Hi all, this may not be your run of the mill war bird by some standards, But I think it fits the War bird criteria. We are seeing more and more UAV's being deployed in our ongoing efforts over seas. And it will carry the key fob style camera if you would like to make your own surveillance tape. This up and coming kit, is one from Jarel aircraft design. http://www.jarelaircraftdesign.com/
Richard has some really great kit's and some kits that will be available soon. This is a beta kit, just looking at construction issues prior to being released. This kit has a 28 inch wingspan. It will use a 10g brushless motor. I'm going to try and end up with an all up weight of 175-185 grams. The wing starts as a flat 3 mm depron you add the doubler and sand the washout and chamber to the wing.The elevator and rudder stabs are also 3mm depron. A vac formed body and engine. He is currently working on a foam cutting machine for the wings of his latest kits and prototypes. This will speed up construction plus give us a real air foiled wing. I'm just getting started so I will post a couple shots of what the kit looks like as well as the finished prototype. More to follow. Jim

This looks cool! Definitely interested!

Like most of my latest kits, I opt for developing in "plane-sight" to share what goes into creating a kit and it's evolution.

The main difference between what Pattypilot is building and the final kit is the wing.

The final kit will have hot-wire cut foam wings with some really incredible airfoils I developed for a client project wanting a UAV that was small, could fly at walking speed yet reach a target fairly quickly. Stability and slow speed were the number one criteria.

I had originally hoped that the flat wing would help me create a less expensive kit, but the performance (although acceptable to most), was not like the original. Instead of upping the price, I decide to re-create a special wing cutting machine I developed back in Los Angeles in the early 90's when I first began creating kits prior to beng drawn into the motion picture special effects industry.

Jim (Pattypilot) has built some of my other kits (notably the Ryan ST) and I thought he would be the perfect guinea pig to test a Beta version to at least test out the plastic build.

Some of the features include a LOT of pre-molded parts"

Fuselage (top and bottom)
Specially designed sliding wing saddle (allows CG shift at the field without adding weight to balance!)
Camera Ball turret (Manually, fully functional accepts key chain type cameras)
Fully cut foam core wings (Final version of this kit)
Molded wing tips (slip over the foam cores)
Two plastic booms (PETG... strong and light!
Molded boom to wing joiners (top and bottom)
Twin-cylinder scale engine with air intake scoop (serves to hide the electric motor)

My target price is $39~$49 (The final kit will not exceed $49 and looks like it will remain at or close to $39)

Although I enjoyed developing the Ryan Micro, and it will fly outdoors (Maiden video was in 7mph winds), I wanted something a little bigger. Most "Parkfliers" though are really too big for most of the urban parks we're accustomed to having down the street and those that are in the 24" to 30" range really fly too fast for most pilots to handle. I wanted to design a line of war birds that could fly slow and maintain stability using really cheap gear. (The 10gram motor is only $7.99, 6amp ESC less than $7, 3.5 gram servos: under $4 and the micro 2.4ghz rx is around $13.). And for those wanting more speed, just slap in a larger motor, the wings will handle it!

The early prototypes for this UAV model were pretty successful, and have flown in 10mph+ winds as well as indoors in a small armory. The final version with the new wing will fly slower AND fly faster (heavier winds).

The size of these birds will allow me to include details that result in a plane you'd want to display on your desk but also be a real flier at the field or park.

I will watch in anticipation and share input here in the open for those interested in watching how this kit evolves to it's final release version. (Speaking of which, I am anticipating release as early as June.)

Here as some more photos of the prototype Pattypilot is building and a few of the micro Ryan (19.5")

And yes, it really is capable of carrying a key chain camera! The camera turret ball was designed specifically for this camera.

Looking forward to seeing your beta kit evolve Jim!

Richard

PS: here's a video of the micro Ryan ST maiden flight:

Ryan ST, 19" Wingspan (0 min 59 sec)

Did you ever sell any micro Ryan kits? I think I pm'd you about that kit a while back. Thanks, TW

Looking good; thanks for the detail pictures and the explanation.

