My Micro Pattern plane is far enough along to be worth posting a picture. The plane is designed to take advantage of the new ET-90 cell and Didel 4.5 ohm pager motor combination and the lighter planes that are now within reach.

Initially it will be only three channel, but later I hope to use a wing with ailerons I've already built.

More details and pictures can be found on my Micro Pattern page.

Gordon

Looks pretty cool Gordon. the foam beads do look big at that scale though dont they

Awesome! Makes me want to build a peanut "moonshiner".
The foam beads will never be seen once it's in the air.

Billy

what sort of thrust will you get from that powerplant? enough to knife-edge?

lovely plane.
i use the new et 90 which are really fabulous!
you give me the idea to make a "micro aerobatic slope glider" with ailerons at 15 gr !
thanks.
patrick.

I tried the fuselage with fine bead foam and it is substantially heavier, about a gram I think. I also tried hollowing the bead foam out in a honey-comb sort of fuselage and then skinning with 1/64 balsa, but that was even heavier still. So, I settled on the large bead foam for weight reasons. It's quick to build as all equipment will be on the outside. Still, the fuselage is more than twice as heavy as the CF tube and wing pylon on my Quick Junior. This one also has blue foam wings, which weigh 1g more.

Now I need to install equipment and the detachable landing gear.

Omar, thrust etc are on the web page for the plane.

Gordon

Gordon, you could build the fuse with a couple of formers and 2mm wall foam. I has a very smooth surface.

Michael

Why not go for ailerons straight up forget the rudder? Just need to remember to ALWAYS keep the speed up or you will loose control response.

But looks really good. If you do some searching you can find 1 or even 1/2 pound white foam with a tight cell pattern. Problem with it is that it doesn't take well to wire cutting. Causes it to bubble, and when your done you need to sand the hole thing heavily, but cuts real nice with a knife. The foam packaging guy that cuts all my stuff has soooo many differant types of foams to play with. But most of the really nice stuff is to heavy, and the light stuff just doesn't stay together well.

Looking forward to a flight report this is a very cool concept model, BTW I didnt intend to knock the appearance of your plane Gordon I think it very cool looking

One of the reasons I'm not going with ailerons right away is Dave Robelen's experience with ailerons on his P-Nut. He tried two wings with ailerons, and several wings with dihedral and no ailerons. He could not get the aileron wings to work well, and he's a master builder/designer. Keeping the speed up for an aileron only plane is not what I have in mind for an indoor plane. Ailerons if used will be for feeding in reverse aileron with hard rudder when doing flat turns, etc. I want it to fly slow, but be able to do some fun maneuvers. Think of this as an attempt to build a sort of micro T3D, except with lower wing loading. Last month I flew my Quick Junior with huge extensions on the control surfaces to test that, and it worked well. So, now on to this plane.

So for now it will be with non-aileron wings. Also, I want to try and keep performance close to that of my Quick Junior (15g). The aileron wing will go with full house control so I can try flat turns, etc. But, it will add at least 2.5g to the weight. Until I know if I can get the pager thrust above 14.5g it won't have the 0.9 thrust/weight ratio that the Quick Junior has.

I actually started a fuselage made from built up sheet foam (1mm wire cut blue foam sheet as wall foam is not available in the US), and found it was going to weigh more than this one. And, I wanted to make the fuselage a quick build or re-build after crashes. I made (or partially made) a total of five fuselages before finally deciding this was a reasonable alternative, especially while sorting the plane out. This will be my first low-wing plane, and it also has a lot of control surfaces. I'll probably crash it a lot, hence simple fuselage, equipment on the outside, etc. I'm keeping it simple. Actually, painting is what took the longest. Down the road I'll make a more scale looking plane with what I learn from this one, and sweat the finish details. This one is painted as I can't abide "natural" planes.

I'm learning about a plane like this as I go. First was the Quick Junior, then this plane, and finally something more scale looking (maybe).


Buzzsaw, no offense taken.

Anyway, it should be a fun plane, but won't be ready in time for tonight's indoor session.

Gordon

Wow, Gordon, Nice plane! Cant wait to hear when the little one flies!

Uttam