Some photos for a pal

Long time since I updated my blog. Mostly flown RTF planes no time for own
designs.

Since the Kyosho EDF's are discontinued products, modifications
may have a limited interest therefore I decided to do a blog entries
instead of a new threads in Foamy EDF's.

Link to my Kyosho A-6 Intruder thread
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ight=kyosho+a6

After I successfully had modified the A-6 I found a cheap Kyosho F-4 with
a similar split duct. After some testing I found that the split ducting in the F-4 was not realy a big problem as it was in the A-6.

Link to old F-4 threads
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ght=kyosho+f+4
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ght=kyosho+f+4
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ght=kyosho+f+4

Main problem with the F-4 is the CG. To get a perfect CG servos has to be moved see photo.

Also the fuselage is not realy well built see mod of reinfocement/inlet ducting.

All up weight with 1000mah 3S 35C LiPo about 415g. Thrust with non stock
Haoye Ø55x42 fan 420g

On wheels

Depron sort of Airco DH-2 (0 min 52 sec)

On floats

RC Plane 'DH-2' on floats (0 min 31 sec)

...Continue Reading

My Depron 'Airco DH-2' in PDF format.
Depron_DH-2_v3_E4.pdf contains a A1 assembly drawing
The other files are the Depron and wood parts....Continue Reading

Made a english version my "famous" Depron kind of 'Airco DH-2'
in scale 1:12 drawings.

The upload is a CAD file in ACAC R12 DXF format.
There is both an assembly drawing in A1 and parts in A4 size
No need to print out the A1 since it is more a how to put
everything together drawing.

It's a rewarding little plane for fun flying. Well suited for beginners
too I believe since it's a pusher.

It's also possible to customize it with e.g. floats.

Before my summer vacation on a mountain hike I stumbled over
some rubbish on a car park. Picking it up and on my way to a
disposal bin I realized this green flat band could indeed be used
to something useful! It was quit stiff and strong maybe it could
be used as a carbon replacement on my Depron plane designs.

Some time later made my idea reality see PET-strap photo
of my first sort of 'DH-2 plane ... it worked no problem but
it wasn't perfect. A bit heavy and after a crash wings was
bent.

Later I found another type of straps called PP-straps infact
I've seen these many times and has disposed them as junk
after unwrapping cargo. PP-straps are much lighter and the fiber
reinforcement make them much more like thin Carbon strips.
Used them on my improved DH-2 see PP-strap photo.
They are not as stiff as carbon used flat like shown.

Recently I've experiemnted more with PP-straps and bent
them int their longtitude in L and U forms then suddenly
it looks like they become just as stiff as Carbon ... have
to make a plane to prove it but I'm pretty sure it will work!

Note
PP-straps may be glued on with a various types of glue. I've used
contact glue UHU por, Hot glue (low temp) and recently
Polyurethan (humid activated). I've not tested foam friendly
CA yet but I doubt that it will be any problems.

I finaly convinced my self to publish first version of
my design Depron 'DH-2' in scale 1:12

Technical:
Wingspan: 720mm ~28"
Weight: 225-250g 8-10oz
Wing area: 1570 sq.cm
Motor: 70-80W (25g)
Battery: 3S450Mah 20C (45g)
Servos: Rudder, Elevator, 5g (HXT500)
Aileron 9g (HXT900 or better)
Reciever: 4ch (10g)

It has it's vices it's not a very energy efficient pusher
yet but it's a funny and tough little plane built for
rough flying. Bushes be warned

Practical: Be sure You get the line of thrust correct it should
be paralell to the wings, no side or down thrust.
CG middle of wing or more forward. Safe start 1/3 from
leading edge. Land with thrust this is NO glider!

Made a 3D model of my Depron Airco DH-2 in scale 1:12

The plane is built and test flown. CG 40mm from
front edge of wings.

Hopefully somebody may find this useful even if
it's not a exact scale. In my view it may prove
to be a useful aileron biplan trainer with almost 3D
capabilites. Used 5g servos on elevator and rudder,
one 9g on the ailerons.

