Originally Posted by nickchud

Here's a link to a really practical build thread for the Gripen, canard fighter. I built one a couple of years ago and had a lot of fun with it.

Thanks have subscribed to the thread and will spend some time looking thru it..

Mark R.

old_coastie

Originally Posted by canard addict

old_coastie Mark, Thanks for showing and congrats on your progress with what appears to be flying wings. I would love to sharpen those leading edges especially the ones on the vertical stabs. I am a fan of up front controls.

Taildragger, It seems that you were trying to fly the yellow delta with the CG too far back to support the motor before you added the canard and probably moved the CG forward? Canard control must be good for deltas since they have been added to a few War-birds with delta sections in their wings.

Charles

Thanks for the encouragement, will take your advice and continue "shaping" the leading edges...

Mark R.

Originally Posted by nickchud

Here's a link to a really practical build thread for the Gripen, canard fighter. I built one a couple of years ago and had a lot of fun with it.

I remember when the Viggen came out, thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen (next to Rita Hayworth)

Originally Posted by canard addict

Taildragger, It seems that you were trying to fly the yellow delta with the CG too far back to support the motor before you added the canard and probably moved the CG forward?

I don't know Charles, my lack of aeronautical design knowledge is only exceeded by my lack of troubleshooting same.

I just set the CG of my deltas at 1/3 of the chord at the max chord. Since most of my deltas are between 45 and 55 degrees of LE sweep it usually works out ok.

BYW here is the resulting space shuttle with an adjustable CG.
The CG was started at 30% of max chord and slowly moved backwards.
It never lifted off, got the cg all the way to 50% and gave up.
It made a nice display item.
PS. it was a 30" span, flat bottom airfoil with a 10 degree reflex, 1lb. 6 oz. powered by a Super Tigre .23.
Nick

Great looking Space Shuttle TD, Maybe an electric motor will take some weight off and do the trick. BUT, the Shuttle was not designed to be a floater.

Charles

I just got back into flying model planes after a long hiatus. I built a couple of free flight foam gliders to experiment with design. I made a pattern (Clark Y) to hotwire airfoils and have been using some white insulation foam as I have had it in my shop.

Always been intrigued with the canard layout and after reading hundreds or maybe thousands of posts on this thread I decided to convert my gliders to canard style today.


Inside the shop the newly configured planes both would glide the distance of our 50 foot shop. Sometimes only losing 1-2 feet in the 50 feet.

The wind let up about sunset and I flew them outside. The larger canard went 200 feet. You could see the elevator varying in attitude and it flew overall level. The elevator is hinged and hangs down freely. A small block of gray soft air cleaner foam is fit between the elevator and the air flow pushes the elevator up against it's soft stop. The angle was determined through trial and error.

To me, flying planes is not just building or buying RTF planes but to make my own.

Eventually I am going to build larger foam planes, installing RC gear and motors. In the mean time I am having fun doing what I am doing.

Carry on.

Originally Posted by canard addict

Have fun.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cana...2&ved=0CCgQ7Ak

I found this gem from your Google search on canards: http://www.modelaviation.com/september-frontyardcanrad And this video on this page

Front Yard Canard (2 min 9 sec)

. (I haven't gone through the entirety of this thread so please ignore if it is a repeat.)

Originally Posted by basicguy

I just got back into flying model planes after a long hiatus. I built a couple of free flight foam gliders to experiment with design. I made a pattern (Clark Y) to hotwire airfoils and have been using some white insulation foam as I have had it in my shop.

Always been intrigued with the canard layout and after reading hundreds or maybe thousands of posts on this thread I decided to convert my gliders to canard style today.


Inside the shop the newly configured planes both would glide the distance of our 50 foot shop. Sometimes only losing 1-2 feet in the 50 feet.

The wind let up about sunset and I flew them outside. The larger canard went 200 feet. You could see the elevator varying in attitude and it flew overall level. The elevator is hinged and hangs down freely. A small block of gray soft air cleaner foam is fit between the elevator and the air flow pushes the elevator up against it's soft stop. The angle was determined through trial and error.

To me, flying planes is not just building or buying RTF planes but to make my own.

Eventually I am going to build larger foam planes, installing RC gear and motors. In the mean time I am having fun doing what I am doing.

Carry on.

Would you please share some details that one may use to replicate your successful canard gliders?

Sure


Both are balanced and constructed for slow flight. I built the airfoils using a single airfoil template. I put some info on my blog about it.

I just followed the general rules that have been outlined although neither are the 30% canard/wing ratio.

The smaller one was funny at first. It would slow to a stop and start flying backward, a boomerang. I added some weight to the nose and increased the angle of attack of the front wing.

Originally Posted by basicguy

...
I just followed the general rules that have been outlined although neither are the 30% canard/wing ratio. ...

There is no more reason to make a canard 30% of the area of the wing than there is to make the horizontal tail of a conventional aft-tail layout 30% of the wing area. In fact, in the case of a canard in particular, making the canard any bigger than absolutely necessary tends to hurt the aircraft's efficiency.

I imagine that a larger canard means you can have a shorter distance between the 2 Leading Edges. This might be useful if you want to fly some tight aerobatic manoeuvres. I like to fly a little more smoothly and many of my favorite models have a longer moment and canards as small as 12 or 15%. I rarely use elevons on my canards, just elevators and ailerons.

Originally Posted by nickchud

Here are the digital drawings I made, copying from the dimensions Charles gave me. It was September 2010. I had a lot of fun with both versions I built but, if you're thinking of GE I'm sure you will have less damage sticking with Charles' original high-mounted canard version.

An excellent design, thoroughly recommended. Post #4466.

Nick and Charles, are there plans or three-views of the Delta Duck Mark II? It's a very nice looking model and with excellent reports of its flight characteristics, it sure seems like a winner. I'd like to develop a foam-constructed version.

Glad to see ya posting Don! are ya feelin' better?

How about these? I made 3 different variants and they all flew well..

jeffsch

Nick and Charles, are there plans or three-views of the Delta Duck Mark II? It's a very nice looking model and with excellent reports of its flight characteristics, it sure seems like a winner. I'd like to develop a foam-constructed version.

If you check pages 296-299 there are dimensions given for the mark 1 version. The mark 2 had a larger wing by extending the tips by one rib space. The fin/ rudder was also enlarged a bit. Prior to page 296 there should be a build log of mark 1 and after page 299 there should be discussion of mark 2. This design was thoroughly covered. BTW, the canard incidence was dropped to one degree positive on the 2 version and a bit of down thrust, about 5 degrees was added to lessen climb at full throttle. Good luck with it.

Charles

HI
I really like the foam versions. I built balsa in the 70's and early 80's. worked great but one good hit and it was a bag of sticks. Foam wings can be duplicated in a fraction of the time.

My first exposure to foam was on the AR5 videos http://www.ar-5.com/tapes.html

I was building bicycle streamliners at time.