Lee .... a great video of your project ..... very impressed with the flying abilities ....

Not sure if this qualifies for your thread but here's a video of my FLYPARTY EPP Eagle ...... I built a kit earlier this year and I have to say I've had a lot of fun with it ....

RC Eagle at the club Field 20th June 2008 (10 min 7 sec)

here's the original thread .....

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=701120

If there is a bird thread out there I want a link to it here. I'll start moving them all in to post #3 as soon as we get a few listed.

Thanks for all of the postings and links.


Lee


.

Viking

Are you the designer of the Soarbird? I saw the thread months ago and am glad to link it in our thread. It's a great thread doing the unusual. Thanks.

What did you learn about rudders and yaw?

Lee

Here is another Peregrine video of the same plane. Actually this is the first flight video but I had some problems with the download and a goober on the lens so I almost didn't post it.

Click on the star next to the Vimeo to get a full screen movie. Hit esc to return to normal screen mode.

Enjoy

EPP Peregrine Prototype 11-08 (3 min 26 sec)

Wow Lee. That looks great. I really like it.

Lee:
I may have missed it, but what is the wingspan and fuse length?
Thanks....arniep

Originally Posted by Lee

My son and I cut a lot of foam and have cut hundreds of wings. Wings are easy to cut but when you get compound tapers with angles and feathers and try to make it look like a certain bird and then try to hinge the ailerons it gets pretty complex.

The wing and tail is solid 1.3# EPP and the fuse is a solid block of 1.9# EPP. I'm taking my speed gun to see how fast she flies today.

Lee

Originally Posted by arniep

Lee:
I may have missed it, but what is the wingspan and fuse length?
Thanks....arniep

The fuse is 12" long 2.5" tall x 3" tall solid 1.9 lb EPP. I wanted it to be able to take a beating and keep on flying. The fuse only is under the wing. It does not go under the tail. The fuse is glued to the wing to get rid of ugly rubber bands and wing bolts and to make it really hard to get back in to the radio compartment without my heatgun to soften the glue.

Wing span is 49" with a chord of 9" at the root cut from 1.3 lb solid EPP.

The tail is 1.9 lb EPP 7" deep and 9" wide. This is part of the plane under testing to see if an inverted tail will give stable aerobatic flight.

Lee

Lee,

Are you just showing this because it is cool, or is this going to be something we can get our hands on as well?

J

Originally Posted by flyingj

Lee,

Are you just showing this because it is cool, or is this going to be something we can get our hands on as well?

J

Jeremy

I don't know yet. The plane is not perfected yet. Lots of work still to do and I have these things called my family and my job that get my time priority. I'm showing it because it is cool and I like it when others do this kind of a R/D thread.

My son has taken over the cutting business and is considering options. We have the ability to mass produce the plane but I don't know if there is a strong enough demand to justify tooling up. The wing is complex and will be more time consuming to set up than most kits.

Look at these well known mail order EPP planes:

EPP Eagle on EBay with it's complex wing http://shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQ_nkw...romZR40QQ_mdoZ
EPP Superfly at www.superflyrc.com
EPP Super Zoom at http://www.hobby-lobby.com/superzoom.htm
EPP UZI at http://www.hobby-lobby.com/uzixxl.htm
EPP Tango at http://www.hobby-lobby.com/tango.htm
EPP JW60, JW36 and Scooter at http://shop.l2airframes.com/product....=4&productId=3
EPP Snowball http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=946503 This is a great plane at a great price everyone should own one.

See what they are charging? Luckily we don't have to deal with $50 shipping from China. Compare The Peregrine to all other EPP planes in size and complexity, especially those with the dense foam. What should be a going fair price for an EPP plane like this? (P.S. The EPP Peregrine flies better.)

For right now we are still in the R and D phase but our main goal is to get ready for the Utah Sky Trials in February to fly with the real falcons. We may put a few out for beta testing and painting and see what ideas others can add to the design.

I am a modeler and will never make my living from cutting foam. I love design not mass production. The best way to ruin a perfectly good hobby is make it your profession.

Lee

I'm jealous of your foam cutting skills!!! Looks great! Wether you produce it or not, it is a great concept.

I sketched, but have not yet built the BluCor Heron -- FFF with KFm wing and spoilerons instead of ailerons. It's still on my build list.. but I've been distracted by a recent addition to the family.

oops - double-post

Bill - One of our new flyers shot the following video of the EPP Peregrine in testing:


Something just for fun about the inspiration for the plane and to look at the natural colors of the real thing for painting ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBdn-...9#post10926493

I'm Built for Speed (3 min 18 sec)

Originally Posted by Lee

Viking

Are you the designer of the Soarbird? I saw the thread months ago and am glad to link it in our thread. It's a great thread doing the unusual. Thanks.

What did you learn about rudders and yaw?

Lee

Lee,

Yes, I designed the SOARBIRD. It's one of those projects that's still in the development stages- four prototypes so far.

The first two ~ 60" span undercambered FFF wings flew well in lighter air, but I found that they are hard to keep from distorting the airfoil shape over time... That's simply the nature of large FFF wings. They are really intended for flying in modest winds & thermalling conditions.

Soarbird IV needs further work; I know from flying the KF variant wings on the DANCER design that the KF wing can handle a wide speed range, and can be built to glide quite efficiently if the airfoil is well shaped.

I had first set it up as a pure glider, but I'm also fond of the E-powered 'climb & glide' flying mode when air conditions are appropriate, so another body was always planned for the KF variant wing.

I haven't flown it since doing the last modifications (adding more vertical stabilizer area and changing the horizontal stabilizer incidence a bit) so I can not fill in more on the results yet. I do like the idea of your full flying tail- I had not thought of that until I saw your Peregrine. It would actually look a lot like the way a falcon / hawk uses it's tail in flying, since the feathers do pivot from the base of the tail. So I can see using this technique to modify Soarbird IV when I build the E-powered body / fuselage for the KF variant wing.

Actually adding rudder control on the tail would offer the capability of more precise thermaling capability; (I fly both rudder and ailerons continually when flying the KF variant Dancer in thermals or on the slope; with a flat-built wing, rudder control does contribute a lot.)

There are now some inexpensive lower Kv inrunner brushless motors that may work well within the head of a Bird profile body- it certainly would simplify the motor installation compared to embedding an outrunner and keeping clearance around the motor. I may need to get one ordered in for when I get some time to work on this project again.

Other work has kept me busy, so the Soarbirds wait patiently, hanging from the ceiling of the shop. But the bird profile designs look elegant in the air, and I know I'll keep building them!

VIKING

Sorry if this link is slightly off-topic, well it's not exactly a 'bird', but boy does it fly like one - New Pterosaur Ornithopter Sordes 5-5

Perhaps this is why the Ornithopter guys always seem to be in a flap