I may provide a drawing later need some more time
to do it "complete"

Note: The 3D model is in ACIS format (.SAT extension)
there are free viewers for this available.

Some pix of my 'designs' protoypes as usual.
Need some bad weather to get the designs
finished.

Should have published several designs but time and patience
has not been there ... I'm recently working on a micro Airco DH2
but it's still too heavy.

Update:
I've put the micro DH-2 on hold an scaled it up to 1:12 with
a 724mm (~28.5) wing span. I've built it as strong and with
cheap materials as possible. No carbon, no paint, cheapest
possible lightweight brushless, cheap LiPo. Why? I hope it will
become a rugged and very useful trainer for some kid's in
the summer vacation.

Hopefully I may fly it's maiden this evening.

Update 2:

Yes it flew ! or more correctly it hoovered into the air!
Funniest plane I've ever flown. Slow ... I could almost walk
alongside! I just taped a LiPo on the front fuselage so I got
to make a battery bay tonight ...

Finaly got the drawings ready. I did not provide
a drawing where to locate servos and stuff since
that is more up to what You got available.

The plane is made of 3mm Depron or Kapron
about a half sheet approx 600x850mm
2 Carbon strips 3x0.5mm L=600-700mm

1 Piano wire 1.5 or 2.0mm L=600-700mm
2 wheels with dia 50mm

This plane is REALY a slow flier! You may increase
the aileron sizes to get faster / better roll.

Hope somebody may find it useful ...

Some Updates:
Tested it with a APC 7x5E prop today it worked but it
was too cold and too late (too dark) to do much flying.

I may build another one to investigate where CG should be
this weekend.

I will get a new light weight motor 19g, servos 3.7g and a
2S 460mah 28g battery soon. So I hope to make one hopefully
slightly lighter with a 8x4SF prop.

May be I should not write this but ...
This plane realy surprises me with how well it performs and
I'm pretty sure it's not my "experience" as a model plane
designer who did it. The original layout and design must
have been excelent, even if it was outdated already at
the drawing table back in the mid 30's.

Made my Gloster Gladiator ready for first flight 14 days ago.

First flight went pretty well on a stadium with flow lights in
a temperature below zero (Celsius). Landing gear snapped off
of course ... bad workmanship (me).

Later I flew a second flight without the landing gear on a
grass field. In the part dakness I hit a fence and broke the
front fuselage (crashing a Depron plane on tarmac road is
not recomended)

Repaired and reinforced the front fuselage and had some
realy pleasant flights today. The plane is a bit nose heavy
but for me that's fine. I was afraid it would be the oposite.

It's now 200g as I was afraid of but to my surprise it's
flying like a dream. Slow flights no problem I'm using a
Brushless: Nippy N29 Silver - 7A172 approx 24g
Prop: GWS 7035 (7 x 3.5)
LiPo: Hyperion LCL 3S 26C Pack - 350mah weight 37g
LiPo: Hextronik 460mah weight 42g
ESC: Some 12A weight 10g
Servos: 4 off 4.7g
RX: Wfly 6ch 10g

The roll rate is low since it has scale size ailerons.
A drawing will be published as soon as I got the
reinforcements updated and outfitting sketched in.

Here is the result of my effort trying to build my own "design"

Had to add some stiffeners to the tail fuselage. I will add them to the
3D modell see below and later the drawing. Weight about 50g so far
had calculated it to be approx 40g for the depron so only 10g added
in carbon, tape and glue. Wingspan 700mm (27.5"). I hope to keep
the weight down under 200g. Ideal 150g but with a piano wire landing
gear and it will most likely become closer to 200g.

Many years ago I built a scale Gloster Gladiator in balsa from some
a free flight drawings. Tried to convert it to control line with a 2.5qcm
Fox glow engine but failed, it never flew. I gave up balsa and glow
engines far too much mess, smell and noise. Some years ago I found
the drawing during a clean up and thought I will never ever build that
again so trew it in the bin.

