1400. So thats not even an option at all. 3 of those would be a turbine motor. There's no way I'd try to build a vehicle as unconventional as an HK using that kind of setup with that much money.

So...this is what Im trying to replicate.

The power system for this is going to be 3 Rimfire .60 size 650kv motors on 6s. These will be mounted inside the Home Depot buckets obviously, but not at the top. The top of the buckets are a bit wider then an 11" prop, but not wide enough for a 12".

Each fan unit will be able to rotate some...forward/backwards.... for control movements...at least thats the plan. A flight control board will most likely have to be used for the motor esc's themselves in conjuction with radio mixes for the tilting of the fan housings. Additonal gyros may need to be employed on top of the fc board for that purpose.

The motors have been ordered and should be here at the end of the week.

Since this will be a rather large vehicle when done, I will need to figure out a way to make the thing tranportable.

Everything will have to be hand made, so its not going to get completed in just a couple weeks. However, I also have a small y-shaped aluminum frame to test out the fc board and tilt ducting ideas before installing them on the main project. So...I will make posts about the smaller test bed along the way as I scratch build the HK. The small one will be using 70mm edfs and will function basically the same...just no elaborate body.

I've started framing up a center "wing" section. Most of the center is kind of flat horizontally speaking, however, the top does have an airfoil shape I'll have to take into account.
My plan is to make it removable....basically like a standard plane.Except bolts through the top into the lower fuse. What covers the "wing" center and up to the nose will be made one huge removable hatch. However, I we will see when we get to that point.

I am expecting the batteries to sit up front under the "head" section...but this will be determined later when the CG is figured out.

I'll take pics of the "wing section" when its more complete.

I will have to add anhedral wing tips to this center section that have the fan units outboard of those. I havent decided yet if Im going to make those sections removable from the main center wing or not, but if so...thats more added weight to do so.

And with so much torsional weight at the wing tips(ie the ducts/fan rotors)....the more strength the better....so making the tips removable may not be a good idea.

I've started framing up a center "wing" section. Most of the center is kind of flat horizontally speaking, however, the top does have an airfoil shape I'll have to take into account.
My plan is to make it removable....basically like a standard plane.Except bolts through the top into the lower fuse. What covers the "wing" center and up to the nose will be made one huge removable hatch. However, I will see when we get to that point.

I am expecting the batteries to sit up front under the "head" section...but this will be determined later when the CG is figured out.

I'll take pics of the "wing section" when its more complete.

I will have to add anhedral wing tips to this center section that have the fan units outboard of those. I havent decided yet if Im going to make those sections removable from the main center wing or not, but if so...thats more added weight to do so.

And with so much torsional weight at the wing tips(ie the ducts/fan rotors)....the more strength the better....so making the tips removable may not be a good idea.

After thinking about the tranportability issue, Ive opted to make the "wing" as two separate pieces that bolt to the "fuse" and have aluminum tubes running thru the fuse into each wing pylon. So..instead of a 7 - 8 ft wing assembly to cart around as one unit, each side will be about 4 feet. This will make assembly at the flying location a lot easier to.

If anyone has seen some of the larger pattern ship type 3D planes, you'd get the idea of the separate wing pieces bolted to the fuse.

Since this vehicle is basically an oversized multirotor, I will be making updates to my progress there. Feel free to comment in that thread.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1766835