Hey everyone, here is a project ive been working on for a while now, it is at its first stages and i had the time to finally test fly this little 20" DLG glider today and i must say i caught thermals by luck and she lifted over 300 feet for an amazing 30 minute flight.
Wingspan is 22" using a 100Mah single cell lipo with 2x micro 1.7gram servos and micro receiver for spektrum. here are some pictures of the Opteryx, minor changes will be made to the final version e.g stronger angled wood for the trailing edge, better placed ailerons, might sweep wing a bit forward, but over all, i had an amazing maiden flight with this little gem.
All up weight is around 1.4oz or 40 grams.

changes mentioned above have been made and she flies great. here is a link of the Opteryx
http://www.skyhighhobby.com/opteryx-...rc-glider.html

Here is the video promised, i had to edit 20 minutes of thermal flying, so yes this little guy flew for over 30 minutes.

Opteryx Micro DLG HLG Balsa RC Gliding thermal bird plane (3 min 20 sec)

cool glider, looks laser cut so will it be a kit?

Yes, I must also know! Will the plans be offered, or a kit? It looks VERY nice!

Opteryx? A prehistoric wingless bird with hairy feathers? >chuckle<

prehistoric..yes, wingless...no
need to correct the first 3 ribs, 3mm off, draw up servo mount dimensions and more tail area perhaps using 1/16th instead of 1/8mm....video of this will be up soon....otherwise if i see interest in the kit, i can have them laser cut

Being newly bit by the dlg-bug this is very interesting.
Kit: yes. Plans: also yes

looks great. i would be interested in a kit or part kit for it.

Wow, how did I miss this one? Nice design, the fuselage has a very nice shape to it. Is there any significant tail wag during launch with the smaller vertical stabilizer?

Kit or plans would be great

Nick

Thanks guys, i have actually made minor modifications to the Opteryx, made nose a bit shorter as i found out from the original design my electronics were sitting further back rather then in the nose, so that is corrected, also few ribs were wrong size, that is corrected and its safe to say i flew ( thermal ) this little bird for over 10 minutes, she glides amazingly, also gained a few grams by making the nose shorter. You can launch her as hard as you want and nothing budges and great heights are achieved for a DLG this size.
my goal here was to design something that is not only light in weight and strong, but easy to build, i love building but sometimes with DLG gliders, there is so much stiffening and gluing involved, so this little bird uses almost no glue, only CA to join the wings and CA to join the nose parts. Will have new pictures and a video coming soon.

Very cool! If you decide to run some kits sign me up for one.

Mendo

Any news on plans/kits?

thanks for all the interest guys, once again ive been overwhelmed with the amounts of emails regarding the Opteryx Micro DLG, so i will start producing the laser cut kits next week once im back in town. Thanks so much, will have a video and new pics up soon.

ill take one, when is this going to be up for sale? thanks

bump

I've often thought that a micro Alula would be cool, this looks a lot like what I've been visuualizing.