I was woken up on more than a few mornings while on a CAX at MCAGCC 29 Palms by UAV's being launched and retrieved about a quarter of a mile from our tents. I finally found out what the weird droning sound was one morning when I caught sight of one of them launching. I went over and talked to the guys flying 'em; they were having a blast. Obviously they had training to conduct, but they were all RC enthusiasts outside of work and told me that they couldn't believe they were being paid to work in their hobby. I wanted to switch MOS's right then!

Thanks for your work on this. I plan on putting one together. I have a Predator that is okay, but your plane looks more like what I want to do (and I was a Marine for 12 years, so the markings are appealing to me).

TripleW: yes, the Ryans kits have been selling pretty regularly to the point where I usually have them in stock (2 now ready to ship). I've sold these little guys around the world... guess that just goes to show how many members here are from far away lands! lol! pretty cool growing up in an age when computers were sci fi and the only phone in the house had a 20 foot long cord! lol! (Actually just posted a new modification to the build and a new video taken this morning... cold enough to effect the battery and freeze my fingers stiff, but still worth a peek.

Edge767: Thanks for the kind words... How TOTALLY COOL to be PAID to fly the real thing!!!!!

I'll be watching here to see if what I have so far works for someone else to follow my footsteps. Jim has limited instructions following mostly photos, some rough drawn plans and a few words... Hopefully the interaction (questions, any problems, answers etc will be shared in this thread in "plane-sight" so that others can see what goes into these kits.)

I'll try and get some flight videos... so far... Hmmm... wait a minute... I think I have one that was taken indoors... SMALL venue and I had only flown indoors once before in my life! My depth perception is not so good, so I kept this thing flying in circles... (Jim teased me about being able to se the strings and that it was actually a control line ship! LOL!!!

Let me see if I can post it here:

Yup! found it... as you can see, our local indoor flying spot is pretty small... still, keeping the speed up allowed me to stay pretty maneuverable to "stay within the lines"... LOL!

Enjoy!

Happy Easter !!!

Richard

UAV kit, indoor flying with onboard footage (1 min 1 sec)

Edge, thanks for your service to our nation. I have two retired Marines that I fly with and I'm going to use the same trim scheme as well. I showed them a picture of Richards finished plane and they both liked the "Marine" trim. So I've decided out of respect and honor for them I'll paint it up like the first one.
Even though my daughter is in the Navy! and said it ought to be in Navy gray! Maybe the next one? Richard thanks for posting the flying video of the first UAV. even though it looks like a control line plane! LOL Thats some close quarters flying there now! More later. Jim

Hey Jim,

Don't know if I sent you a file for the decals sheet? WAY more than I used, but there was still room on the Avery Label so I just kept adding stuff I thought was cool looking.

The thing that's cool about this kind of decal is that the sheet is clear and printed on your Ink Jet printer... You don't have to cut close as the boarders are still clear! (The white in the tiger shark teeth doesn't print on our printers so I priented a second sheet on paper, cut them out and 3-M 77'd them on... same goes for the white in the American flag.

Here's the decal sheet (not sure if it's sized correctly for posting here). Once the kit is released, I'll have a full scale PDF file posted for free download at my website.

ok... back to work here...

oh wait a minute! I'm done working today! going to relax as Tresa bakes my favorite cake for my birthday! (Wonder if there's enough left after dipping into the batter! lol!)

Richard

"Wonder if there's enough left after dipping into the batter!" She baked your favorite cake? Wait a minute!!! Is it your Birthday?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Richard!

I've been teasing her and Kyla as I (openly) "steal" batter as she mixes up a home made carrot cake with real shredded carrots, soaked raisins and walnuts...

Thanks for the birthday wishes, it's actually on Tuesday, we just figured we'd celibrate today... been marinating Cuban style steaks since yesterday (lemon and orange juice, ground cumin a little bit of orgegeno and as much garlic as you can stand... BBQ the meat, then take sliced onions and sear them in a frying pan in olive oil... at it's hottest, throw in the marinade used on the meat and servoe over rice... Mmmmmm! =D

Thanks again!

