I've been working on this in parallel with my voodoo, Some shots of the two pieces with carbon in the wings, and the assembled wing/fuse. Wingspan is 39" and length 25". Will fit a grayson parkjet, unfortunately this weight will require a bit of nose weight plus a 2100 3S pack, AUW shoudl be around 14 oz, with around 275 sq inches of area, this motor will make this plane really move. Airframe weight is 4 oz, if I were to run a small 1oz C20 I could run a 1320 pack and get it down around 9oz.

For the nose/prop I used a spare prop/spinner from a cox micro warbird, cut down the prop and mounted on a 1/8" carbon rod.


Frank

Here's the painted finished product.

Frank

She looks great Frank!

Nice job Frank. You'll love how the 163 flies. I've built three of them and they all flew well. It's just a natural planform for good flight.

J

Now, I'll have to agree I got out and maidened early this morning, final painted model needed a bit more nose weight for CG, she was still a bit tail heavy, nothing I couldn't fly around, no drastic stalls or anything, just very very pitch sensitive, I landed and reduced throws a bit so I could get some more testing done, in all, very very nice. It glides very well, landings are a piece of cake. Loops are rediculously tight, rolls were a bit slow due to my reduced throws, slow flight is very very slow, as it gets too nose up and very slow, it it looses roll response slowly, just wants to mush, a bit of power and no problem. I did my normal test to go vertical, and chop the throttle, once it starts to fall back, it did three very very fast pivots around the CG, I almost through it wasn't going to stop, so I gave a bit of throttle, it recovered inverted, and I was fine. It looks great in the air, and flies great fast and slow with just the flat plate wing. Inverted was nearly hands off.
Interesting, I treated it like a delta with a little up elevator on launch, but it actually needed neutral to slightly down trim.

I will add a bit more nose weight so that I can reduce the pitch sensitivity and be able to increase throws a bit more for roll rate. Flies very nicely down low, fast or slow. Even at my new CG weight of 17 oz, on that grayson motor, it just putters around at about 1/4 throttle and 1/2 throttle is fairly quick.

Frank

Originally Posted by J Morgan

Nice job Frank. You'll love how the 163 flies. I've built three of them and they all flew well. It's just a natural planform for good flight.

J

Got some video this morning, a little more nose weight and it flies like a champ, especially nice inverted.

Here's the video link.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...75&postcount=1

Nice work, Frank.
Comet's one of my favorites as well.

Jasta

Thanks! Only issue, I saw a bit of wing flutter in a couple of high power, high speed loop pullouts, the wing is pretty stiff, but is thin, so I may just need to watch the speed with this one.

Frank

Originally Posted by Jasta_66

Nice work, Frank.
Comet's one of my favorites as well.

Jasta

Plans are posted now in the pusher jets plans thread.

Thanks a ton for posting the plans. This is next on my list. Im planning on using a 2409-18 turning a 9x6. I have one of the little grayson screamers but i burned up CC ESC and 2000mah battery so I'm a little gun shy.

Mud, what was the prop you were running with the grayson, I've heard of a few having some issues, but normally if you stick with 6x4 or smaller you are ok, that's what I'm running on the 10 or so I have and don't have any problems with the 30 amp controllers and 1320's or 2100's I use them with.

Just curious.

Frank

Originally Posted by MudMarine

Thanks a ton for posting the plans. This is next on my list. Im planning on using a 2409-18 turning a 9x6. I have one of the little grayson screamers but i burned up CC ESC and 2000mah battery so I'm a little gun shy.

Hi,
Just wondering: Where did the CG end up??
Regards

Thomas Pedersen
Denmark

Nice! I did a small 20" version a while back that I never could get to fly to my liking. Sounds like yours did great.

May have to try it again!

Thanks, I'm running my CG at about 9.75" back from the nose, without the dummy spinner attached, if you go to page 12 of the pusher parkjet plans link, you can print out the plans and see it marked also.

Frank

Just an update, since I've been starting to do rocket power, I decided to move my pusher motor to the nose, and put a rocket pod in the rear. In doing so I was able to remove a lot of nose weight that was just balast for the rear mounted motor. Now with the same grayson parkjet, I'm at 12.5 oz rtf with a 1320 pack, instead of 17 with a 2100 pack, and with the E-6 rocket motor mounted and a separate ignition 3s battery adjusting for CG, the AUW with electric AND rocket is 16 oz. This should be an even better performer now. Will do handlaunch electric and airstart rocket. Hopefully this weekend some video. Theoretically, I could also put in my pusher purple peril pod into the rocket tube and have a pusher puller for the same 16 oz auw.


Frank