Now after discovering brushless motors and LiPo's I regreted
that I threw away that drawing But there is still hope maybe
I'm able to design one from the ground up at least I've made
a Depron profile version to start with.

If You got a ACIS .sat file viewer You might take a look at my
current version.

As usual modifications ...

1st Prototype
Wingspan is now 650mm, midwing Ailerons removed. 4 off 9g servos
replaced by 2 off 5g Hextronik (rudder and elevator) and one 9g
E-sky Servo for ailerons. Weight with APC8x3.8SF and LEDs 263g.

2nd Prototype
Same wingspan but with smaller ailerons 35mm and wing cord
100mm. Servos 4 off 4.7g. with APC8x3.8SF weight 250g

Propulsion:
Hextronic motor 26g 1500kV, E-max ESC 18A, Hextronik LiPo 460mAh 20C
or Hyperion 350mAh 26C.

Remote Control: WFLY 6ch RX 10g

Added 4 LED's this evening. First a bright white and blue, no good
to bright! Second attempt: One green and one red on the upper
wing and 2 yellow on the tailfin. Second night flight BIG !

Wasn't happy with my little Toth design (after a while)
or big Tiger Moth copy. I then developed a scaled up
Toth or scaled down Moth with wingspan 700mm.
This new design TM700 with the brushless motor and Lipo
from the Toth this is pretty successful (it's still flying).

But still it's a bit fast and with a medium wingload (~15g/dm2).
To make a durable plane with low wingload 10g/dm I decided to
go for a Triplane design. I based the design up on my now well
proven TM700 but reduced wingspan to 650 thereby the new
name TM650 the T3 ... Triplane design 3 somehting.

After first flight and some adjustments it's flying pretty
well as a slowflier. Because of the third wing it has a lot
of drag and needs power but still it a real slow flyer in my
view so I have provided both a PDF plot and a DXF drawing
available for others.

One of my cheap Tower Pro Brushless motors had nasty sound when
propeller shaft was rotated. Broken / worn out ball bearings most likely.

So I removed the ball bearings or at least the most of them. The forward
one still got some of the bearings housing pressed into the aluminium stator core.

I decided to try to repair the motor by adding a carbon bushing instead
of new ball bearings who would cost more than the motor was worth.
I used a piece of 5mm dia carbon tube drilled/grinded up to approx
3mm inside (must be drill / grinded by hand to get a tight fit around
propeller shaft)

After that the steel shaft was rotating freely in the bushing it was
glued in the aluminium stator core (remember to degrease before
gluing).

The test runs so far has shown that the alu. core is getting a bit hot
but there is no bad sounds or any detectable wear so far.

See sketch below

The Tiger Moth copy provided me with enough experience I thought to
make my own design (copy and scale down at first) but later I
decided to scale up and change the wings after some weight
wing load calculations.

Made upper and lower wing equal to simplify building and
spare parts. Wing load i about 0.19g/cm2, the motor
may prowide approx 60-80w. More than enought to keep
this bird flying.

Omitted landing gear to save weight. Weight is now at 215g.

It flies like a rocket hoovering no problem BUT it's maybe not
the small slow flyer I was looking for it's rather fast and
powerful.

Flying the E-sky Nemo was good fun I wanted to try a true slow flyer.
Bought a GWS 3D Tiger Moth kit but I got dissapointed with the way
it was designed. So I made a modified scratch built copy instead.
It flew but not very good I had obviously made some mistakes so
I made a new one from the ground up on a weekend.

It flew very well after some motor adjustments.

After flying Silverlit I moved on to a 4ch E-sky Nemo. The Nemo
was the right plane for me. The fuselage and wing is practically
unbreakable. Propeller, motor (gearbox) landing gear and tail
rudder and elevator had to be repaired a lot but apart from that
I've flown it for months. I'm planning to convert it to a seaplane.
Have built a new wing for it with better ailerons wich improved it's
rolling significantly.