Richard

(Still been "working" today... airfoils to templates, calculating extra foam bed for wire in~wire out, setting up multi-wire controls, creating special plugs while I'm at it for all my hot wire bows... I painted the plugs fluorescent safety orange in hopes that nobody (me?) plugs the bows directly into a wall socket! Eeeek! Also added plugs to my voltage supplies so that I won't have to unscrew and re screw bare wires to terminals any longer... production all across the board is increasing (I have a few slope and high end electric kits that I cut cores for as well...

ok... enough work... time to sit back and enjoy these two!

Best, (and thanks!),
Richard

I'm sorry for the delay. My computer is DOA!! Even a new hard drive from HP didn't fix the issue. So its going back to them for a going over. Bad deal. If I can give One suggestion! BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER! I hadn’t gotten around to doing it; the computer was only four months old. But don’t wait!!! Back up your files, pictures. A Hard learned lesson. So I have been working on the engine for the UAV. And as soon as I can upload some pictures I’ll post them. Jim

Sorry to hear Jim! I know what it's like, I used to back up to CD-ROM "every once in a while" sigh... lost more than I care to remember... many times! some times we don't learn out lessons until it "really hurts"... I finally had a teenager help me out with two external hard drives... everything gets automatically saved to each... had several crashes but still kept my files...

Before, I actually lost files while working on client projects! Eeeek! They understood, which is why I immediately saved to disk... kind of archaic, but it worked... now (knock on wood), I feel pretty confident... amazing how we become so dependent on these things....

So I'm REALLY close to completing the special 4-wire wing cutter... I should have word by beginning of next week... if so, I'll make new molds for the wing saddle, boom-to -main wing fittings, so hopefully, you won't be that far along and I might be able to get you cores and the new plastic moldings as well... Oh... also vacuum forming wing tips as well... pretty straight forward like the real ones have, but it will certainly protect the tips from damage! =D)

So... now I'm thinking... How are you going to read this!?!? LOL! Maybe hijack your kid's computer? LOL!

Hope all turns out well on your computer fix!

Best,
Richard.

PS: If you're not up and running, by the time I complete the core cutter and create the wings I really want for this bird, I'll post some photos of them before sending them to you.

Hi Richard. You guessed it; I’ve high jacked my son’s computer! Well for now anyway. I started on the fuse tonight. I had the wing and the wing doubler cut out but I’m going to follow your lead and work on the fuse then the tail booms. I can’t wait to see the new wing! I will upload my new pictures tomorrow late morning right after I take Dad flying! I have the camera turret cut and the new lens mounted on it. I have also cut and sanded the rudder stabs and elevator. OK that’s enough with out pictures! LOL. External hard drive! Hummmmm, looked at them today! I will have one ready for the next one! As for a name? How about JAD 1 “WOLVERINE" “ The wolverine has a reputation for ferocity and strength out of proportion to its size, with the documented ability to kill prey many times its size.”
Hummm! Just thinking out loud! I know that can be dangerous! Take care… Jim

OK we have some pictures to share! I've made some Progress today. I have fitted the two fuse halves, glues the former in place. And painted my simulated camera. And I’ve started on the front landing gear supports. I have the rudders done, and the elevator leading edge fitted with a .022 carbon rod. Next up is to cut the tail booms and fit the rudders and the elevator stab in place.

HOLY SMOKES!

Your project is looking spectacular! You engine appear huge on screen which is like looking at it through a magnifying glass... What I discovered is that when you put it in "context" On the aft part of the fusealge with a prop on it... well... it just reeks of "real"!

Are those wires in the background more engine details or wiring for the electronics?

By the way, your dummy camera ball turret looks sensational!

The wing cutter is build, frame work, all mechanics... tomorrow, I string up the cutting wires and electrify it... Should know by the end of tomorrow if it works the way I hope...

Great work Jim!

Richard