Yesterday I built what might be described as a poor man's vectored thrust unit. Today I attached it to my Toucan Kite with mixed results. Perhaps I should have waited for better wind conditions. Winds 9mph gusting to 23. I was surprised at how little turning authority I had considering the range of thrust motion available.

My first Attempt at Designing a vector thrust Radio Control kite (2 min 34 sec)

Nice work!
Too bad the wind wind was against you.

Originally Posted by Joel K. Scholz

Yeasterday I built what might be described as a poor man's vectored thrust unit. Today I attached it to my Toucan Kite with mixed results. Perhaps I should have waited for better wind conditions. Winds 9mph gusting to 23. I was surprised at how little turning authority I had considering the range of thrust motion available.
http://www.vimeo.com/20663303

Joel, I'm just getting started with the whole VT thing myself, but I think you might get more turning authority if your VT unit ( or at least the gimbal/motor ) is out in front of your yaw axis/pitch axis ( CG? ) more. That way the thrust is pulling the NOSE left or right/up or down. My first yaw/pitch VT unit only has about 25- 30 degrees of motion, and it turns my 7 foot delta just fine.

RC thrust vector kite (1 min 55 sec)

P.S. I'm jealous that you're wearing shorts this time of year!

wow Joel, you sure do nice work! I had that turning problem my 1st flights. Got much better when I moved the CG forward but still needs more improvement. My 5 meter kite has about the same maneuverability as Balsa Carbon's in the video in the post above.

Hi Joel,

From my point of view, Your bird (nice kite!) needs another wing-strengthening structure:
2 dehidral carbon tube-rods (at Your bird's wingspan: 6mm diameter) instead of gf-rods (too weak, too heavy), and tensioning battens across the 2 main rods (3mm carbon, massive), at the last third of a winghalf.

This helps to avoid wrinkles within the wing, and twisting during flight, as well as what I call 'counter steering moments', what means:

When You are sure that You have steered to the right, the bird follows for short, and then - due to the unwanted flexibility and twisting of the 1-rod-wing construction- the bird makes unwanted moves in other directions.

When a single-liner birdkite is hanging at it's string, this does'nt matter - wing fluttering looks nice then, and the string stabilizes.

For effective RC-purpose, a stiffer wing of vectorized single-liner bird-kites is a must.

The photo shows the improvements I made at my Eagle (similar constructed single-liner kite like Yours), with the result of much more flight stability (see the videos).

www.crazyplanes.de/eaglemini1.wmv
www.crazyplanes.de/eaglemini2.wmv

flattermann

I tried all morning to fly the vectored Toucan. I modified it last night as per Flattermans suggestions. The kite wouuld climb, begin turning and when corrected would start side to side oscillations until it dove to the ground. I thought it might be the wing tensioning line putting downwash in the wingtips. I even reverted to the original configuration with no discernable changes in the results. I finally gave up, went out to the shed and found a 2001 circa 3 D Patriotic Eagle. I attached the thruster, slid a 2500 3S in the belly and tried flying it. Success. I went to get my Wife to get some video, but she turned off the video just as I was flying. The winds increased to about 15 and I decided to wait until the wind drops to try again.

I am waiting for the video to be complete of the first flight of my vectored thrust Eagle Kite. It still needs some tweaking, but at least it flies. It is my first experience flying a vectored thrust kite. It is a bit hard to get used to the slow reaction times of this kite and how best to manage throttle and vector imputs. The Eagle was flown with a Dualsky speed 400 outrunner and a 2500 3s lipoly, with an 8x6 APC Slowfly prop. I plan on putting on a 9x5 for the next fights. The Kite Itself has been sitting in a store room for around 7 years, so the wrinkles are pretty pressed in. This is the Go Fly version of that design. It is actually pretty amazing that this little motor will fly an 8 1/2 foot span kite. I am pleased with how my vectored thrust system is holding up as I must have Jammed the Toucan a dozen times today. I was getting pretty frustrated today tinkering with the Toucan. I am still not convinced that vectoring is an improvement on moveable surfaces.It is different than normal RC with planes with moveable surfaces. It would seem that wing warping would give you more control. I am trying to figure out the easiest way to do this. Vectoring does have the advantage in that it will fly an existing airframe with little modification.

First Flight of Vectored Eagle Kite (3 min 20 sec)

Hi Joel,

'....would start side to side oscillations until it dove to the ground...'

I attach 2 photos - I guess, Your wings are missing 'stabilizers' where rods are crossing, to avoid warp of the wings. I also can not recognize kind of 'angle of incedence' (tail-lift for example).

Here are 2 videos with eagles having stabilizations as named:

www.crazyplanes.de/eaglemini1.wmv
www.crazyplanes.de/eaglevectorkite.wmv

If You would try a 1000mA Lipo (instead the 2200), You could save a lot of weight, and Your bird would perform better. Saving weight is the most important factor, when converting kites to Vector Kites.

'.....I am still not convinced that vectoring is an improvement on moveable surfaces....'

Vectoring as a new concept. Vectoring allows, to bring flying objects of many kind easyly without control surfaces into the air (as kites are, but not only kites).

Give it some more tries, Joel, especially with Deltas/Deltaboxes, Boxes, Canards, Monowings (single, double, triple), X-Wings...

There is a lot more to discover, and, to experience ...

flattermann

Originally Posted by flattermann

'.....I am still not convinced that vectoring is an improvement on moveable surfaces....'

Vectoring as a new concept allows, to bring flying objects of many kind easyly without control surfaces into the air (as kites are, but not only kites).

Besides, "improvement" does not necessarily mean the same thing for different types of aircraft. Take helicopters for example. It is not an "improvement" over airplanes since it is much less efficient at flying than planes. But of course it can do things a fixed wing aircraft can't (or couldn't, I swear these days 3D foamies look like they can do it all and then some).

For me it's mostly about the fun of trying something new. I don't think we've fully explored what thrust vectoring can do at such light wing loading. And it's not just thrust vectoring. I'm sure people will come up with clever ways to do control surfaces with kites. Since it's fabric we don't even need hinges, at least not in the traditional sense. And we haven't tried twin motors yet. We haven't tried to see how big a kite we can fly or how small. There are so many directions to take this. It's new, it's fun, it's something we don't fully understand yet (which makes it more fun and/or frustrating). It's not necessarily "better" but I think that's all right.

I do not know much about it, but Premier had a kite called the Easy Cruiser that had twin motors.



Dave

easy cruiser kite rc (1 min 11 sec)

Video looks good , Joel !

Hi Joel,
don`t give up, your progress looks very good !!!
think, you will become a very famous vector-kiter in the states !!!

flying field arround the house, wow !!!


give your birds (and all your vector-kites) an big 'angle of incedence' and they will fly!

...therefore the keel must have a curve, so the kite never makes the "diver" (=put the nose down)

....that is maybe the main reason why a canard is a very good vector-flyer.


take a look at flattermanns eagle-picture:

they lift the tail of his bird up by using an alu-tube.
premiers eagle has this too.

vector kite the rest of your life !!!

watch your progress from germany !

Hello, I finally decide to built my own vectorkite. It`´s see very interesting , I want to built a 8.5" delta box whitout the top of the box like Flatterman design, what size you can recommend me to build the triangle motor structure?
Thank you to share your work, this make me possible to dream with this proyect

Delta Box as Vector Kite .... size 8.5", sure?

260 cm 102inches I supose, sorry the mistake